2008-02-01 A Superchromatic Tale

As a teenager, I was fascinated by Mike Wilks' Ultimate Alphabet. I must have studied the paintings for hours and came nowhere near to finding all the objects concealed within them. Every now and again, I would search to see what else Mr Wilks had come up with but for a long time there was nothing new.

I stumbled across Mirrorscape in a bookshop, the cover having attracted me at first and was delighted to discover it was a Mike Wilks original. Mike has given up the brush for a pen but the change has paid dividends.

This is an original piece of fantastic fiction as you'll ever read. As, in all good fantasy books, Mirrorscape's premise is simple but powerful: Paintings in the world of Nem can be entered and moved through as though they are real places.

This device gives the author an extraordinary amount of artistic licence to create stunning backdrops for all sorts of fantastic good vs. evil shennanigans.

In addition, Wilks' background as a painter (and his previous books are all about seeing and not just looking) affords him an incredible eye for detail, evidenced on every page through his sumptuous descriptions.

The books is not without its flaws (some of the hero's leaps of logic were occasionally unbeleivable) but if you've read all the usual suspects (Rowling, Snickett,Pullman) and are wondering where to go, you could do a lot worse (I know from experience) than starting with Mirrorscape.