Impossible Creatures

Impossible Creatures
by Katherine Rundell
Recommended Ages: 12+

The last time I remember opening a book to its first page, reading its first sentence and deciding then and there that I had to buy the book was in approximately 2011, when I opened Gene Wolfe's Litany of the Long Sun to the sentence "Enlightenment came to Patera Silk on the ball court." This time around it was the sentence "It was a very fine day, until something tried to eat him," and the book was this. In a parallel sentence, one short chapter later, it goes on to say, "It was a very fine day, until somebody tried to kill her." The him and the her are a boy and a girl from almost entirely different worlds. I mean, they're both from Earth, but Christopher is from the earth we know and Mal (short for Malum) is a native of a hidden Archipelago where magical creatures thrive, cut off from the threat of being hunted to extinction by non-magical folks like us. But it turns out that whatever is keeping the magical part of the world safe – let's call it the glimourie – is really of vital importance to the whole world, and for some reason, it seems to be dying. Whatever is killing it is bad news not just for unicorns, krakens, dragons and sphinxes, but for everybody. And though they don't know it when something and/or someone first tries to eat or murder them, it will take Christopher and Mal working together to stop it. If even they can.

Christopher has just found out he's next in line to serve as guardian of a portal between the non-magical world and the Archipelago when he rescues a drowning baby griffin, the last of its kind in the world. A short while later, Mal emerges dripping wet from the watery gateway between the two realms. Girl recruits boy to help. They go back to her world together to face the dangers awaiting them, including a very determined murderer, fanged and clawed creatures both small and gigantic, heartbreaking betrayals and devastating loss. They are joined on their quest by some fascinating characters, and they meet quite a few others along the way – I'm not here to spoil these wonderful surprises for you – but the scenery, creatures, personalities and dramatic encounters are all portrayed in a vivid, beautiful style.

I loved each of the main characters at first sight, and I loved Rundell's writing. Up to a certain point, I stuck sticky notes in the page margins to mark places where I thought her writing particularly sparkled with originality, but I gave up doing that after a while because the number of examples was growing out of control. I also stuck a sticky note or two in some of Ashley Mackenzie's striking page illustrations. She shares with Rundell a knack for seeing things differenly and portraying them from unexpected angles. Here's one of a few quotes I selected: "The man who stood above them was the kind of vast that makes other large men look petite and ballerina-esque." Or how about: "(The sky) was a blue so blue that it made all other blues look like they had been only the practice for this one shining sky." Or one character's comment: "Adventurers tend to smell. The great epic tales stank, I think, more than the historians give them credit for." There's a description somewhere of Mal as a walking battleground, stalking forward with such fierce determination. And when Mal appears at a crucial moment, "the iron spike that was (Christopher's) heart unfurled and became a victory flag." Things like that show Rundell to be a writer who thinks through every sentence and doesn't settle for saying what thousands of writers have said before.

It's a level of excellence that captivates the imagination and hits the heart hard with feelings ranging from tenderness to horror, from grief to joy. I'm calling it: I think this is the best book I've read this year.

This seems to be the first book in a series, set to continue in September 2025 with The Poisoned King. Katherine Rundell is also the author of Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms, Rooftoppers, The Wolf Wilder, The Explorer, One Christmas Wish, The Good Thieves, The Zebra's Great Escape and Into the Jungle: Stories for Mowgli.