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Tales From The Sinister City #2
The Bone Magician
Pin Carpue is on his own in the world. His mother is dead and his father is missing after being labeled a suspect in a rash of murders. Pin finds a job working for the local undertaker as a body watcher, making sure people are really dead before they’re buried. The body he’s supposed to be watching tonight is currently surrounded by three people engaged in a most unusual ceremony. An old man, a bone magician, and his young female assistant are waking a woman so her grieving fiancé can have one last goodbye with her. Pin can’t believe it will work, but then the dead woman sits up and speaks.
Pin is determined to discover how the magic works. He cannot believe they are raising the dead. He cannot believe his father is a murderer. Then Pin himself nearly becomes the killer’s next victim.
As this mysterious tale unfolds with delicious creepiness, Pin will learn more about the bone magician, the girl Juno, and a hideous creature called the Gluttonous Beast that is kept in a local tavern where people pay for a glimpse.
Pin is determined to discover how the magic works. He cannot believe they are raising the dead. He cannot believe his father is a murderer. Then Pin himself nearly becomes the killer’s next victim.
As this mysterious tale unfolds with delicious creepiness, Pin will learn more about the bone magician, the girl Juno, and a hideous creature called the Gluttonous Beast that is kept in a local tavern where people pay for a glimpse.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 7, 2008
21 people are currently reading
1332 people want to read
About the author
F.E. Higgins
9 books199 followersF.E. Higgins has been fascinated by the macabre ever since seeing a ghostly apparition as a child. Nowadays Higgins travels the lands that these books describe, collecting strange artifacts and the even stranger stories behind them. When not in pursuit of a story, Higgins may be found in a haunted house in Kent, where a dismembered hand cradles a large diamond on the mantelpiece.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
April 8, 2011
Not that long ago, I read The Black Book of Secrets, and really liked it. This is a paraquel to it. Which means, essentially, that the stories were taking place roughly at the same time, in the same fictional country, and have some overlapping points that you'll only realize if you read both books, but otherwise can be read entirely independently. And I liked this one, too, every bit as much as The Black Book of Secrets. This one is set entirely in the fictional, Victorian London-esque city that The Black Book starts in. I liked the new characters, and I'll be interested to see how the two stories collide in a later book. This one has a few more elements of the fantastic about it than The Black Book, though. That was the one thing that I felt could have been developed better. The actual bone magician part seems to take a back seat in the story to the Jack the Ripper-inspired murder plot. If that was meant to be mysterious, it failed, as I never felt the least bit of suspense about what the end result would be. I suspect that it wasn't meant to be a true mystery, though. There is a true mystery left at the end of the book, and I suspect future books in the universe to touch on them.
July 25, 2016
Quite a few years ago I read this author's The Black Book of Secrets and loved it to pieces. Recently it occurred to me to wonder if she'd written any more books in the interim, and . . . Well, okay, so I can be a bit slow on the uptake on occasion. Blame it on the fact that I'm not much of a series reader.
The Bone Magician is set in the same general milieu as was The Black Book of Secrets, and has various other points in common -- most notably the fact that its protagonist is an orphan boy. In this instance that boy is Pin Carpue, whose mother died a while ago and whose father is on the run, suspected of the murder of Pin's nasty uncle. There's a murderer at work in the city, the Silver Apple Killer, and prominent journalist Deodonatus Snoad is running a campaign to have Pin's father sought for these atrocities too.
To make his way in the world, Pin gets a job as apprentice to a local undertaker, Goddfrey Gaufridus. One of Pin's jobs is to sit beside corpses overnight to make sure they are genuinely dead. Gaufridus has a phobia about accidentally burying someone who's merely in a coma; aside from taking the precaution of nighttime corpse watching, he's developed a whole torture chamber of wicked little tools that with luck would rouse someone from even the most profound stupor.
One night, while corpse guarding, Pin falls into drugged semiconsciousness and witnesses two strangers bring the corpse to life for the benefit of a third, the dead woman's boyfriend, who seeks -- and gets -- her forgiveness for the dreadful quarrel they had shortly before her death. When he regains full consciousness, Pin discovers the corpse is once more properly dead. He resolves to find out more about the so-called bone magician and his pretty young assistant, Juno . . .
The city in which this tale is set, Urbs Umida, is like a sort of fantasticated Dickensian London, and the characters (and character names!) have a similarly Dickensian flourish. Other writers brought to mind as I romped through The Bone Magician were Mervyn Peake and Jeffrey Ford, while there's a dash of Terry Pratchett in there somewhere too. Really, though, Higgins has her own voice; the Dickensian comparisons just add to the fun.
And there's plenty of fun to be had here. Although the book's marketed as for middle graders/YA, I'd suggest adult readers are likely to get more fun out of it than anyone, not just because of the richness of its language but because every now and then you sense that, while most of the jokes are in plain view, there are others lurking just beneath the surface of the text, so to speak, and some of those are slightly, and quite delightfully, smutty. As for the humor in general? Well, here's a sample:
The Bone Magician offers a fast, totally absorbing and often hilarious read. My one objection -- and this is no reflection on the quality of the novel -- is that the text is printed, at least in the edition I picked up, in a rather light sepia. At a superficial glance this is visually appealing in a quaint sort of way, but when it comes to the actual reading -- especially the reading of Pin's journal extracts, done all in italics -- the joy of the quaintness wears off fast. This should be no problem for those with younger eyes, but for the codger readership it's a bit of a pain in the fundament.
