{"id":25310,"date":"2014-09-12T17:53:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T21:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=25310"},"modified":"2014-09-12T17:53:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T21:53:05","slug":"review-of-the-song-of-the-quarkbeast-by-jasper-fforde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=25310","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Song of the Quarkbeast, by Jasper Fforde"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"song_of_the_quarkbeast_large\"<\/a>The Song of the Quarkbeast<\/em><\/p>\n

by Jasper Fforde<\/p>\n

Harcourt, Boston, 2013. Originally published in the United Kingdom in 2011. 289 pages.<\/p>\n

I love Jasper Fforde’s books. His writing is always quirky, and in this book it\u2019s also quarky. (Sorry, couldn\u2019t resist.)<\/p>\n

The story follows after The Last Dragonslayer<\/a><\/em>. Jennifer Strange is still managing the Kazam Agency, but magic in the Ununited Kingdoms is on the rise and the agency is doing better. That is, until Lady Mawgon accidentally gets turned into stone. Then their rival, the Blix Agency, challenges them to a bridge-raising magical duel, and their very agency is on the line. And Blix isn\u2019t afraid to play dirty \u2013 having the wizards of Kazam arrested or otherwise incapacitated.<\/p>\n

The details are what make Jasper Fforde\u2019s books so much fun. Here are some choice bits:<\/p>\n

Since the Kingdom of Snodd granted licenses not by age but by who was mature enough to be put in charge of half a ton of speeding metal, no male under twenty-six or wizard ever possessed a driver\u2019s license. Because of this I was compelled to add taxi service to my long list of jobs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or about magical licenses:<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything more, but we all knew the consequences of operating without a license were extremely unpleasant. The relationship between the populace and Mystical Arts practitioners had always been one of suspicion, not helped by a regrettable episode in the nineteenth century when a wayward sorcerer who called himself Blix the Thoroughly Barbarous thought he could use his powers to achieve world domination. He was eventually defeated, but the damage to magic\u2019s reputation had been deep and far-reaching. Bureaucracy now dominated the industry with a sea of paperwork and licensing requirements. Reinventing sorcery as a useful and safe commodity akin to electricity had taken two centuries and wasn\u2019t finished yet. Once lost, trust is a difficult thing to regain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or a bit of history thrown in, explaining a magical job:<\/p>\n

The point of the Fourth Troll War had been pretty much the same as the first three: to push the trolls back into the far north and teach them a lesson \u201conce and for all.\u201d To this end, the nations of the Ununited Kingdoms had put aside their differences, sending 147 landships on a frontal assault to \u201csoften up\u201d the trolls before the infantry invaded the following week. The landships had breached the first Troll Wall at Stirling and arrived at the second Troll Wall eighteen hours later. They reportedly opened the Troll Gates, and then \u2013 nothing. All the radios went dead. Faced with uncertainty and the possible loss of the landships, the generals decided to instigate the ever popular Let\u2019s Panic plan and ordered the infantry to attack.<\/p>\n

Of the quarter million men and women in action during the twenty-six-minute war that followed, only nine were not lost or eaten. Colonel Bloch-Draine was one of them, saved by an unavoidable dentist appointment that had him away from his landship at the crucial moment of advance. He retired soon after to devote his time to killing and mounting rare creatures before they went extinct. He had recently started collecting trees and saw no reason why this activity shouldn\u2019t be exactly the same as collecting stuffed animals: lots of swapping and putting them in alphabetical groups. Clearly, moving trees around his estate was not something he could do on his own, and that was the reason Kazam had been employed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or the information about Quarkbeasts:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t so much breed as replicate,\u201d I explained. \u201cThey divide into two entirely equal and mirror-opposite Quarkbeasts. But as soon as they do, they have to be separated and sent a long way from each other \u2013 opposite sides of the globe, usually. If a paired positive and negative Quarkbeast meet, they are both annihilated in a flash of pure energy. It was said that Cambrianopolis was half destroyed when a confluence of paired Quarkbeasts came together and exploded with the force of ten thousand tons of Marzex-4. Luckily, Cambrianopolis is such a ruin, no one has really noticed.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And there\u2019s more!<\/p>\n

The Once Magnificent Boo stared at me intently. \u201cAre you ready to be confused?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s how I spend most of my days at Zambini Towers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen here it is: Quarkbeasts breed by creating an exact mirror copy of themselves \u2013 and since the Mighty Shandar created only one Quarkbeast, every Quarkbeast is a copy of every other Quarkbeast, only opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was blown backwards yesterday,\u201d I said. \u201cIs that the same thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, and if I were you, I would stay that way. It will save your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRight. But wait a minute.\u201d I looked at the picture of Q26, the one that paired to produce mine. \u201cIf Q27 is the mirror of Q26 and Q28 is the mirror of Q27, then why don\u2019t Q26 and Q28 look the same? Aren\u2019t alternate generations identical?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. It\u2019s more complicated than that. They create identical copies of themselves in six different flavors: Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top,<\/em> and Bottom.<\/em> All are opposite and equal, but all uniquely different and alike at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand any of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have problems with it still, after twenty years,\u201d confessed Boo. \u201cThe complexities of the Quarkbeast are fundamentally unknowable. But here\u2019s the point: There can only ever be thirty-six completely unique yet identical Quarkbeasts. If they divide in such a way that all the combinations are fulfilled, they will come together and merge into a single quota of fully quorumed Quarkbeasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will happen then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething wonderful.<\/em> All the great unanswered questions of the world will be answered. Who are we? What are we here for? Where will we end up? And most important of all: Can mankind actually get any stupider? The Quarkbeast is more than an animal; it\u2019s an oracle. It assists in mankind\u2019s elusive search for meaning, truth, and fulfillment.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That should give you the flavor. If you\u2019re ready for some clever but silly fun, I highly recommend this and all of Jasper Fforde\u2019s other books.<\/p>\n

Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Find this review on Sonderbooks<\/a> at: www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/song_of_the_quarkbeast.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n

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