Larklight

Larklight is a rambling, ramshackle house that spins on its own remote orbit out in the deeps beyond the moon. It was constructed in the early 1700s, which, if you recall your history, was just a few years after Sir Isaac Newton's discoveries made it possible for people to travel and then live in Space. Twelve-year-old Art Mumby loves being out there, but his older sister Myrtle finds it dreadfully dull and bleak, and dreams of living in England. Father is a scientific gentleman who studies ichthyomorphs, which Arthur refers to as space-fish, and Mother is presumed dead, tragically lost while aboard a space vehicle several years back in 1848. On the morning, that Father anticipates the arrival of a visitor, a Mr. Webster, Art awakes to find the exterior of the house has been trussed up like an Egyptian mummy in thick white strands of spider webbing. When Father is regrettably detained by a rather large, threatening, white space spider, quite the size of an elephant, Art and Myrtle escape on a lifeboat and land on the Moon. There they are taken in by Jack Havoc, notorious teenage space pirate and heartthrob, and his misfit but lovable crew of extraterrestrials. Their subsequent adventures together constitute no less than trying to save the entire British Empire, including, of course, all of Her Majesty's Extra-Terrestrial Possessions, from tyrannical space spiders.

Art's extraordinary and entertaining narrative, a ripping read-aloud space fantasy, takes place in an alternate British Empire, though you’ll doubtless recognize the real people in the cast of many, including Newton, Sir Richard Burton, and Queen Victoria. Intricate full-page pen and ink illustrations help define some of the less familiar space creatures, as does the extraordinary website for this book, www.Larklight.com You're in for a jolly good ride, along with the sequels, Starcross and Mothstrom.

Reviewed by : JF.

Themes : ANIMALS. BROTHERS AND SISTERS. EXTRATERRESTRIAL BEINGS. SCIENCE FICTION.