BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark

Subject: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Dec 16 - 02:37 PM

I have yet to read this book. It was just published this past year. Hope to get my hands on a copy in the next few weeks.

On his website, Robin Jarvis explains that he realized that he wasn't done with the aufwaders, or the Lords of the Deep and Dark, so it was time to return to Whitby. New characters take the main roles in the book, but it is said that some familiar characters return as well.

Anyone read this already?

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Dec 16 - 12:38 PM

Still don't have a copy yet; have been reading about the book online from the comments of readers.

The opinion has been volunteered that Jarvis, in this literary return to Whitby, does some good-natured satire about the Goth 'culture' as it expresses itself in Whitby.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Dec 16 - 04:36 PM

Mudcat introduced me to Robin Jarvis' writing, as it did to the writing of Sir Terry Pratchett. Here in the USA, Pratchett's Discworld books are readily found at places like Barnes and Noble, at least in paperback; and people know and love Pratchett here.

Robin Jarvis seems to be a different story. People in the USA who know of Jarvis are a minority. Only recently has there been a US publisher who would print and sell Jarvis' books directly here, otherwise one was dealing with English publishers. Jarvis' titles are not on the shelves in the bookstores. Even public libraries are as often without his titles as with them; some libraries have them, some branches do not.

I need hardly remind UK Mudcatters how completely the USA has gone gaga for J. K. Rowling and Harry Potter. It is telling to me, that Jarvis's books, at least some of them like the Whitby trilogy, predate Rowling and Harry Potter; and just now, looking online at search results, I uncovered a Robin Jarvis interview in which he confesses that he has never so much as opened a Harry Potter book in all these years, has never read one.

Will Robin Jarvis stand the test of time -- his books, I mean? I also read that there is interest in filming "The Alchemist's Cat," but it is early days and nothing is certain.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 21 Dec 16 - 06:30 PM

On social media there is a planned Great ReRead of Robin Jarvis's canon of books. It is going to start in January 2017 with The Dark Portal.
For more info:
Myth and Sacrifice

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 05:29 AM

Never heard of him, which is quite surprising as his work looks to be up my street and Whitby is one of my favourite places. I shall be sure to look him up soon. Bit late for my Christmas wish list but my birthday is soon! Last time I was in Whitby (June I think?) I read GP Taylor's 'Shadowmancer'. Quite enjoyable but with religious undertones that I could have done without.

Thanks for the heads up about Jarvis.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 06:29 AM

August Dave, August ........... Whitby Folk Week ......... just how much did you drink ?? !! ??

Robin Jarvis wrote a trilogy of "childrens" books. Whitby Witches, A Warlock in Whitby and A Whitby Child. Far too good just to be read by children.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 07:00 AM

Ah yes - I was there for a couple of days in August but I was thinking of the week I was there early September. I knew it was sometime slightly out of season. I blame the Waiting Room that you introduced me to for the loss of memory. I thought I had done all the pumps on the bar but he then went and changed a barrel to a new one...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 12:29 PM

Yes, Raggytash, I have not completed the Whitby trilogy yet, but its daring is remarkable: so much about parents and children, nurture versus nature, pro-life versus pro-choice, orphans and protective custody....not touching the Lords of the Deep and Dark, or was it Dark and Deep....

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 01:16 PM

Maybe I had three months of my life removed by evil forces and imagined I was in Whitby in June when it was really September?

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 03:11 PM

No Dave, you were pissed

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 04:25 PM

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Dec 16 - 04:50 PM

One of the long-time Mudcatters has been singing the praises of Robin Jarvis for some time now...wonder if she knows about the new book.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Dec 16 - 04:32 PM

Am now looking at the first two of the Whitby Witch books, and DARK is right!

The new book also is set in Whitby, and it seems -- got a peek at an online preview -- that there is a "Mister Dark" at work in this volume, and up to no good whatsoever.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 24 Dec 16 - 10:43 AM

Claire M, Happy Christmas, and check out Robin Jarvis's new book!

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Dec 16 - 04:35 PM

Next month, the blog at WordPress will start the Great Robin Jarvis ReRead in chronological order.

When Robin Jarvis began writing and publishing, he was living, I believe, in Deptford. Thus, his first book, "The Dark Portal," has a Deptford setting, although as the series of books proceeds, there are interludes out in the countryside. It must be said that the countryside interludes are not respite; they advance the plot, and in fact some fearsome and scary developments track through the country setting.
Much of The Dark Portal, having said that, takes place in underground Deptford. The characters are largely mice and rats. There is an attic interlude in order to introduce two clairvoyant bats, bless them. And there is an elderly ship in dry dock.

The most recent report I saw was that Robin Jarvis has since moved from Deptford to Greenwich.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Jan 17 - 03:11 PM

While Robin Jarvis's earlier work -- serieses -- what's the multiple of series? oh crumbs, let me start over.
A series of books like The Deptford Mice (3 titles), and more recent books connected to that series, these books seem to be what Robin Jarvis is most widely known for.
His more recent books have pushed further towards the margins, rather than narrowing themselves to middle-of-road conventionality.