The Bone Magician is set in the same general milieu as was The Black Book of Secrets, and has various other points in common -- most notably the fact that its protagonist is an orphan boy. In this instance that boy is Pin Carpue, whose mother died a while ago and whose father is on the run, suspected of the murder of Pin's nasty uncle. There's a murderer at work in the city, the Silver Apple Killer, and prominent journalist Deodonatus Snoad is running a campaign to have Pin's father sought for these atrocities too.
To make his way in the world, Pin gets a job as apprentice to a local undertaker, Goddfrey Gaufridus. One of Pin's jobs is to sit beside corpses overnight to make sure they are genuinely dead. Gaufridus has a phobia about accidentally burying someone who's merely in a coma; aside from taking the precaution of nighttime corpse watching, he's developed a whole torture chamber of wicked little tools that with luck would rouse someone from even the most profound stupor.
One night, while corpse guarding, Pin falls into drugged semiconsciousness and witnesses two strangers bring the corpse to life for the benefit of a third, the dead woman's boyfriend, who seeks -- and gets -- her forgiveness for the dreadful quarrel they had shortly before her death. When he regains full consciousness, Pin discovers the corpse is once more properly dead. He resolves to find out more about the so-called bone magician and his pretty young assistant, Juno . . .
The city in which this tale is set, Urbs Umida, is like a sort of fantasticated Dickensian London, and the characters (and character names!) have a similarly Dickensian flourish. Other writers brought to mind as I romped through The Bone Magician were Mervyn Peake and Jeffrey Ford, while there's a dash of Terry Pratchett in there somewhere too. Really, though, Higgins has her own voice; the Dickensian comparisons just add to the fun.
And there's plenty of fun to be had here. Although the book's marketed as for middle graders/YA, I'd suggest adult readers are likely to get more fun out of it than anyone, not just because of the richness of its language but because every now and then you sense that, while most of the jokes are in plain view, there are others lurking just beneath the surface of the text, so to speak, and some of those are slightly, and quite delightfully, smutty. As for the humor in general? Well, here's a sample:
At one time Rudy had an entire circus under his command. Rudy Idolice's Peregrinating Panopticon of Wonders. . . . At the pinnacle of his success he had five caravans and over twenty exhibits. Sometimes he boasted twenty-one, depending [on] how he felt about the two-headed man.
The Bone Magician offers a fast, totally absorbing and often hilarious read. My one objection -- and this is no reflection on the quality of the novel -- is that the text is printed, at least in the edition I picked up, in a rather light sepia. At a superficial glance this is visually appealing in a quaint sort of way, but when it comes to the actual reading -- especially the reading of Pin's journal extracts, done all in italics -- the joy of the quaintness wears off fast. This should be no problem for those with younger eyes, but for the codger readership it's a bit of a pain in the fundament.
November 1, 2018
"A corpse on the cusp of putrefaction could hardly be considered the most entertaining company on a winter's evening, but Pin Carpue didn't do what he did for the conversation. He did it for the money"
I'm being slightly generous by giving this 3 stars but I did enjoy the author's sense of humour and it's a fun read.
The plot relies too much on coincidences to push the mystery forward. Sure, it's a children's book and maybe they won't notice? But personally, I think children deserve a bit more respect and a plot that's better thought out.
It's the second in a series, I think maybe the first one explains some of the things in this book that go unexplained. This can read as a stand-alone but I wasn't entirely sure what the story was supposed to be about - Pin's father's murder, the silver apple killer, or the bone magician. I think some parts of the plot could be explained by reading the first book and I wouldn't have been wondering the whole time when it would be explained. Because I hadn't there was too much going on and it felt like it kept jumping back and forth between two or three completely different stories. I don't know why I didn't read the first book first, I even have it on my shelves somewhere.
Anyway, this ended up not being about the bone magician at all, despite the title. He's barely in it.
I didn't like the journal entries, they felt out of character for Pin, too mature and too posh. Also, they were really hard to read because they are all in italics with a dark background! I got really irritated by them.
It's clearly heavily influenced by Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and his Ankh Morpork city. This is not a bad thing, and F.E. Higgins manages to bring the sense of silly in the right way humour that's needed and even put her own spin on it. She brings her city to life, I especially loved the descriptions of the river!
But it delights in being ghoulish and light-hearted and fun and that makes up for a lot. There's a lot of the macabre in the story - Pin works in an undertakers and his job is to watch the corpses to make sure they are really dead.
Lots of interesting characters keep it all moving and the plot is lively and fun even if it is crammed with too much. It kept me entertained for a while and it's not hard to read.
Give this a go if you are looking for a ghoulish and fun children's book, but don't expect too much from it.
January 5, 2024
I had never come across this author before so when I read the little blurb on the back of my paperback copy I thought I was in for a ghoulish fantasy. Instead I found myself going deeper and deeper into a novel that was reminding me of Leon Garfield - books such as Devil in the Fog and Smith.
