REVIEW: The Child Thief by Brom

The Child Thief by Brom
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Eos (1 Sep 2010)
ISBN-10: 0061671347
ISBN-13: 978-0061671340
Reviewer: Cara
Copy: Signed edition, bought in bookshop

From the inside cover:
Peter is quick, daring and full of mischief - and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland

Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose?

There is always more to lose.

Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries - one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils", Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children.

There, Peter's dark past is revealed; left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

The Child Thief is a dark retelling of the Peter Pan story, based not on the saccharine-coated Disney film version but the original J.M. Barrie classic novel. Here Brom takes the sinister and darker elements and creates a chilling tale of lost innocence.

But before I review the novel itself, first I must point out that Brom is a well known fantasy artist;

"At the age of twenty, Brom started working full-time as a commercial illustrator. Since that time Brom has been working feverishly for every facet of the genre, from novels (Michael Moorcock, Terry Brooks, R.A.Salvatore, E.R. Burroughs), Role-playing (TSR, White Wolf, WOTC), comics (DC, Chaos, Dark Horse), Games (Doom2, Heretic, Diablo2, World of Warcraft), and film (Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, Galaxy Quest, Ghosts of Mars, Scooby Doo, Van Helsing). Brom's powerful and haunting visions can be found in his two art books "Darkwerks" and "Offerings" and also his illustrated novel "the Plucker".

Most recently, Brom has turned his hand to writing a series of illustrated novels. His first novel "The Plucker" (a twisted children's book for adults) has over 100 paintings and received numerous nominations and was awarded a Chesley. His latest edition "The Devil's Rose" (a western set in Hell) was published 2007."
[From http://www.bromart.com/info.html]

In keeping with his artistry, The Child Thief contains eight colour plates depicting characters from the book, and each chapter begins with a full-page black and white drawing, reflecting scenes from that chapter. This is a beautiful book to treasure and I was lucky to find a signed copy, which I snapped up immediately. I have included some of the artwork in this review.

Peter is a trickster. He searches out troubled kids, those that are being abused or neglected, the lonely, runaways, and ones like Nick who are in danger of being killed. He has a talent for befriending children, for gaining their trust then luring them away from modern day New York with promises of a land where grown-ups cannot harm them, where magic fills a land with wonderful creatures, a place where they can play and dream and never grow up. What he does not say is that he is recruiting them as fighters in a vicious war, one that has left the land dying. He omits to tell them of the Mist, the veil between the worlds of man and faerie that they must pass through, which is filled with the haunting and terrifying spectres of those who lost their way and died there. He does not mention the brutal life they face, nor of the lost children that have been killed in the fighting.

The Child Thief is told from Peter's, and more so from Nick's, point of view. We learn of Peter's hard upbringing; cast out by his family he is rescued from being eaten by a wolf by Goll, a moss-man, who teaches him to hunt. These early experiences make Peter the person he is and, while he is devious and cunning, he is also dedicated to The Lady, on whose behalf he recruits the children to fight the war.  Nick is found by Peter in a park in New York, being threatened by a gang of the local drug dealer's henchmen, having stolen a bag full of 'product' belonging to the leader who has taken over his home and family. He survives the crossing through the Mist and the initial test from the 'Devils', those children previously brought across by Peter. During the course of the book Nick finds his inner resources and learns to live this new life, becoming stronger in mind and spirit, and does not succumb to the evil and corruption that has pervaded the very heart of Avalon. He is the hero to Peter's trickster anti-hero.

The enemy, the 'Flesh-eaters' are determined to claim Avalon for themselves and rid the land of all its magic and beauty. Although it is not clearly stated, they appear to have been men from an earlier America, part of the first wave of white European settlers. They are led by the Captain, but have become corrupted and twisted during their time in the land.

"They were men, not monsters, and somehow seeing their humanity made them all the more ghastly. Some horrible disease had infested their very core. Their skin was scaly, shriveled and black like that of a burn victim, and their faces were distorted as though in great pain."

One of the most interesting characters for me is Reverend Senior, a Puritan-style inquisitor who uses fear and torture against any of the children misfortunate enough to be captured by the Captain and his men. Although a minor role, it is a powerful one and very well done.

The Child Thief is full of magic. There are familiar mythical archetypes; the Lady and the Horned God, for example, along with pixies, faeries and other mythical creatures. Not all are as one would expect, however, and, given the dark nature of the book, this works very well. This is not a straightforward good versus evil battle, there are many shades of grey throughout. And while Peter is clearly on the side of the Lady, he is a very morally ambiguous character indeed.

I was engrossed reading The Child Thief. There were plenty of plot twists and action scenes. The characters were, in the main, well fleshed out and interesting. But for me, it was the descriptive writing that had me entranced. For someone who has made their name as an artist, Brom has an eye for description and the ability to translate this to the printed page. He has used the original Peter Pan children’s book as a foundation for a dark and sinister novel that will appeal to both fantasy and horror readers alike. The dying island of Avalon, with corruption and decay permeating both the land and its inhabitants, is well realised. However, there were times when I felt that scenes were being drawn out or were superfluous to the overall plot. Despite this, The Child Thief is a book I know I will read over again as I think there are levels of meaning I may have overlooked in my first encounter. It is certainly worthy of praise as a debut novel, from an artist who may well have successfully crossed over into the world of dark fantasy writing.

Plot 8
Characters 8
Style 10

Overall 9/10