Early Reader Review: The Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

The Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher
Publisher: Dial
Available: April 23rd, 2013 

 

Format: Paperback ARC
Source: Dial and Librarything Early Reviewers program

My Rating:  

 

Background: Jake Wilde’s father is missing and there is nothing he can do about it while in boarding school, thanks to his godfather Venn, but he is determined to figure out what happened and to do so he must go to his godfather’s home.

Venn is an eccentric, hermit of a man, who lives by himself, aside from one servant and some cats; here he works on mysterious projects which Jake believes to be the reason for his father’s disappearance. Little does Jake know that Venn has been working on something spectacular; crazy enough even to change history for the worse and some people will stop at nothing to prevent him while others will stop at nothing to steal his prized contraption.

Review:  I have not read anything by Catherine Fisher before this, so I cannot evaluate this series compared to her others.
Catherine Fisher’s Obsidian Mirror is jam packed with characters that all play important roles in the plot of this novel and probably the coming books in the trilogy. Jake your average teenage boy, full of loathing, angst, and revenge for his father’s death/ disappearance, while Venn is just a sad, sad old man, wrapped up in something he cannot change but will stop at nothing to try. These two characters really pull the plot forward, the science fiction and fantasy aspects are all centered on these two and how they react to events.

The elements of fantasy were very confusing at first, there are fae and Wood dwellers and wolves that may be supernatural, and all the while there is science fiction and time travel and a magical mirror that determines the travel. All of these aspects rolled into one book were delightful, mysterious, confusing, intriguing, and entertaining all at once. I was happy to continue to read, the more that was revealed the more I wanted to know and learn more about, the only problem that I had was that with so many characters if was hard to keep track of everyone’s intentions . Another issue was that this is the first in a trilogy, so there was a lot left to the next installment.

Either way, the writing was beautiful; Fisher captured the characters and their emotions, Victorian England and speech, and descriptions of the settling like I could have been there. It was a wonderfully written book.



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