The city of Urbs Umida does little to hide its similarity to a London spread between medieval times and the nineteenth century. The River Foedus smells as did the Thames during the Great Stink, and without a Bazalgette in sight to build a decent sewer. The churchyards are overflowing. The river is freezing over as did the Thames in the time of the Little Ice Age allowing Frost Fairs to take place on the ice. The Nimble Finger Inn, home to The Gluttonous Beast, seems to sit on a bridge crowded with shops and apartments - the London Bridge of medieval times. Peasoup fogs are a well known occurrence. And no one north of the Foedus wants to go south of the river - strong echoes of Southwark from the late sixteenth century onwards.
The south bank of Urs Umida is full of muggers, thieves, cutthroats, beggars, drunks, gamblers, charlatans and cardsharps. An ideal place for a young Garfield hero to go wandering in search of his disappeared father. I enjoyed the story that way. Much more than I would have done if Mr. Gaufridas had not been a caring, dedicated undertaker making certain the recently deceased were actually dead before the coffin lid was screwed down, or if Mr. Pantagus and Juno had not turned out to be real conjurers and tricksters who do not make the dead speak again. The Gluttonous Beast and Deodonatus Snoad were sufferers of the freak show trade and never monsters. The unmasking of the Silver Apple Killer - shades of Jack the Ripper toned down for a younger audience - becomes something of a sideshow behind everything else that is happening and the ending looks too firmly towards a sequel rather than bringing this novel to a satisfactory conclusion.
I feel compelled to read the first book in the series, The Black Book of Secrets, and those that follow on from this story. It was a very entertaining read.
The city of Urbs Umida does little to hide its similarity to a London spread between medieval times and the nineteenth century. The River Foedus smells as did the Thames during the Great Stink, and without a Bazalgette in sight to build a decent sewer. The churchyards are overflowing. The river is freezing over as did the Thames in the time of the Little Ice Age allowing Frost Fairs to take place on the ice. The Nimble Finger Inn, home to The Gluttonous Beast, seems to sit on a bridge crowded with shops and apartments - the London Bridge of medieval times. Peasoup fogs are a well known occurrence. And no one north of the Foedus wants to go south of the river - strong echoes of Southwark from the late sixteenth century onwards.
The south bank of Urs Umida is full of muggers, thieves, cutthroats, beggars, drunks, gamblers, charlatans and cardsharps. An ideal place for a young Garfield hero to go wandering in search of his disappeared father. I enjoyed the story that way. Much more than I would have done if Mr. Gaufridas had not been a caring, dedicated undertaker making certain the recently deceased were actually dead before the coffin lid was screwed down, or if Mr. Pantagus and Juno had not turned out to be real conjurers and tricksters who do not make the dead speak again. The Gluttonous Beast and Deodonatus Snoad were sufferers of the freak show trade and never monsters. The unmasking of the Silver Apple Killer - shades of Jack the Ripper toned down for a younger audience - becomes something of a sideshow behind everything else that is happening and the ending looks too firmly towards a sequel rather than bringing this novel to a satisfactory conclusion.
I feel compelled to read the first book in the series, The Black Book of Secrets, and those that follow on from this story. It was a very entertaining read.
November 20, 2020
[4.5/5]
Si Jean-Pierre Jeunet et Tim Burton devaient collaborer, ça donnerait ce roman !
Les personnages sont pour la plupart savoureux (Aluph et Beag <3), les dialogues souvent loufoques et même si l'histoire n'est pas complexe, on passe un agréable moment dans cette misérable ville ! Dommage que la suite ne soit pas publiée en France !
Si Jean-Pierre Jeunet et Tim Burton devaient collaborer, ça donnerait ce roman !
Les personnages sont pour la plupart savoureux (Aluph et Beag <3), les dialogues souvent loufoques et même si l'histoire n'est pas complexe, on passe un agréable moment dans cette misérable ville ! Dommage que la suite ne soit pas publiée en France !
August 30, 2017
This story takes place at the same time as: "The Black Book of Secrets."
Higgins tells a Gothic tale that is filled with seances and premature burials.
Parts of the story are told through the first person narration of: Pin Carpue.
Higgins tells a Gothic tale that is filled with seances and premature burials.
Parts of the story are told through the first person narration of: Pin Carpue.
July 9, 2017
Brilliant. This is exactly the kind of book I loved as a kid, and listening to it now let me indulge my inner kid.
Wonderfully dark and creepy, with great characters.
Wonderfully dark and creepy, with great characters.
December 30, 2010
This book looked right up my alley and when I saw it I had to pick it up. It is the second book in the Tales from the Sinister City series by Higgins. I actually hadn't read the first book, The Black Book of Secrets, and didn't realize this book was part of a series. The good thing is that you can still really enjoy The Bone Magician without having read the first book. Right now there are two more books in this series; The Eye Collector and The Lunatic's Curse. I really enjoyed this book, it had wonderful characters and a deliciously dark and sinister setting.
Pin is a boy who watches corpses for a living. It's not a bad job and it pays decent. With his mother dead and his father missing Pin is making due; living in a horribly dingy apartment in a city that is dark, foggy, and dangerous. Then while watching a corpse he is drugged by a couple of people who come in and raise the corpse to talk to it; thus he meets The Bone Magician and his young female assistant Juno. Outside of his job Pin has a mission, to prove that his father is not a murderer. Pin will get involved with a plethora of interesting characters along the way; The Bone Magician, Juno, the Silver Apple Killer (the cities requisite serial killer), and the horrible Gluttonous Beast to name a few.
