Book Review: The Dark Flight Down by Marcus Sedgwick

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead

Marcus Sedgwick had left several questions unanswered and quite a few plot threads dangling at the end of The Book of Dead Days. In the sequel, The Dark Flight Down, Sedgwick begins where the previous book left off and continues the creepy and melodramatic tale.

The tale continues to unfold in the decaying and fetid city with its squalor and meanness now hidden under a blanket of snow. It’s only a few days since the death of Boy's master, the magician Valerian, and Boy now has a new master: Valerian's Friend, the scientist Kepler. Kepler, wary of Willow's sharp intelligence, has separated her from Boy and placed her in an orphanage. The two however meet in a graveyard (Sedgwick's morbid fascination with death and graves continues in this book too) at funeral of the manager of Korp's Theater. There, Boy and Willow make plans to escape from Kepler and begin a new life together. But it is not to be. Kepler sends Boy on an errand to Valerian and Boy's former home, the Yellow House, to retrieve a lens. There he is captured by the Imperial soldiers and thrown in the dungeons below the palace of the mad Emperor Frederick. In the dank dungeons, Boy realizes there is another person imprisoned somewhere in the darkness when he hears a familiar song "So dance, my dears, dance, / Before you take the dark flight down."

Boy eventually learns that Frederick, who is single, has decided that he wants to become immortal so that he can rule forever without needing an heir. Both Frederick and his right-hand man, the cunning and power-hungry, Maxim are convinced that the boy possesses the secret of the Book of Dead Days, which foretells the future and believe that it might show a way for the aged Frederick to gain immortality. Boy has been captured on Maxim's orders. Little do the Emperor and Maxim know that the book is now in the hands of Kepler.

Boy soon finds that the situation is even murkier than it appears to be. The mysterious predator Phantom kills again and in the dungeons Boy discovers the literal terror hidden at the end of “the dark flight down.” Boy finds that the Phantom is housed in the Dungeons below Frederick's palace and that the creature drinks the blood of its victims. Worse, it seems to be controlled by Maxim. Boy meanwhile, in a meeting with the Emperor, catches his fancy and is taken from the dungeons and is transported to a world of immense wealth and splendor. But underneath the gilt Frederick's world is cruel and tinged with madness. Intrigues are aplenty as are closely held secrets, and terror is merely a step away. A desperate Maxim soon threatens to throw Boy to the Phantom if the Boy refuses to divulge any information about the Book of Dead Days. But Boy is determined to get to the book for himself so that he can find his real name and know who his parents were.

In a world full of Machiavellian machinations and treason, Boy survives on his determination and on the strong hope of meeting Willow again. And it is not before long that the resourceful Willow teams up with Kepler and the two insinuate themselves into the palace to attempt to rescue Boy.

Events, situations and the palace soon come to a head and the novel heads for a spectacular and chilling climax. The Book of Dead Days is opened and Boy learns the horrific truth behind the Phantom and the Emperor Frederick and learns the connection they both have to his past.

Like The Book of Dead Days, and in many more ways, The Dark Flight Down is more a mystery (with a hint of magic to the story) than a fantasy. In The Book of Dead Days the mystery was about how Valerian would escape a Faustian bargain and the role Boy would play in the escape. Here, in The Dark Flight Down, the mystery is about Boy's true identity. The titular Book of Dead Days merely serves as a thread that unravels the tale. Sedgwick, like in the prequel to this book, casts his story neatly in Gothic mold. The thrills and horrors are however human and psychological rather than the fantastic.

Sedgwick neatly wraps up Boy's story. All questions are answered: What were the reasons for Valerian's sacrifice? Why is Kepler interested in Boy? What about the relationship developing between Boy and Willow? What is the continuing significance of the Book of Dead Days? What will happen to the Book of Dead Days? Who is the Phantom? What is the Phantom's connection with Boy? The identity of the Phantom comes as a surprise as does the knowledge about the Boy's connection to the Emperor and the Phantom.

The Dark Flight Down, like the The Book of Dead Days, is very atmospheric and compared to it very textured and intricately and tautly plotted. Readers however be warned: the book doesn't stand on its own and you need to be familiar with the previous book to understand and enjoy this sequel. The Dark Flight Down is a wonderfully written tale -- Sedgwick's prose is tight and sparse and as bleak as the cold city that the book describes. The tale with its obscure revelations, intrigue, treachery, also superbly evokes a sense of inevitable horror and doom. And underneath all the madness and the terror of The Dark Flight Down Sedgwick also conveys the strength and resourcefulness of Boy and Willow and their bond that just might be their redemption from the past.

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My review of The Book of Dead Days.

Book Review: The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead

Is it possible to escape a Faustian bargain? How? At what cost?

