Marcus Sedgwick
Hardcover | Pages: 224 pages Rating: 3.65 | 2495 Users | 361 Reviews
Point About Books My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1)
| Title | : | My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1) |
| Author | : | Marcus Sedgwick |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 224 pages |
| Published | : | October 9th 2007 by Wendy Lamb Books (first published July 25th 2006) |
| Categories | : | Young Adult. Horror. Fantasy. Paranormal. Vampires. Historical. Historical Fiction |
Ilustration To Books My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1)
WHEN TOMAS AND HIS SON, Peter, settle in Chust as woodcutters, Tomas digs a channel of fast-flowing waters around their hut, so they have their own little island kingdom. Peter doesn't understand why his father has done this, nor why his father carries a long, battered box, whose mysterious contents he is forbidden to know.But Tomas is a man with a past: a past that is tracking him with deadly intent, and when the dead of Chust begin to rise from their graves, both father and son must face a soulless enemy and a terrifying destiny.
From the Hardcover edition.
Identify Books As My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1)
| Original Title: | My Swordhand is Singing |
| ISBN: | 0375846891 (ISBN13: 9780375846892) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | My Swordhand is Singing #1 |
| Setting: | Khust(Ukraine) Romania |
| Literary Awards: | Manchester Book Award Nominee for Longlist (2008), Carnegie Medal Nominee (2007) |
Rating About Books My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1)
Ratings: 3.65 From 2495 Users | 361 ReviewsJudge About Books My Swordhand is Singing (My Swordhand is Singing #1)
I am glad I read this book because it was pretty far out of my comfort zone. I don't usually read horror, but when I do I like it to be imbued with place and history and well written and this was that. It's a book about a tiny secluded village, a couple of misfits who live on the outskirts of it (geographically and metaphorically) and a sudden plague of undead that try to overrun the village. The actual vampire/zombie invasion is very gradually and carefully plotted with just enough detail givenIt reads like a promising first draft to a fantasy tale with gothic leanings, but the storytelling is a bit lean in details and the pacing is both rushed and slow at the same time.There are a couple of interesting details that kept it from being a total One Star read, just not enough to make it memorable or recommendation worthy.
I am glad I read this book because it was pretty far out of my comfort zone. I don't usually read horror, but when I do I like it to be imbued with place and history and well written and this was that. It's a book about a tiny secluded village, a couple of misfits who live on the outskirts of it (geographically and metaphorically) and a sudden plague of undead that try to overrun the village. The actual vampire/zombie invasion is very gradually and carefully plotted with just enough detail given
3,5 stars. This book already deserves all the stars for presenting vampires as the terrifying, dangerous, non-seductive monsters that they are.The story immediately starts off right: a gruesome murder, a man being buried with spikes in his casket, and with cattle mysteriously dying, the small Russian village knows whats up. So does Peters father, but he is drunk most of the time, wanting to forget his dark past. Yet when Peter discovers the truth about his fathers forbidden box, the dead rise
Review from BadelyngeMarcus Sedgewick takes us to a cold lonely place in the 17th Century in this YA style short horror novel. The dead haunt the snow covered forests of Transylvania. An isolated village hides from the dark and what lurks at the shadow's edge, painting their windows with tar and and trusting that evil will not cross their defences. Sedgewick draws on the vampire folklore of the region to deliver a horror story that predates the more romanticised trappings of the last century. A
A delightful little novella that calls to mind earlier, darker Grimm's fairy tales before they were sanitized for children's consumption. Sedgwick plays with old European superstitions remarkably well and I was reading this I thought how wonderfully this would do as a dark fairy tale movie that's become so popular these days a la Snow White and the Huntsman, only done much better. I think a good comparison to this novella would be as the young adult version of Angela Carter's excellent feminist
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