Book Review | The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood

Pretty Lizzie Higgs is gone, burned to death on her own hearth—but was she really a changeling, as her husband insists? Albie Mirralls met his cousin only once, in 1851, within the grand glass arches of the Crystal Palace, but unable to countenance the rumours that surround her murder, he leaves his young wife in London and travels to Halfoak, a village steeped in superstition.

Albie begins to look into Lizzie's death, but in this place where the old tales hold sway and the hidden people supposedly roam, answers are slippery and further tragedy is just a step away...

***

In the beginning, a bang: a promising and potentially explosive prologue, or a scene that's suggestive of all the fun to come. That's a fine way for a story—especially a scary story—to start. But you've got to be smart. You don't want to give yourself nowhere to go by starting the show with the showstopper, and I dare say that's exactly what Alison Littlewood did with her debut.

Chilling and thrilling in equal measure, and at once creepy and weepy, A Cold Season was a hell of a hard act to follow, and although both Path of Needles and The Unquiet House were reasonably well received, nothing Littlewood has written since said has surpassed its macabre mastery. Certainly not last year's tedious sequel. Happily, her newest novel rights almost every one of A Cold Silence's throng of wrongs. I'd go farther than that, in fact; I'd assert that The Hidden People is the aforementioned author's most accomplished effort yet—if not necessarily her most accessible.

Albert Mirralls—Albie to his nearest and dearest—only met his lovely cousin once, at the Great Exhibition of 1851 that saw the unveiling of that transparent marvel, the Crystal Palace, but little Lizzie Higgs, with her sweet songs and her sure steps, made such an impression on our man in those moments that when he hears of her murder more than a decade later, he immediately leaves the life he's built behind in order to address her death.

In Halfoak, a superstitious village arranged around a great, twisted tree, Albie is told the whole of the sordid story his sophisticated father had only hinted at. Little Lizzie had gone on to marry James Higgs, a shoemaker, and though they had been happy in their house on the hill, their inability to bear children became the talk of the town in time. Higgs, for his part, had an unusual idea why: he thought his wonderful wife had been replaced by a changeling. As the local publican puts it:

"The good folk, as they call them—mainly from fear, I think—the quiet ones, the hidden people—they're fading, you see? [...] Their race is weak. And so they take changelings—human children, or women who can bear them, to strengthen their lines. And in their place they leave one of their own, worn-out and old, bewitched to look like the one they're meant to replace, though of course they do not thrive; they soon sicken or die. Or they leave a stock of wood, similarly enchanted, and with similar outcome. These changelings can be identified by their weaknesses, or some disfigurement, or by a sweet temper turning of a sudden into querulous and unnatural ways. They might refuse to speak or eat. A child might become a milksop or a squalling affliction. A good wife may be transformed into a shrew. There are many ways of telling." (p.89)

Tragically, the recent disappearance of a wooden broom and the entirely understandable turning of Lizzie's temper was all it took to convince Higgs that his wife was not the woman he married. To wit, he tried to drive the fairy from his home. He tried iron; he tried herbs; and, all else having failed, he tried fire. "And she was consumed by it." (p.13)

Book Review | The Kind Folk by Ramsey Campbell

Luke Arnold is a successful stage comedian who, with his partner Sophie Drew, is about to have their first child. Their life seems ideal and Luke feels that true happiness is finally within his grasp.

This wasn't always the case. Growing up in a loving but dysfunctional family, Luke was a lonely little boy who never felt that he belonged. While his parents adored him, the whole family knew that due to a mix-up at the hospital, Luke wasn't their biological child. His parents did the best they could to make the lad feel special. But it was his beloved uncle Terence who Luke felt most close to, a man who enchanted (and frightened) the lad with tales of the other—eldritch beings, hedge folks, and other fables of Celtic myth.

When Terence dies in a freak accident, Luke suddenly begins to learn how little he really knew his uncle. How serious was Terence about the magic in his tales? Why did he travel so widely by himself after Luke was born, and what was he looking for? Soon Luke will have to confront forces that may be older than the world in order to save his unborn child.

***

In everything we do, every decision we make and every action we undertake, our identities define us... yet we never really know who we are. We know who we were—we tell ourselves we do, to be sure—but like all memories, these recollections lose their sharpness with time, and, invariably, some of their truth, too. And while we think we know who we will be, these are projections at best; messy guesses subject to sudden and surprising changes in circumstance.

Take Luke Arnold, the central perspective of The Kind Folk by Ramsey Campbell. He thought he was the only son of Maurice and Freda Arnold, but as a DNA test taken on television demonstrates, he's not; the hospital must have given the couple he calls mum and dad the wrong baby. "He still has all his memories; nothing has changed them or what he is, let alone the people who are still his parents in surely every way that counts." (p.19) Nevertheless, this sensational revelation alters Luke's perception of his past, and that, in turn, has huge ramifications on his future.

Who, then, is the man caught in the middle?

Not who—or what—you might imagine, actually...

A father-to-be, in the first, because Luke's wife, the singer/songwriter Sophie Drew, is expecting. And although the doctors at the hospital give clean bills of health to both of the prospective parents, they take Luke to one side to say that it would be "in the interest of your child to discover what you can about your origins." (p.73) Origins that, try as he might to divine them in the subsequent months, don't seem to be entirely natural in nature.

