Book Review – Lamplighter

Author: D.M. Cornish
Publisher: David Fickling Books, a division of Random House Children’s Books
Cover Design: blacksheep-uk.com
Binding: Hardback
Publication Date: May 2008

lamplighter (noun) essentially a kind of specialised soldier, mostly employed by the Empire, though some states also have them.  The main task of the lamplighter is to go out in the late afternoon and evening to light the bright-limn lamps that line the conduits (highways) of the Empire, and to douse them again in the early morning.  They are fairly well paid as soldiers go, earning about twenty-two sous a year.

The ending of Monster Blood Tattoo Book One:  Foundling offered a satisfying resolution as well as leaving things comfortably open for Book Two.  At the end of Foundling, we left the young orphan Rossamund (after accompanying him on a most adventurous journey) at Winstermill, to begin his training as a lamplighter.  At the start of  Lamplighter, we meet up with him two months later exactly where we left him at Winstermill, and in less than a dozen pages, he finds himself once again battling the likes of nickers and bogles (various monster types.)

Book Two continues much in the same vein as the first.  We follow Rossamund as he continues to find his way in a world populated with real monsters (and some people who just seem like monsters.)  The story progresses at a steady, deliberate pace that is punctuated with such aforementioned battles. We are introduced to suspicious characters such as the Surgeon Grotius Swill whose library contains “rare books on forbidden subjects not normally required for a surgeon to read“ and curious characters such as Mama Lieger who seems to have a rapport with monsters, something unheard of in the Half Continent.  Familiar characters make a return such as the kindly Sebastipole and the haughty fulgar, Europe.

The two of them looked at each other for a long moment until Rossamund dropped his gaze.  “I don’t want a life of violence,” he said.

“You’re living one now!” the fulgar retorted.  “I tell you, child, this life is nothing but violence – even if you do not seek it, others will bring it to you.” She leaned forward and fixed him with a terrible eye.  “Do not make the mistake, Rossamund, of living easy behind the feats of others and all the while thinking yourself better for not joining the slaughter.”

Cornish’s novel revels in detailed descriptions of its land, its people, and its monsters.  But in the midst of all this grand world building is a story of a very young boy asking some very big questions.  Is it necessary to kill all monsters?  Are all monsters inherently evil?  What exactly is a monster?  Questions that if he were to ponder them aloud would mark him as a sedorner, a monster-lover, a charge that could leave him swinging from the gallows.

Lamplighter is a young adult novel that is intelligently written and wonderfully illustrated with many sketches of its intriguing characters.  This time, though, Cornish does not end things so tidily, and we are left wide-eyed and anxious to know what this orphaned boy’s true heritage is and what his fate will be.  Book Three: Factotum is scheduled for publication in May, 2010.

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