Faerie Wars
(The Faerie Wars Chronicles, Book 1)
Herbie Brennan
Bloomsbury
Fiction, YA Fantasy
****
DESCRIPTION: Henry's life collapses one morning when his parents tell him that they're separating. He quickly learns fthat his mother had an affair with Dad's
female secretary. Still reeling from this news, Henry goes to work at old Mr. Fogarty's house, hoping to bury himself in some meaningless chore or another.
Fogarty's an eccentric old man with an unusual gift for mechanics and conspiracy theories involving aliens and the CIA, but he likes Henry, and the boy is fond of him. The
old man has no trouble finding makework chorse to keep the boy's mind off his troubles.
In Fogarty's back yard, Henry happens upon a little winged man about to be chomped on by the old man's cat. Henry doesn't believe in fairies, but it's hard to ignore something
sitting in the palm of your hand. His name is Prince Pyrgus, a faerie boy roughly Henry's age, who is suffering the unfortunate physical aftereffects of a poor "translation"
from the parallel world of the faeries. In his own dimension, Pyrgus and the other faeries look much like people, living in a world strikingly similar to our own, only with
magic instead of machines. The prince is a rebel, caring more for the welfare of abused animals than such boringly mundane things as politics, a matter which worries his royal
father, the Purple Emperor; like it or not, the boy is a prince, and can't ignore his responsibilities. The balance of power between the Faeries of the Light, who are generally
good and honest, and the Faeries of the Night, who tend to dabble in darker arts, has always been tense, but lately things appear headed toward open conflict as talks break
down, due in no small part to the prince's antics (such as breaking into noble houses to release creatures from abusive captivity.) Pyrgus's sister, Holly Blue, tries to keep
tabs on him and the rest of her father's empire through her own clandestine means, but things are spiraling beyond her ability to track. There are darker forces at work behind
the scenes, set on destroying the Peacock throne and plunging the faerie world and Henry's world both into chaos under a rising tide of demons, who themselves are native of
another parallel world and may explain some of Fogarty's UFO theories. Pyrgus thought he was running from an angry "Nighter" faerie lord when he left his father's castle,
and Henry thought his own world was ending. Both soon learn that there are greater problems then their own, or rather that their personal problems are part of a much larger web.
Henry, Pyrgus, and Holly Blue may be the only ones who can stop all Hell from breaking loose - literally.
REVIEW: This was a good story, its main drawback being that it's the start of a series of unspecified length and thus takes a little while to get off the ground. The fairy world feels pretty solid, something like that in Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series with magic and machinery combining, though Brennan's fairies have more actual magic and wizardry in some ways and a little less ultramodern technogadgetry. The jumps between characters and worlds sometimes felt awkwardly spaced, and obviously much was being set up for future installments in the series, but overall I enjoyed this book.
You might also enjoy:
Peter Pan (James M. Barrie, YA Fiction - The boy who refuses to grow up leads three English children to the magical island of Neverland)
I Was a Teenage Fairy (Francesca Lia Block, YA Fiction - A girl's fairy friend helps her cope with abuse and neglect)
The Artemis Fowl series (Eoin Colfer, YA Fiction - A devious boy genius pits his wits against the underground faerie nation)
The Stoneheart trilogy (Charlie Fletcher, YA Fiction - A boy finds himself caught in the unseen battle between London's statues and gargoyles)
Stardust (Neil Gaiman, Fiction - A young man ventures into the world of Faerie to find a fallen star)
George Grove and the Dragon (LJ Lawry, YA Ficton - Three South London boys find a dragon's egg)
The Fablehaven series (Brandon Mull, YA Fiction - Kids discover fairies and a magical sanctuary in their grandparents' farm)
The War of the Flowers (Tad Williams, Fiction - A man steps into the faerie world and finds himself at the center of a brewing war)
The 100 Cupboards trilogy (N. D. Wilson, YA Fiction - A boy finds doors to other worlds and must fight a danger that threatens them all)
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