Furnace 01 & 02: Lockdown and Solitary, by Alexander Gordon Smith

Review

 Wow. I think this is a great YA series that exists very comfortably being a strange mish-mash of horror, action and dystopian fiction. There are some genuinely frightening ideas and creepy goings on in the Furnace series, but the books are also clever, suspenseful and involving. I found the writing to be perfect for the tone and style of the book. I read the first one rather quickly and then a few weeks later, I picked the second one up to chill out for a few chapters before doing something else, and then I ended up starting and finishing the book in one night. That hasn’t happened in years.

Lockdown is set in gen pop of the Furnace Prison when Alex is wrongly sent there and begins to experience some of the horrors the prison contains. The second book Solitary sees him in solitary trying to navigate the lower levels of the prison – the levels where the horrific laboratory experiments take place, where a battle is playing out gruesomely between the monsters of Furnace, and where every dark rocky corridor holds another grisly secret.

I think the ideas behind Furnace are fascinating. What I like best about these books is that the writing isn’t pulpy – there’s something very intelligent and emotive behind it. The main characters, who we’re meant to care about – I do care about them. I want them all to get out of the prison. And when some of them don’t, well it’s not like I break down in tears – but there is a sense of ‘oh, damn’, there.

Where the Furnace series is particularly successful is in how it creates suspense – there is a sense of constant anticipation and fear that runs throughout the books. How long till the monsters come for Alex in his cell? How long before the rats break into his solitary hole? Will they get caught before they can blow the cave and escape? How long till they get discovered in hiding? And so on and so on. It is quite harrowing. But it never feels like a cheap tactic to get the reader involved.

The Furnace setting is fantastic – all dark shadows and deep rock far into the bowels of the earth; all creepy laboratories and confined spaces and a darkness that you never know is a blessing or a curse. I understand that in future books Alex manages to break out of Furnace so it will be interesting to see how the story survives once it is set free from the prison.

I really enjoyed these books and think they’re great. I originally started reading them when I had to put together a list of horror books for one of our school library clients at the bookstore. The covers (the American ones) hooked me in. This is a series that I will see out to the finish. I highly recommended for mature teen readers and even horror fiction lovers who want an easy but involving read.

First published in 2009

The Demon Collector, by Jon Mayhew

First published by Bloomsbury, 2011.

From the get go, we are straight into the action. Edgy Taylor is no one much, cleaning up poop on the streets of London and working for his brutal and abusive master in a tannery. He is saved from this life by a curious old man and taken back to the Royal Society of Daemonologie. They want him, Edgy Taylor – because he has the ability to see Demons in their true form. But they also want something else ...

It’s not long before he is embroiled in the mysterious and often deadly goings on in the strange, eerie building the society calls home. Here he has constant run ins with demons, both malignant and benign, sulky ghost girls, the library snake, pompous members of the society who just can’t seem to accept him, and, most important of all – constant attempts on his life. What is it about Edgy that sees him hunted throughout the society, the streets of London, across the sea and into icy caverns? With the help of his few friends and his own wits, he must find out ... before he runs out of chances.

For kids, The Demon Collector pushes all the right buttons – Mayhew has got his formula down pat. A constant chase, chapters that almost always end on a cliff-hanger, great adventure, intriguing settings, colourful characters. There is great fun to be had and more than a few thrills and grisly bits to satisfy those more gruesomely inclined. As it is, I am always going to compare it to Mayhew’s first book, Mortlock – a great first novel, and one that I really enjoyed. Formulaically, this book is very similar, but I think it lacks the great atmosphere that so pervaded the first. It is perhaps not quite as ‘fresh’, but that’s to be expected. As an adult reader, I also found the stylistic choices/formula a bit obvious – I could predict just about every outcome and felt like I was being ‘pushed’ into feeling things, which doesn’t sit so well. But that’s just really me being cynical. For a kids audience, particularly those slightly resistant readers, this kind of encouragement is perfect.

I do wish the two major deaths could have been drawn out a little more – the big baddies need a big send-off! Mayhew does baddies well – they are suitably larger than life and creepy and constantly seeming to change alliances. The demon mythology Mayhew draws on to tell his story is just enough – interesting spin but never bogs down the plot. Also, I loved the demon Slouch.

Really works as a companion novel to Mortlock. I feel like Mayhew knows his stories and knows how he wants to tell them and just goes for it. If Mortlock’s emphasis was on gothic creepiness, The Demon Collector feels more like a mystery adventure. A good, fun and creepy read. Does just what it should.