Outcast
by Michelle Paver

Release Date: 6th Sep 2007
Publisher: Orion
ISBN: 978 1 8425 5173 8
RRP: £9.99

The fourth novel in The Ancient Chronicles series

A quick, but not the easiest of reads. Let me explain myself (although the author and huge fans may not like it much) – the beginning starts well and I was gratefully carried along (I was having a bad wriggle day)... until around page 45, at that point it got a little cumbersome and heavy – like wading through treacle, which, I’m ready to admit is probably quite an appealing pastime to some... but for me was slightly hellish. It then bounded back to life with the playfulness and vigour of a young wolf pup and remained steadfastly and unscrupulously fantastic until the end. Why the ditch in the mid-section, I don’t know – but there are very few books that are completely perfect. Take the last Harry Potter book as an example – that would have benefitted from having the first 300 pages cut loose and set free into the wilderness of unpublished writing – but of course, not everyone is going to agree with me.

Thankfully, Paver, unlike J K Rawling, does not suffer from a prolonged spell of writer’s babble in this fourth offering of The Ancient Chronicles. Outcast is a perfectly animated, perfected casted, perfectly proportioned tale that sits well once done. And isn’t that the main point? That at the end of a book, we feel satisfied? Loose ends are neatly tied up, perhaps a little too neatly – but we can forgive the author of this minor cliché. It is, after all, foremost a children’s book and they like things to be neat and simple.

I like Paver’s writing style. It’s concise, precise and does not fall into the typical children’s author trap of being overly ‘nice’. She even throws in some carefully timed wit when Torak describes his mother as having “soft fur and a tongue like hot sand. Sometimes her breath smelt of rotting meat” – how fabulous a description is that? My mother was not entirely dissimilar, although I wish I could say minus the fuzz, but to my endless embarrassment growing up, that isn’t the case...

All in all, a great little book. Every bit as good as its three predecessors and Paver can rest easy knowing that she’s onto a real winner with this series. We look forward with anticipation to the final two books.

© Copyright 2008. You may not copy, reproduce or otherwise distribute any content on this site without prior consent. To obtain consent - email here

The Truth About Books Limited. Registered England & Wales. Registration No: 6418483, Registered Address: Suite B, 29 Harley St, London, W1G 9QR

Send Review Copies to : The Editor, The Truth About Books Ltd, PO Box 612, Chesterfield, S40 9EU