The Obsidian Mirror [Paperback]

Catherine Fisher is truly an inspiration to follow. I have really enjoyed her previous novels, but The Obsidian Mirror blew me away. A mixture of science fiction and folklore that has been seamlessly blended to create an exciting new series to cherish. It was like reading The Terminator meets Tinkerbell but so much better. The way the author writes is reminiscent of the styles of such greats as Philip Pullman and Cornelia Funke. I will admit to having a bit of a soft spot for Catherine Fisher as her books played quite a huge part in my very early book blogging days; I read and reviewed quite a few.
I loved the way the story was structured, the story was evenly blended as it moved from one character to another, where you desperately wanted to know what was happening in the background all the time. Each chapter ended with a cliffhanger, which found you desperate to get back to their strand of the story. As you delve further into the story, you find yourself gathering an assortment of facts,which you need to weave together in order to find out the truth about the mirror, which in itself is a character within the book; a strong, dark presence, ominously waiting to create havoc within the lives of the characters. The mirror plays a game similar to Russian Roulette, where you never know if the outcome will be favourable or not.
The characters had very strong personas and even nondescript ones such as Rebecca, who appeared as excess baggage in the story to begin with turned out to be valuable to the plot. The author fooled us with their initial presence; a sign of excellent writing.
The scenery was breathtaking as the characters stood simultaneously in between seasons. I loved the December setting, making this a fabulous contender for a Christmas reading session. The story is extremely well plotted, and it heads off at such a furious pace, you find yourself unable to walk away from the book.
The ending was a bit of a shocker to me! I honestly didn't even twig that things would work out the way they did and yet I should have seen it. On reflection, I could see the subtle hints and signs that had carefully been laid out by the author, I think I was just so engrossed in the whole story I missed them completely.
I only had a tiny little niggle with the book and I am sure it's because I am editing at the moment that I am picking up on such a minuscule point. I couldn't see how Jake successfully managed to smuggle the marmoset from Switzerland to England on an aeroplane; being one of those people who regularly gets stopped by customs (before you ask, I have no idea why) , I felt that this would be impossible to do with the present security system in place. However, looking at it from a different view point, I have never ever flown out of Switzerland, so I don't know if their airport security is as tough as ours. So this could be a completely moot point!
Anyway, regardless of this little niggle, this is an excellent read and I want everyone to read it. I want everyone to be as enthralled with this series as I am. I knew Catherine Fisher was talented, I think I'd just forgotten how much.
An awesome start to the series - I can't wait for Book 2!

Jake has just been expelled from his boarding school in Switzerland so he is going to be sent home to live with his Godfather, Oberon Venn who, he believes, killed his Father. Obviously as a minor, he cannot travel alone so his head of Humanities teacher, Mr. Wharton travels with him back to England and to the strange house of Oberon Venn.

Wintercombe Abbey is not exactly a welcoming place and neither is Venn very welcoming either. Jake is determined however to find out what happened to his Father. In the events that follow, Wharton decides to stay on to help Jake and also to try and protect him.

The story centres around a centuries old black mirror which supposedly you can time travel through.........is this where Jake's Father disappeared to? You will have to read this really quite good book to find out.

It is very well written although I did notice two teeny mistakes.....1) The Shee should be written as The Sidhe although it is pronounced as the former and 2) Mortimer Dee is incorrect. It was John Dee who was Elizabeth the Firsts Astrologer. Leaving these two niggles aside, I would recommend this book thoroughly for adults and children alike.

Catherine Fisher's many fans will be delighted to hear that her latest, "The Obsidian Mirror", is the start of a sequence. Fisher works differently, I think, in standalone books and sequences. The standalones, like "Crown of Acorns", "Darkhenge" and "Corbenic", tend to focus on some deep-seated trauma in the young protagonist's mind; he or she will, via the medium of fantasy, find some way of living with reality. The journey is essentially a foray through an individual mind. In the sequences, Fisher can show her immense craft at world-building (as in the two Incarceron novels, where a misguided attempt to halt change and development has resulted in a world of fake surfaces and hidden realities rather like a film set). In these sequences, though the protagonist will still have his/her own issues to work out, there is also a whole universe of equally fascinating minor characters with their own journeys, sometimes parallel, sometimes interlocking. They are already emerging here as they did in "The Book of the Crow", her last work on this scale, and I'm already particularly invested in Molly, a Victorian street urchin of immense character and resourcefulness of whom we shall surely see more in the next volume.

The workings of time have always been a fascination of Fisher's; in "Corbenic", Cal gets off at the wrong station and finds himself in Arthurian times, while in "Crown of Acorns" three stories, from different times in history, run parallel. But this is the first book of hers I recall in which the possible mechanics of time travel have played any part. The mirror of the title is a way of travelling in time, and both a man, Venn, and a boy, Jake, are trying to use it for personal ends, while another character, from a different time, is trying to destroy it for altruistic reasons. At least, that's how things seem now; anyone acquainted with Fisher's ability to produce plot twists that are both credible and surprising will be wary of coming to any definite conclusion on motives for some time yet.

Another Fisher signature which I am personally delighted to see reappearing is her fascination with cold. Anyone who recalls the gripping imaginative prose of the Snow-Walker trilogy will be happy to find themselves back in the depths of winter, and these descriptions are among the most memorable passages in the book: the moon "a silver fingernail through the branches", the snow that "fell in slow diagonals, twirling out of the dark". One of the most striking moments is when the wood-dwellers emerge:

The Shee were flocking from the wood. They carried bells and chimes, many beat drums and the deep throbbing rhythm made starlings rise from the trees and call to each other across the sky. The snow had stopped falling; now it lay deep and still and the clouds were clearing. High above, like a dust of diamonds on black velvet, the stars were coming out, sherds and slivers of brilliance, eerie over the frozen Wood and the blue-white hummocks of the lawns.

As usual, the narrative impulse was so strong that I devoured the thing in a ridiculous hurry and will need to re-read. But I'm already completely hooked. The sequence is currently set to comprise hopefully four books, possibly three. The more the better, I say.