Poison

by Chris Wooding

Poison is a strong-willed, bull-headed child who lives in the marshes. She chose her own name on her nameday in order to spite her mean stepmother. Then, one day, she finds her little sister Azalea taken by the phaeries and decides that she must go rescue her. Once she reaches the Realm of the Phaeries, she goes to the Phaerie Lord and asks him for her sister back. He tells her that she must steal a dagger from another lady, the Lady of Cobwebs. Poison steals the dagger and returns to the palace, only to discover that the Phaerie Lord, Aelthar, won't give her her sister back and instead intended to kill her. With Bram, the wraith-catcher who joined her cause; Peppercorn, the girl she picked up in the house between Realms; and Andersen, the cat who was Peppercorn's companion, Poison determines to steal Azalea back. Her plan is thwarted, however, when she discovers that the Hierophant, the most powerful lord in the Realms, is writing again. To her, this means nothing--to the rest of the Phaerie Realm, it means something big is going to happen.

Poison, along with her companions, travel to the Hierophant's castle, where Poison encounters Fleet, an old friend of hers from the marshes. Fleet explains that he is an Antiquarian, someone who watches the world and records the most interesting of stories. Thus, the Hierophant is the head Antiquarian, and whatever he writes, happens. The Hierophant tells Poison that she is but a character in the fiction he is writing, and that all that has happened is just a story. Poison tries to give up, but all the people in her story begin to fade and die. She steps back onto the path just in time for someone to murder the Hierophant with the dagger she stole from the Lady of Cobwebs. The Phaerie Lord actually figured out who had done it--his secretary, Scriddle, who was originally born for the sole purpose of becoming the Hierophant. Accompanying Scriddle was the Hierophant's wife, Pariasa. It was she who did the deed and stole the book recording the Hierophant's life from the Hierophant's library. Scriddle, who had intended to become the next Hierophant, tries to kill Poison. But he can't kill Poison without killing himself, as he is merely a part of HER story. Of course, Poison is the next Hierophant, and she records her own story. Her test was the quest that the Hierophant sent her on through his writing.

As soon as I opened this book, I sensed two things. One: a very clichéd character set. Poison has purple eyes, an angsty name, and she named herself. On top of that, she is rebellious. Two: a plot-driven story. There are four main kinds of stories in the world: plot-based, character-based, both, neither. Usually I prefer the stories that are character-based and have good plotlines, falling under the category of "both." However, I can excuse a plotline if the characters are convincing enough. Poison was a little too predictable for my tastes. I knew, at least twenty pages in advance, that Poison would be the next Hierophant. I knew she would succeed at the impossible, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the girl she met in the first town would have an importance later on. If you like stories with good plots but cardboard-cut-out characters, take it. If you're more like me, pick up something else.

Another thing that really irked me was Wooding's consistent usage of ridiculous spelling. Phaeries for fairies or faeries, magick for magic, etc. It got really irritating after a while... Regular spelling works just fine, but for some reason he felt the urge to add in the extra letters. British spelling I will excuse--I spell certain words the British way. I grew up on Roald Dahl and Harry Potter before graduating on to Agatha Christie, so it's imprinted onto my brain patterns. But adding all those different letters gave me a headache after a while and did little more than frustrate the grammar Nazi in me (who is trying to be on vacation for a little while).

Overall, Poison was not my cup of tea. I'd much rather read something with a little more imagination, but that's just my opinion.