It just so happens he already has an inkling as to where else he could conceivably have come from, because as a boy, he was haunted by bad dreams, imaginary companions and a compulsion to twist the fingers of his hands into shapes seen by some as satanic. The child psychologist little Luke saw all those years ago thought this was the fault of Luke's beloved uncle, Terence, and his tales of the Kind Folk.

Video Game Review | Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, dev. Level-5

When I blogged about the release of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch a couple of weeks ago, I discussed the difficulties I'd had with JRPGs in recent years—a bad start—still, I swore to give the genre at least one more go before abandoning it entirely. A happy ending, then?

Well... let's not jump to conclusions.

I had a fair bit of fun with Ni No Kuni, to be sure. The fifty-odd hours I spent playing it—beating it, indeed—speak to that simple fact. Alas, I'm afraid the very best moments of the experience were behind me five or ten hours in. Things certainly pick up again at the end, but the intervening tedium—especially the text-only story sequences and the endless fetch quests—nearly ruined Ni No Kuni for me. 

So it's fitting, I figure, that the story, such as it is, is all about acceptance. At the outset, the thirteen year old player character, Oliver—who lives a quiet life in Motorville: a very Ghibli village full of 1950s kit cars and an ensemble cast of charming inhabitants—Oliver loses his mother, Alicia, in a tragic accident.

That night, as he cries, a few of Oliver's tears fall on his doll... when suddenly, wonderfully, Drippy comes to life, and introduces himself (in an adorable Welsh accent) as Lord High Lord of the Fairies. He entreats Oliver to accompany him to the world of his birth, to save a once-great kingdom from the clutches of Shadar, the Dark Djinn, not to mention his master, the titular White Witch.

At first, never mind that he's talking to a doll of all things, Oliver says he isn't interested, but when Drippy suggests that the orphaned boy might be able, somehow, to save his mother—because everyone in our world has what's called a "soul mate" in Drippy's, and if Oliver can help Alicia's, then perhaps the fate of her counterpart will altered also—there's no longer any question that he'll help.

So begins an epic adventure in a world of wonders. Here be dragons! As well as cat kings, cow queens, evil genies and a few hundred heartbroken humans, through whom we glimpse Ni No Kuno's gameplay. Your task, as your party travels from place to place, is to help heal these people, and thus this land. You'll do this by finding individuals with an overabundance of one feeling—for instance courage, or ambition—and gifting said surplus to someone in need. Someone with an item you require to progress the story, say.

There's no getting around a number of these fetch quests, but though most of them are optional, Ni No Kuni is (despite endearing appearances) a rather challenging JRPG—with not a few unforgiving fights and a difficulty curve that goes off the deep end in the last act—so the more crap you collect, the better. Unfortunately, by the time I'd filled Oliver's locket for the twentieth time, I wanted nothing more than to sell the wretched thing to a vendor.

Same goes for the familiars you inherit as you adventure around the world. Initially, caring for the loveable little monsters which do the vast majority of your fighting for you adds an addictive Pokemon-esque element to the player's progression through Ni No Kuni, but by the time you're entrenched in the game's flat, protracted middle act, the mechanic has become so much busywork.

The various other systems in play in Level-5's latest are in the long haul markedly more engaging, but they're also par for the course in any decent contemporary JPRG. There's magic, crafting, questing and a whole lot of levelling as well—of you and your familiars. And though they can be unaccountably tough at times, most enemy encounters are as rewarding as they are demanding. Meanwhile, while the world seems kinda sorta small, exploring it is a real treat... especially considering how beautiful it looks: you really do feel Studio Ghibli's influence here, and in the cutesy, colourful character designs too.

Studio Ghibli's involvement can also be seen in Ni No Kuni's story, which sacrifices the melodramatic bombast of most JRPGs for a quieter, softer, sadder narrative. There's the makings of a fine feature-length film herein, but remember: this iteration of the tale takes fifty hours to tell, and drawn out to such an incredible extent, I'm sorry to say it seems insubstantial.

Furthermore, what little story there is is well written, evidently well translated, and well performed whenever an actual voice actor is involved... which is to say rarely, I'm afraid. Most of the story is communicated through text boxes. And there's an almighty lack of actual animation. Studio Ghibli have contributed a few minutes here and there, but most of Ni No Kuni's best moments are rendered in-engine.

Which is fine. Perfectly fine. It's an excellent engine, especially considering its modest origins. All the same, the legacy of Ni No Kuni as a handheld game conceived early in the generation that's now ending shows through in so many ways that those things the developers at least try to do differently—for which effort I applaud Level-5—are at loggerheads with the many traits this JPRG simply apes.

But you know what? I didn't dedicate fifty hours of my life to Ni No Kuni so that I could complain about its failings. Sure, it has a fair few, yet this is the first time I've finished a JRPG in years, so it has at least as many redeeming features, including but not limited to the look, the mood and the music. At the end of the day, I'm happy enough to have had this experience that, on balance, I probably would play a Ni No Kuni 2.

So the story has a happy ending, after all!