This is a dark book, but it is deliciously so. The setting is foggy, Victorian, and darkly depressing...what I imagine the poorer parts of a city would have actually been like in this time frame. What really holds this book together are the strong flashes of wonderful kindness that are sprinkled through the darkness. For instance Pin, despite his horrible last year, is a surprisingly upstanding and responsible boy, with much depth to his character. Pin's employer is also surprisingly kind; it is like Pin knows how to bring out the best in the people he meets...he is a bright spot in a dark city.
There is a dark mystery mixed throughout, as the city tries to figure out the identity of the Silver Apple Killer. We see the story from many points of view: some parts are taken from Pin's Journal, some parts are from Pin's point of view, some from Juno's, some of the book is taken from newspapers, etc. I liked how all the miscellaneous sources worked well together to create an interesting story. I was actually impressed with the creativity and the craft it took to have all these journal entries, newspaper clippings, etc. brought together to makes this wonderful story.
Despite its darkness, the story is uplifting in the end. The book is creepy, but never really scary. It would be appropriate for middle grade and up. There is a lot of dealing with death in this book (since Pin does work for an undertaker) and a lot of descriptions of people living in abject poverty; but there isn't really anything too graphic or inappropriate.
Overall I really enjoyed this story. I love dark stories with a dark fairy tale feel to them that are full of mystery; I also love that the wonderful characters struggle against all odds to bring kindness and light into the dark world they live in. This book made me eager to pick up Higgins other Tales for the Sinister City books. If you are a fan of The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney I think you would like this dark and atmospheric story. This story is a keeper for me and I hope to read it to my son one day soon.
Pin is a boy who watches corpses for a living. It's not a bad job and it pays decent. With his mother dead and his father missing Pin is making due; living in a horribly dingy apartment in a city that is dark, foggy, and dangerous. Then while watching a corpse he is drugged by a couple of people who come in and raise the corpse to talk to it; thus he meets The Bone Magician and his young female assistant Juno. Outside of his job Pin has a mission, to prove that his father is not a murderer. Pin will get involved with a plethora of interesting characters along the way; The Bone Magician, Juno, the Silver Apple Killer (the cities requisite serial killer), and the horrible Gluttonous Beast to name a few.
This is a dark book, but it is deliciously so. The setting is foggy, Victorian, and darkly depressing...what I imagine the poorer parts of a city would have actually been like in this time frame. What really holds this book together are the strong flashes of wonderful kindness that are sprinkled through the darkness. For instance Pin, despite his horrible last year, is a surprisingly upstanding and responsible boy, with much depth to his character. Pin's employer is also surprisingly kind; it is like Pin knows how to bring out the best in the people he meets...he is a bright spot in a dark city.
There is a dark mystery mixed throughout, as the city tries to figure out the identity of the Silver Apple Killer. We see the story from many points of view: some parts are taken from Pin's Journal, some parts are from Pin's point of view, some from Juno's, some of the book is taken from newspapers, etc. I liked how all the miscellaneous sources worked well together to create an interesting story. I was actually impressed with the creativity and the craft it took to have all these journal entries, newspaper clippings, etc. brought together to makes this wonderful story.
Despite its darkness, the story is uplifting in the end. The book is creepy, but never really scary. It would be appropriate for middle grade and up. There is a lot of dealing with death in this book (since Pin does work for an undertaker) and a lot of descriptions of people living in abject poverty; but there isn't really anything too graphic or inappropriate.
Overall I really enjoyed this story. I love dark stories with a dark fairy tale feel to them that are full of mystery; I also love that the wonderful characters struggle against all odds to bring kindness and light into the dark world they live in. This book made me eager to pick up Higgins other Tales for the Sinister City books. If you are a fan of The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney I think you would like this dark and atmospheric story. This story is a keeper for me and I hope to read it to my son one day soon.
October 6, 2023
Magicianul oaselor nu este o continuare a Cărţii negre a secretelor, evenimentele au loc în acelaşi timp, există ce-i drept câteva corespondenţe între cele două poveşti însă acestea sunt minore. Ceea ce au în comun este Oraşul din care Ludlow Fitch fugise şi în care îşi duc viaţa noile noastre cunoştinţe. Totuşi, în această carte, oraşul are un nume-Urbs Umida şi e un soi de variantă de coşmar a Londrei victoriene. Râul Foedus- poluat, împuţit, toxic de-a dreptul (aproape la fel de periculos pentru simţul olfactiv ca Ankh-Morpork-ul lui Terry Pratchett dar mai puţin amuzant)-împarte oraşul în două zone, nordul-bogat, curat, exclusivist şi sudul-cu străzi, alei şi fundături înecate în gunoaie şi dejecţii, o faună periculoasă-cerşetori hidoşi, hoţi, şarlatani, tâlhari, ucigaşi, scandalagii beţivi-în care încearcă să-şi câştige şi să-şi ducă traiul mici meşteşugari, negustori, funcţionari, copii ai străzii, oameni muncitori dar săraci.
