Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Yearling (1995), Paperback
Description
Bound to keep a promise to her dead uncle, Is travels to the mysterious north country to find two missing boys, one of them a prince, and to discover why so many children in London are disappearing.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
This eighth entry in Aiken's Wolves Chronicles (excluding Midnight is a Place), is the first of two adventures featuring Dido Twite's younger half-sister, Is. When long-lost cousin Arun goes missing, Is's quest to find him leads her to the northlands, to the breakaway kingdom of Humberland, and the
Aiken's concern for the child, always vulnerable in an adult world, runs like a thread throughout much of her work, and is readily apparent here. So too is her preoccupation with the notion of a balkanized Britain, something that can also be seen in another of her titles, The Cockatrice Boys. But despite the many clever and original plot developments, despite the intricate ways in which Aiken ties this to her larger body of work, and to the entire Wolves Chronicles, I found Is Underground and its sequel, Cold Shoulder Road, somehow unsatisfying.
This is owing, I'm afraid, to the heroine, who simply cannot fill her sister's shoes. Is Twite would be an engaging heroine, if the reader weren't already acquainted with the incomparable Dido, of whom Is seems like an agreeable, but not entirely convincing copy. She almost satisfies... but not quite. Her depiction seems an odd choice in an author known for her seemingly inexhaustible supply of original characters and plot developments.
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oddly child-free city of Holdernesse (the renamed Blastburn, of earlier titles). Here Is discovers another set of long-lost relatives, and with the help of her newfound psychic abilities, sets out to free the enslaved children who labor away in the nearby mines.Aiken's concern for the child, always vulnerable in an adult world, runs like a thread throughout much of her work, and is readily apparent here. So too is her preoccupation with the notion of a balkanized Britain, something that can also be seen in another of her titles, The Cockatrice Boys. But despite the many clever and original plot developments, despite the intricate ways in which Aiken ties this to her larger body of work, and to the entire Wolves Chronicles, I found Is Underground and its sequel, Cold Shoulder Road, somehow unsatisfying.
This is owing, I'm afraid, to the heroine, who simply cannot fill her sister's shoes. Is Twite would be an engaging heroine, if the reader weren't already acquainted with the incomparable Dido, of whom Is seems like an agreeable, but not entirely convincing copy. She almost satisfies... but not quite. Her depiction seems an odd choice in an author known for her seemingly inexhaustible supply of original characters and plot developments.
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LibraryThing member ed.pendragon
Is, Dido Twite's sister, is shown to be just as resourceful as her older sibling in this alternate history tale of Dickensian England. As with the other novels in the James III sequence (actually a misnomer as the last few books deal with his son and heir Richard IV) there are intended and
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unintended deaths (many by drowning), child servitude, volcanic activity as a plot mechanism (as in The Stolen Lake and Limbo Lodge) and a dastardly villain who meets a fitting but unpleasant end. There are poetic passages and a cathartic ending in a tightly plotted narrative, and of course a happy ending of sorts. Dense detailing can be both a weakness and a strength but here it was a happy trigger to my seeking out all the other titles in the sequence. Show Less
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
A familiar read - I've read it at least a couple times before. A very nasty (and stupid) situation - Gold Kingy really hasn't thought this through, about how the 'douls' are going to grow up and make the next generation of citizens. Well, he hasn't thought much through, has he? Idiot. Is is
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elegantly sneaky, and I love Bobbert, including the revelations concerning him. However, the whole thing with the thought messages seems to be a bit of a copout, or deus ex machina - fantasy not for its own sake but in order to make a difficult-to-impossible problem way too simple to solve. Dunno. For all the grim setting and death and destruction, this book reads rather more YA than many in the series - like a fairy tale. Show Less
LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV
Somehow this just didn't do it for me. I still recommend it though. I think it's better for fans of adventures, those who like fast-paced quests kinds of things. I like character development, humor, and heart.
Awards
Original publication date
1992
Physical description
7.5 inches
ISBN
0440410681 / 9780440410683