Impossible CreaturesReview posted October 11, 2024.
Listening Library, 2024. (Print edition first published in the United Kingdom in 2023.) 8 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written October 7, 2024, from a library eaudiobook (referencing an advance reader copy).
Starred Review
I'm not sure how this book got all the buzz, but it turns out I didn't order nearly enough print copies or ebook copies or eaudiobook copies for the library. Perhaps because it was first published in the UK, people knew how good it is? I even had an Advance Reader Copy I'd been meaning to read, but didn't get to it before I needed to start reading Young Adult Speculative Fiction for the Cybils Awards, so I got in the queue to listen to the Audiobook version.
This book completely deserves all the hype! It's one I plan to read again some day in the finished print form - probably buy myself a copy - because it's illustrated, including a map and an illustrated bestiary at the back. The advance reader copy has some finished illustrations, but mostly sketches that show what will go there. (The book has Art by Ashley Mackenzie.) However, the audiobook is delightful, and Samuel West has the wonderful voice of someone reading you a fairy tale - which completely fits this epic quest.
I pulled out the Advance Reader Copy to write this review so that I could quote you the incredible beginning. (Wasn't sure I'd get it exactly right without referring to it.) Then as I reread, the whole first chapter, called "The Beginning," is perfect:
It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him.
It was a black doglike creature, but it was not like any dog he had ever seen. It had teeth as long as his arm and claws that could tear apart an oak tree.
It says, therefore, a great deal in Christopher Forrester's favor that he refused -- with speed and cunning and courage -- to be eaten.
The second chapter, called "The Beginning, Elsewhere," begins like this:
It was a very fine day, until somebody tried to kill her.
Mal had returned home from her journey, flying back from the forest with arms outstretched and coat flapping, buffeted by the wind.
After the opening chapters, the book backtracks from that very fine day to give us some background on Christopher and Mal. Christopher lives an ordinary life - except that animals flock to him and want to get close to him.
Mal does not live an ordinary life, having learned to fly by using a coat given to her by the seer who named her. And she lives somewhere where that doesn't surprise her neighbors, with her great-aunt who has so many rules, Mal can't possibly keep them all.
Then on the fateful day referred to at the beginning, their worlds come together. Christopher has learned from his grandfather that he is inheriting the guardianship of a magical place, called the Archipelago, hidden from our world and full of magical creatures. But the magical tree at the heart of the Archipelago is failing and animals are dying. Griffins are believed to be extinct.
And then a baby griffin comes through the lake on the mountain by his grandfather's house, followed by a giant black dog with flaming ears. But a girl comes through the lake after the dog and shows him how to extinguish the ears and kill the beast. The griffin is hers (It's Mal!) and she tells Christopher that someone tried to kill her and she needs help. So she leads Christopher back through the door that has opened in the lake to the Archipelago.
And so begins an epic quest, a quest to heal the tree, the source of magic. And both Christopher and Mal have crucial parts to play.
I usually don't like stories that lead the characters from one thing to another, taking detours all along the way. But I think since this one was all in service of the goal to help heal the magic, it didn't bother me. First they want to get to the sphinxes to find out what to do. No, I take that back - first, they try to tell the authorities in the Azurial Senate about the problem and get them to fix it. There's a comical scene when they are spurned for being children. But a scholar who has detailed information about the problem is also spurned. Both they and this woman are going to be arrested and imprisoned for disrupting the court - when someone comes to their rescue, and they end up joining forces with the scholar and their rescuer. Then they go to the sphinxes, because if the human leaders don't know, the sphinxes are the wisest ones who may be able to help.
Getting to the sphinxes is an adventure in itself, and that leads them to the next adventure, which leads them to the next adventure, and so on until it's finally Christopher and Mal trying to heal the magical tree.
And the whole story is epic and wonderful and magical and full of wonderful people and danger and beauty and peril.
My only sadness is that this book was first published in the UK, so it's not eligible for the Newbery Medal.
And I was delighted just now when I pulled out the Advance Reader Copy to notice "Book One" on the spine! That settles it - by the time Book Two comes out, I'm buying myself finished copies of both books and rereading this one in print for the joy of it. It's that good.