Mama lui Pin Carpue s-a născut în nordul oraşului, într-o familie bine situată, dar a fost dezmoştenită când a ales să se mărite cu un tâmplar din sud. Acum Pin e singur pe lume, femeia a murit iar tatăl, suspectat de a-şi fi ucis cumnatul, a dispărut fără urmă. E nevoit să-şi găsească de lucru şi un loc unde să doarmă, nu-şi mai permite chiria camerei unde locuia cu ai lui şi nici vecinii nu prea îl plac, se deosebește prea mult de ceilalți, începând cu ochii lui de culori diferite şi continuând cu faptul că ştie să scrie şi să citească ori că are ceea ce numim „bune maniere”, învăţate de la mama lui.
Cârciuma Pungaşul sprinţar, ţinută de Betty Peggoty, are două noi atracţii, una e Bestia Vorace, un soi de hominid de doi metri, care zdrobeşte şi înfulecă hartane de carne scoţând fornăieli şi alte zgomote dezgustătoare, cealată e Magicianul oaselor, Benedict Pantagus; asistat de nepoata sa Juno, susţine că poate învia morţii ori anima scheletul unei prezicătoare celebre, pentru a afla viitorul. O mulţime de oameni asistă la aceste spectacole, printre ei, Beag Hickory, bard şi mare aruncător de cartofi, Aluph Buncombe, topograf cranian ori Deodonatus Snoad, maliţiosul redactor al ziarului Cronica Urbs Umida.
Drumurile şi vieţile acestor oameni se vor întretăia în mod dramatic în povestea aceasta, mai ales că prin oraş bântuie şi un criminal în serie, Ucigaşul Măr Argintiu, de care Pin abia scapă, datorită unui cartof aruncat de Beag cu mare măiestrie şi faptului că râul a îngheţat din cauza iernii foarte grele, ceva nemaipomenit până atunci.
Atmosfera dickensiană e mult mai întunecată, a căpătat accente gotice, dar cartea e mai interesantă, atât datorită personajelor, mai multe, mai bine conturate, care mi-au stârnit interesul mai mult decât cele din Pagus Parvus, cât şi datorită întâmplărilor, macabre, misterioase, terifiante.
Finalul ne dezvăluie faptul că cele două poveşti şi eroii lor vor intra în coliziune la un moment dat în viitor, Pin şi Juno părăsesc Urbs Umida iar fata e hotărâtă să-i dea de urmă lui Joe Zabbidou despre care crede că i-a ucis tatăl…
P.S. F.E. Higgins și-a continuat seria cu The Eyeball Collector și The Lunatic’s Curse, Corint Junior însă ne-a lăsat cu ochii în soare, thank you very much!
Mai multe: https://jurnal365.ro/recenzia-de-vine...
Mama lui Pin Carpue s-a născut în nordul oraşului, într-o familie bine situată, dar a fost dezmoştenită când a ales să se mărite cu un tâmplar din sud. Acum Pin e singur pe lume, femeia a murit iar tatăl, suspectat de a-şi fi ucis cumnatul, a dispărut fără urmă. E nevoit să-şi găsească de lucru şi un loc unde să doarmă, nu-şi mai permite chiria camerei unde locuia cu ai lui şi nici vecinii nu prea îl plac, se deosebește prea mult de ceilalți, începând cu ochii lui de culori diferite şi continuând cu faptul că ştie să scrie şi să citească ori că are ceea ce numim „bune maniere”, învăţate de la mama lui.
Cârciuma Pungaşul sprinţar, ţinută de Betty Peggoty, are două noi atracţii, una e Bestia Vorace, un soi de hominid de doi metri, care zdrobeşte şi înfulecă hartane de carne scoţând fornăieli şi alte zgomote dezgustătoare, cealată e Magicianul oaselor, Benedict Pantagus; asistat de nepoata sa Juno, susţine că poate învia morţii ori anima scheletul unei prezicătoare celebre, pentru a afla viitorul. O mulţime de oameni asistă la aceste spectacole, printre ei, Beag Hickory, bard şi mare aruncător de cartofi, Aluph Buncombe, topograf cranian ori Deodonatus Snoad, maliţiosul redactor al ziarului Cronica Urbs Umida.
Drumurile şi vieţile acestor oameni se vor întretăia în mod dramatic în povestea aceasta, mai ales că prin oraş bântuie şi un criminal în serie, Ucigaşul Măr Argintiu, de care Pin abia scapă, datorită unui cartof aruncat de Beag cu mare măiestrie şi faptului că râul a îngheţat din cauza iernii foarte grele, ceva nemaipomenit până atunci.
Atmosfera dickensiană e mult mai întunecată, a căpătat accente gotice, dar cartea e mai interesantă, atât datorită personajelor, mai multe, mai bine conturate, care mi-au stârnit interesul mai mult decât cele din Pagus Parvus, cât şi datorită întâmplărilor, macabre, misterioase, terifiante.
Finalul ne dezvăluie faptul că cele două poveşti şi eroii lor vor intra în coliziune la un moment dat în viitor, Pin şi Juno părăsesc Urbs Umida iar fata e hotărâtă să-i dea de urmă lui Joe Zabbidou despre care crede că i-a ucis tatăl…
P.S. F.E. Higgins și-a continuat seria cu The Eyeball Collector și The Lunatic’s Curse, Corint Junior însă ne-a lăsat cu ochii în soare, thank you very much!