Just had my first look at Fighting Pax in particular, the final book of the Dancing Jax series. Here, a line, if not several lines, is/are deliberately and defiantly crossed. One can hardly blame those readers of the second book in the series, Freax and Rejex, who were left cold by Jarvis's variation on "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift back in the day. Yes, in Book 2, there is a detention camp, some detainees are small children, and at one point sausages are made but not from livestock. If it sounds as though I read about that book rather than actually getting my hands on that book, this is correct....libraries in my area, NONE of them carry this particular Robin Jarvis series, and perhaps that is the reason why not.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Jan 17 - 01:36 PM

Dancing Jax, all three books in the series, are published only by HarperCollins.

Book 1

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 10 Jan 17 - 01:08 PM

Then there is the visual element.

While Robin Jarvis has been drawn to storytelling since childhood -- horror stories are a lifelong fascination for him -- his education specialized in the visual, rather than the literary. He studied graphic design formally. For a time he was employed as a modelmaker for television and perhaps for cinema, not sure about that. His first book, The Dark Portal, existed in its first draft as a graphic novel, expanded from the initial storyboards.

A generation of UK adults, who grew up with Robin Jarvis's Deptford Mice in their childhood as well as the Whitby books, are passionate not only about Jarvis's writing but about the illustrations and the cover art for his books as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jan 17 - 07:39 PM

It's almost a month since I ordered The Power of Dark. It got lost, and a refund was processed. Have just placed yet another order, maybe this one will get through.

The Power of Dark is supposed to have a hilarious, glorious wise-woman good-witch in it. One head-turning characteristic of hers is that she wears the loudest warmest combinations of colors possible, no black raiment for her: I actually read something about a bright orange Mary Quant handbag. Imagine that.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jan 17 - 07:21 PM

While waiting for The Power of Dark, with its return to the setting of the Whitby Witches trilogy,
am now looking at Robin Jarvis' series about the Wyrd Museum. This has a London setting, with an excursion to Glastonbury Tor.

There are three in this series. If you can imagine Wagner's Ring Cycle without any Ring, that's what this is. I know, you are saying, No Ring in the Ring Cycle by Wagner, that would be like no Ring in the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien....except the Wagner business has a lot more going on than a magic golden ring.

Wagner's Götterdämmerung, the last of the four operas in the cycle, opens with the Three Norns, or the Three Fates. And that is the secret of the Wyrd Museum in the Jarvis cycle. Not only is the odd London museum the responsibility of the three weird sisters, but a root of Yggdrasil passes underground, deep below in a cavern. The Norse God Wodin and his Valkyries (Jarvis spells it differently, I forget how) are adversaries of the Three Norns. There is an even greater peril. From the Norse pantheon are also drawn a category of gods called the Lords of Frost and...what? Ice? Anyway, when the world threatens to come to an end at the climax of the final book, it is not a conflagration from a funeral pyre set on fire, but blizzards and lethal cold.

The previous touch in itself, of the danger of ice rather than fire, recalls "The Final Reckoning" from the Deptford Mice series. That latter series has a place for a conflagration of fire, but the big climactic part at the end pits winter against spring, cold against warmth, death against life.

And as with the Green Mouse of the Deptford Mice, the Wyrd Museum's hope is in living things: the Three Norns are ancient and their time has come to an end, so they require a living successor. And the salvation of the Museum, and everything it stands for, is not in manmade things, but in the life of the tree of Yggdrasil.

Robin Jarvis' highly emotional prose sounds, in these books, as if he spent the writing of it with Wagner playing in the background, it is all rather melodramatic.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jan 17 - 02:48 PM

The Wyrd Museum, in its sinisterly-titled "Separate Collection," has something called the Eye of Balor the Formorian, from the battle of Moy Tura! Doesn't sound Norse to me! Very important during the battle with the Frost Kings or whatever Robin Jarvis calls them. I will have to look at Mudcat's Folklore threads to find out more about Moy Tura.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Jan 17 - 05:04 PM

About four weeks late, my order of a copy of The Power of Dark was finally delivered.

Mr. Jarvis does go in for the spooky, the creepy, and the crawly, I must say. Very emotional prose at the pivotal dramatic points, although he is capable of toning it down and introducing some dry irony.

But the Whitby of Robin Jarvis, amongst all his writing, seems to be haunted by Cthulhu from H. P. Lovecraft. Maybe that is why the Robin Jarvis fandom is so intense and passionate. I am never going to be one of the fandom members, but the books are still appealing.

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Jan 17 - 01:07 PM

The Power of Dark has a page to itself at the website for Egmont, the publishers.

The Power of Dark

Subject: RE: BS: Robin Jarvis: The Power of Dark
From: keberoxu
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 05:47 PM

So it's summertime, and Whitby is at its Whitby-est for its visitors.

Meanwhile, Robin Jarvis continues apace.
Today there exist no less than SIX Whitby books by Robin Jarvis,
and a seventh yet to be published
(for all I know, Jarvis is still writing it).

These are the Whitby books:

The Whitby Witches (introduction of two orphaned siblings, in 1990's)
A Warlock in Whitby (the story continues)
The Whitby Child    (conclusion: the orphans lose one blood relative, and gain two.)

The Power of Dark (twenty years later, two Whitby 'tweens, born and raised there, meet the last of the Whitby Witches)
The Devil's Paintbox (a diabolical villain snatches one of the 'tweens and escapes into....the historical past)
Time of Blood   (in Queen Victoria's day, fully one century BEFORE the first Whitby book with the siblings, the two 'tweens, with the help of that last Whitby witch, defeat the diabolical villain; but now they are stuck in the past....)

The real conclusion is Book Seven,
which is somehow supposed to get the Whitby 'tweens back to their families in the present day.