In The Book of Dead Days, Boy (who has no knowledge of his origins or of his real name), helps his master—the magician Valerian, look for a way out from his Faustian pact. In the process he also finds clues to his own past.

Marcus Sedgwick sets his tale in a European city sometime in the eighteenth century. The actual story plays out during the Dead Days between Christmas and New Year's Eve, "when spirits roam and magic shifts restlessly just beneath the surface of our lives."

Valerian, a stage-magician-cum-inventor performs his illusions in Korp's Theater with the assistance of his apprentice and servant (more of a slave), Boy. Crowds flock to the theater to watch Valerian perform his many tricks and especially to witness his "Fairyland Vanishing Illusion". Boy was found by Valerian many years ago when he tumbled out of a small hollow in the roof of a church right at Valerian's feet. Impressed by the Boy's ability to squeeze himself in the smallest possible space (and realizing that this ability would be of much use to him in his illusions) Valerian takes the Boy as an assistant for his magic tricks. Boy, who has no knowledge of his past, slavishly follows Valerian's every bidding.

Some fifteen years before, Valerian had made a pact with evil spirits that "transcend time and space" in return for wealth, power and the woman he loved. As his time of settlement approaches, Valerian is desperate to find an ancient and very powerful book which he believes contains the answer to avoiding his fate. Boy helps him in his search. But their lives change menacingly during the Dead Days. Valerian sends Boy out on an errand but Boy flees when the man he was sent to see is killed. While running away from the scene of the awful murder, Boy bumps into Willow, an orphan and the assistant of another performer at the theater. She too has just witnessed a similar sight herself: the murder of the manager of Korp's Theater. Both Boy and Willow however are caught and jailed by "The Watch". Valerian breaks into the prison and helps them to escape. He needs the obedient and loyal Boy (if not the quick-witted Willow with her numerous questions) in his quest for the book. From then on Boy and Willow are drawn into a sinister and Gothic quest with Valerian. Kepler- an inventor, a long-time friend of Valerian, also assists them. Its only a few days to the New Year when the devil will come to take what Valerian had promised all those years back. Valerian will do anything to save his own skin—even sacrifice the lives of others. This potentially puts Boy and Willow in grave danger even if they don't expect so.

Mystery and intrigue are at every turn in this engaging quest. Their search for the book, leads to a number of harrowing escapades. They search through graveyards, underground sewers, in the high and low places of the city. Valerian believes the book is hidden in the grave of one Gad Beebe. While searching through the largest of the city's graveyards, Valerian is attacked and his arm is broken by grave robbers. Kepler disappears. And there's The Phantom, the being that is going around killing the City's inhabitants. The three eventually find what they are looking for but the consequences of the find are not exactly what they expect, and Boy at last finds a past and a destiny he never could have imagined. Readers will probably find the twist in the end predictable but it still has an impact powerful enough to throws up a number of crucial questions that would need answering.

Sedgwick's tone is deliciously creepy and shivery. This foreboding and often macabre fantasy should appeal to all who like Gothic tales. The story for quite a bit progresses as Valerian and his two helpers move from graveyard to graveyard and as they search various graves. There are quite a few scenes of grave robbing. The Book of Dead Days also echoes that Gothic masterpiece: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The Master of City Burials splices together the parts of various animals and then attempts to resuscitate animals from the dead.

A feeling of gloom and inevitable doom pervades the story. Sedgwick's style is very visual and cinematic. Sedgwick is a marvel at creating atmosphere and painting his settings: be it the haunting cemetery in the night, the catacombs beneath a village church, or the claustrophobic subterranean maze of sewer tunnels. But he is at his best when he describes the fetid and squalid city where most of the action takes place. The falling snow and the biting cold only add to the bleakness and gloom of the tale. But there is still some warmth and love amidst the cold and evil.

Sedgwick limits his plotting to Boy's point of view. Therefore a number of things in The Book of Dead Days go unexplained and one wonders if the point of view of the story was a device that Sedgwick chose to paper over those aspects of the tale he had no wish (or hadn't thought through) of telling. We don't get much background information about Valerian's past. Sedgwick always has Valerian telling Boy that there isn't enough time to explain what is happening. While this serves the purpose of keeping the plot in motion and the suspense high, it leaves a lot of story threads loose at the end. The mysterious murderer, The Phantom, whose murders set the plot into motion, vanishes and is never heard of again. Kepler too appears at convenient points in the story when the characters (and the author) need help getting out the hole they find themselves in. Kepler's motivations and his later actions are scarcely explained.

It appears though that Sedgwick has continued the story of Boy and Willow in a subsequent volume: The Dark Flight Down is the concluding book of this story. Perhaps all these questions will be in answered in the sequel. For the moment, if you get your hands on The Book of Dead Days, read this fantasy for its atmosphere of very tangible sense of evil and the brilliant setting and for an intriguing variation on the story of Faust and his pact with the devil.