Mai multe: https://jurnal365.ro/recenzia-de-vine...
April 15, 2010
The Bone Magician is a very different book from most books. It starts out in a town named Urbs Umidia. Urbs Umidia is split into two sections, the North and the South. The North is full of rich people, who have all money, but don't work a day in their life. What happens if they run low on money? They secretly murder one of their neighbors and take their fortunes for themselves. In contrast, the South is full of poor beggars who live on pick-pocketing others. It is a place full of violence, but not as much murdering. That is, until the Silver Apple Killer shows up...
Pin Carpue is a boy who lives on the South side. His mother is from the North, but she married a man from the South. This was a very dangerous move, but she did it. Sadly, his mom died, and it made Pin's father slowly waste away. One day Pin comes home and finds his uncle dead on the ground, and his father missing. Everyone suspects it was Mr. Carpue who is the murderer. So now Pin is left to fend for himself on his own in the rough South side.
Pin takes up a job watching dead bodies to see if they will wake up. Then, all of a sudden, one day Pin is drugged watching a body named Sybil. He kind of wakes up a little later, but not enough for those around to see. All of a sudden, two people, after a lot of potions and sayings, make Sybil rise from the dead to talk to her husband. Pin cannot believe it. The secret? You have to read to find out.
This book is about how Pin makes his way around the city looking for his father and the Silver Apple Killer to show everyone that these two names are not the same person.
I really liked this book, and thought it started a little slow, but really kept me reading through the end. I thought F. E. Higgins did a great job writing this book. She started out with switching between multiple characters seeming not at all related, but brought them all together in the end. I would recommend this book to all who love mystery and adventure.
Pin Carpue is a boy who lives on the South side. His mother is from the North, but she married a man from the South. This was a very dangerous move, but she did it. Sadly, his mom died, and it made Pin's father slowly waste away. One day Pin comes home and finds his uncle dead on the ground, and his father missing. Everyone suspects it was Mr. Carpue who is the murderer. So now Pin is left to fend for himself on his own in the rough South side.
Pin takes up a job watching dead bodies to see if they will wake up. Then, all of a sudden, one day Pin is drugged watching a body named Sybil. He kind of wakes up a little later, but not enough for those around to see. All of a sudden, two people, after a lot of potions and sayings, make Sybil rise from the dead to talk to her husband. Pin cannot believe it. The secret? You have to read to find out.
This book is about how Pin makes his way around the city looking for his father and the Silver Apple Killer to show everyone that these two names are not the same person.
I really liked this book, and thought it started a little slow, but really kept me reading through the end. I thought F. E. Higgins did a great job writing this book. She started out with switching between multiple characters seeming not at all related, but brought them all together in the end. I would recommend this book to all who love mystery and adventure.
May 6, 2013
Le Magicien des Morts est le deuxième opus de la saga. A premier abord je trouve l'histoire moins intéressante que le premier volet "Le livre noir des secrets" et est un peu lent dans l’ensemble.
Cela dit l'auteur utilise trois mode d'écritures - La narration indirecte dans la majeure partie du livre, La narration directe de Pin le personnage principal dans ses les lettres-journal et une narration faite par le journaliste Déodonatus Snoad dans ses articles - qui racontent peu à peu l'histoire donnant ainsi plus d'énergie au récit.
Les descriptions des lieux et personnages restent simples mais bien amenés. On entre comme pour "le livre noir des secrets" dans une ambiances due aux lieux, très sombre et la noirceur et l'horreur sont de mise (avec un clin d'oeil au Freaks Show avec les nombreux monstres arpentant les pages du livre par leur physique repoussant).
Les descriptions d'odeurs sont également récurrentes dans l'histoire, comme des senteurs parfumées (essentiellement dans les levés de corps) mais aussi des odeurs de pourritures dues à la crasse et le glauque de la ville et, au Foedus, le fleuve au eaux pourries et nauséabondes qui traverse la ville.
Le livre se lit rapidement avec une écriture simple mais je n'y pas pris autant de plaisir qu'avec son prédécesseur bien que j'ai tout de même passé un bon moment à découvrir l'intrigue de cette histoire.
Cela dit l'auteur utilise trois mode d'écritures - La narration indirecte dans la majeure partie du livre, La narration directe de Pin le personnage principal dans ses les lettres-journal et une narration faite par le journaliste Déodonatus Snoad dans ses articles - qui racontent peu à peu l'histoire donnant ainsi plus d'énergie au récit.
Les descriptions des lieux et personnages restent simples mais bien amenés. On entre comme pour "le livre noir des secrets" dans une ambiances due aux lieux, très sombre et la noirceur et l'horreur sont de mise (avec un clin d'oeil au Freaks Show avec les nombreux monstres arpentant les pages du livre par leur physique repoussant).
Les descriptions d'odeurs sont également récurrentes dans l'histoire, comme des senteurs parfumées (essentiellement dans les levés de corps) mais aussi des odeurs de pourritures dues à la crasse et le glauque de la ville et, au Foedus, le fleuve au eaux pourries et nauséabondes qui traverse la ville.
