Sylas Tate lives in a rickety flat with his uncle on Gabblety Row, for whom he runs errands and lives a slightly cheerless existence. He enjoys his own company and often makes beautiful bird kites with a set of paints left to him by his mother who died a few years ago after she started to go crazy. One day a new shop appears and Sylas finds himself drawn inside. He discovers three mysterious and magical objects, one of which (the Samarok) is given to him to keep by the mysterious Mr Zhi. Not long after, Silas discovers his mum may not be dead after all. He then gets woken up by the overwhelmingly loud ringing of a giant bell and finds himself being chased by a nightmarish hound with the result that he runs into the path of the bell and finds that it has summoned him into another world. Whilst there he must try to find out the purpose for which he has been summoned as well as trying to complete his personal quest to discover the truth about his mother.
This book promised big things. On the back cover the advanced reading copy says "C.S. Lewis. Philip Pullman. and now... Ian Johnstone. From the publishers who brought you Middle Earth, Narnia and the Old Kingdom comes a stunning new fantasy trilogy... The Bell Between Worlds will summon you to another place in June 2013. A place you won't want to return from..." Could I possibly be lucky enough to be holding the next big fantasy novel in my hands? I had to give it a chance. Sadly, I'm not as convinced as the publishers. It was a good fantasy novel. It had weird magic related things going on. No swords though. Or epic battle scenes. But the thing that ruined this book for me was in fact the blurb. This book is 511 pages long but some of what is described in the official blurb (and in fact the main plot point that made me want to read this book) didn't happen until after 400 pages, with part of the blurb never really coming to pass in this book, and so I spent most of the novel waiting for the story to actually begin. If you're curious about this blurb all you have to do is search for the book online and there it is but I don't want to ruin it for you on here and so haven't included it (admittedly the official blurb sounds more exciting than mine).
The pacing was also a little weird. A lot of the book is fairly slow paced but action scenes, and especially the ending, are over very quickly even though I felt that more could have been included in these scenes to make them stronger and more vivid. Johnstone spends a lot of time in setting the scene in other parts of the book and so is clearly able to do so. The action scenes also kind of lack action. The characters are faced with a dangerous situation but thanks to magic the danger seems to be overcome far too easily, making the scene feel anti-climatic. The other issue I have with the pacing is that in places it becomes very juddery. Johnstone will go to the trouble of describing how the others have walked on but Simia has stayed behind to talk to Sylas but she says one small sentence and then walks off. It wasn't anything majorly profound and so wastes a moment of semi-tension. Or he makes a big deal of Sylas holding hands with Naeo but never mentions that they let go. Moments like this just leave you feeling slightly disorientated.
Overall I feel like this book is very much the beginning and so it might have more potential when reunited with the other two parts of this tale so that it can be viewed as a whole. However, it does look like this could be a very long tale. which I suppose is a usual fantasy feature. I would love to see more detailed action and a sword or two. On the plus side there is no romance and there is appeal for both boys and girls. The characters are created well, even if Simia did irritate me a little. The plot is easy to follow and the world building is very detailed. For me this book was good but lacked the magic of Tolkien, Lewis and Pullman and so instead left me craving to read some proper fantasy.
I give it 6/10.
Title: The Bell Between Worlds
Author: Ian Johnstone
Publisher: Harper Collins
10+ Fiction
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