Le livre se lit rapidement avec une écriture simple mais je n'y pas pris autant de plaisir qu'avec son prédécesseur bien que j'ai tout de même passé un bon moment à découvrir l'intrigue de cette histoire.
July 8, 2009
I give this book a 10. It is written in the first person and the second and is written very well. It has interesting characters and thoughts about humans and life. "I wonder if it is better to be in a beautiful house looking at an ugly one, or to be in an ugly house looking at a beautiful one." Pin is the main character. He works for an undertaker named Goddfrey Gaufridus, who one day when he was a teenager went into a coma. Luckily the undertaker was dishonest and sold him to the medical college. He woke up just as they were getting ready to carve him up. He makes it is life's work to insure that the people he buries are dead for sure! He has all kinds of contraptions to awake them such as a leather toe sock you put on and jerk their foot, ect... It's creative, funny and insightful. There's a frustrated poet dwarf who throws potatoes, Aluph Buncombe, a reader of Bumps and it has the feel of Beauty and the Beast of Phantom of the Opera and is funny. I felt like the author was describing London in the time of the plague. He has another book,The Black Book of Secrets. Definitely worth the read.
July 15, 2014
The Bone Magician was an excellent follow up to F.E. Higgins's Black Book of Secrets. I love how she weaves all the characters together and that they are independent of each other. As always, the characters are very interesting and the plot is fast paced and captivating. The tale has the Gothic overtones and is a little bit creepy without being over the top and pointless. There are references to drugs and murder which might not make it appropriate for younger readers, but it would be a great addition to any school library for students grades 4 and older.
February 6, 2010
It supposed to be scary at least promised by the reviews written inside the book, i didn't find it that disturbing, but lets be honest its children's book and i am a hint away from early middle-agedom...nevertheless its still a good read, and although a bit predictable sometimes still with twists that make you go a-ha in the end... i cant wait for the next installment where the stories from this and previous book come together...
December 4, 2009
Even better than The Black Book of Secrets. This one tells the story of a young boy whose job it is to sit up with dead bodies overnight at the undertaker's to make sure they're really dead. He discovers a network of swindlers that he has to muster the courage to take on. Higgins adds to the mysteries of her series by the end, promising more to come.
August 23, 2015
Really great book. If you read the previous Black Book of Secrets, you will like this one as well.
Read
October 30, 2019The Bone Magician is a good book that is made by F.E. Higgins with a 920 lexile level. This book is about a young boy on his own after his mother a northerner of Urbs Umida that was wealthy until she was disowned for marrying the boy’s father a southerner who was just a carpenter that got by on his honest work. The boy Pin his mother died after awhile from a sickness that they didn’t have the cure for and after that his father started caring less and eventually Pin was left at home and eventually went out to find his father but when he came home, his uncle who had been harassing them even before his mother died was dead in Pin and his fathers lodgings and Pin’s father had been the prime suspect since he had been seen fleeing the scene. The rest of the book is Pin’s tale of woe where you read about his life after that and you read with developing a sense of how things work in that wretched town because you get a taste of both made up story that was made to fill in the gaps that were left after the author found the pages of Pin’s journal and some are in the book. You will also see him develop friendships and you will read about little tales from the other characters that they went through too.
One theme I saw throughout most of the book was suffering sweetens the reward because Pin had to pay most of his money for rent and get berated with comments or question about is father. Pin had to watch bodies and extremely rarely his employer would leave the shop and Pin would have to by himself tend to customers work on coffins and all that alone. Another character you could say this for would be Beag the potato thrower, when he was just ten he sat on the cathaoir feasa for an entire night alone on top of the devils ridge. The mountain devils ridge already had snow on it even though it wasn’t winter at the bottom it was warm but the top felt like winter so the wind was cold and it nipped at his exposed skin and during the night he got drenched by the rain and the wind whipped him to the point where Beag felt he would be swept up by the wind if he didn’t hold on for dear life. Another character who had suffered a bit but came out with a reward would be Juno Catchpole or Juno Pantagus her actual last name is Catchpole but she uses Pantagus for her job which I will get to after explaining what happened with Juno. Juno’s mother died while juno was young so her father a physician had to raise her on his own and he taught her how to do a lot of medical related things that are not stuff used in the medical field today. Juno’s father was eventually murdered but before he was after patients started to give her father money in their will he was suspected as a murderer later after which he was murdered by trickery from what Juno says. After Juno’s father died, she could not stay there since the town hated her so she moved to Urbs Umida but quickly found out it was a terrible place so she took to stay every night at the graveyard because grave robbers didn’t care about a little girl trying to go to sleep. One day Juno was paid a shilling to dig a grave for an old man this encounter would lead to her working with him and he would be the bone magician and she would be his assistant but it is said bone magicians are born not made so for the act she used the last name Pantagus because otherwise it would ruin the effect if the old man Benedict Pantagus the bone magician and his assistant who would know the secrets would be Juno Catchpole.
This book the Bone Magician is a good book I will not falter on that opinion. The book is good because it brings elements that actually happened way back in the past and combines it with made up stuff that most likely never happened, it is very interesting. This book while a good one is very easy to read which makes it feel like it was too small a book after you have read it. This book also had many good parts that made it interesting like when Deodonatus Snoad the writer for the daily chronicle who was Mr. Hideous in Rudy Idolice’s parade. Deodonatus eventually freed the Beast Rudy’s only form of income after his parade left he captured the beast and used it to get money but when Deodonatus freed the beast both he and rudy died. All in all the book was good and I would recommend the book to you because it is fun to read even if it isn’t all that long.
One theme I saw throughout most of the book was suffering sweetens the reward because Pin had to pay most of his money for rent and get berated with comments or question about is father. Pin had to watch bodies and extremely rarely his employer would leave the shop and Pin would have to by himself tend to customers work on coffins and all that alone. Another character you could say this for would be Beag the potato thrower, when he was just ten he sat on the cathaoir feasa for an entire night alone on top of the devils ridge. The mountain devils ridge already had snow on it even though it wasn’t winter at the bottom it was warm but the top felt like winter so the wind was cold and it nipped at his exposed skin and during the night he got drenched by the rain and the wind whipped him to the point where Beag felt he would be swept up by the wind if he didn’t hold on for dear life. Another character who had suffered a bit but came out with a reward would be Juno Catchpole or Juno Pantagus her actual last name is Catchpole but she uses Pantagus for her job which I will get to after explaining what happened with Juno. Juno’s mother died while juno was young so her father a physician had to raise her on his own and he taught her how to do a lot of medical related things that are not stuff used in the medical field today. Juno’s father was eventually murdered but before he was after patients started to give her father money in their will he was suspected as a murderer later after which he was murdered by trickery from what Juno says. After Juno’s father died, she could not stay there since the town hated her so she moved to Urbs Umida but quickly found out it was a terrible place so she took to stay every night at the graveyard because grave robbers didn’t care about a little girl trying to go to sleep. One day Juno was paid a shilling to dig a grave for an old man this encounter would lead to her working with him and he would be the bone magician and she would be his assistant but it is said bone magicians are born not made so for the act she used the last name Pantagus because otherwise it would ruin the effect if the old man Benedict Pantagus the bone magician and his assistant who would know the secrets would be Juno Catchpole.
This book the Bone Magician is a good book I will not falter on that opinion. The book is good because it brings elements that actually happened way back in the past and combines it with made up stuff that most likely never happened, it is very interesting. This book while a good one is very easy to read which makes it feel like it was too small a book after you have read it. This book also had many good parts that made it interesting like when Deodonatus Snoad the writer for the daily chronicle who was Mr. Hideous in Rudy Idolice’s parade. Deodonatus eventually freed the Beast Rudy’s only form of income after his parade left he captured the beast and used it to get money but when Deodonatus freed the beast both he and rudy died. All in all the book was good and I would recommend the book to you because it is fun to read even if it isn’t all that long.
November 17, 2020
A charmingly grim book.
Many commenters have said that the problem with this book is that it slaps you in the face with how miserable the setting is and that it doesn't live up to its partner, the Black Book of Secrets. This is my first Higgins book, so perhaps that accounts for my ignorance. I found the characters and storytelling charming, all the more for being set in so dreary a setting. If the author makes it clear that the world is a dark place, what of it? I wonder if the complaints this book receives are a result not so much of a lack of quality on the part of the author but rather discomfort on the part of the reader, which to me indicates a job well-done. If you lived in the southern half of Urbs Umida, you'd be constantly thinking of how miserable the place was, too. Personally, I didn't find the reminders obtrusive. They set the tone properly. The cast of characters shine all the more for their dark surroundings. Pin is a charming, likable character. The interactions of all the characters are clever and witty. Overall, I find the tone to be well-balanced.
Another common criticism seems to be that the Bone Magician has little to do with its own title. On this particular issue, I must wholeheartedly disagree. There was a good amount of bone magicianing about the land of Urbs Umida. I truly don’t know what these complaints are about. Does the bone magician need to be the main character? Not a particularly imaginative approach to naming books. Perhaps I simply don't know any better. Perhaps my expectations have been dragged down by books far-less connected with their titles than this one (such as Death Comes for the Archbishop, wherein we are forced to endure far too much of the Archbishop's life before getting to the title). I find the best books are named after something significant, not necessarily something prominent. The Bone Magician is a story not about the bone magician but about the experiences of a boy living in a city as grim as bone, living a life still tied to his dead past. Like the deceased who are animated by Mr. Pantagus’ particular brand of magic, Pin is trying to breathe life back into his existence. In a way, the real bone magic is happening in Pin's soul as the events surrounding his experience of bone magic shape his future.
Besides the matter of tone and titular relevance, the author has an excellent vocabulary. Her choice of words is evocative but neither cumbersome nor ostentatious. I even encountered two words I was unfamiliar with and made a point of looking them up, which is a pleasant surprise for me, provided of course that it happens only occasionally. Finding a new and well-used word that still leaves you able to keep reading if you desire is like a pretty rock on a long walk. You want maybe one or two such rocks to arrest your travels and pull you aside for examination but not so many that they become an obstacle or a common sight. If it’s a particularly nice rock, you might even bother to keep it. Just so with this book and it’s occasional, well-placed new words (for those curious, they were ‘insalubrious’ and ‘chilblained’). Having recently finished another book with a bad habit of throwing in new words more to show off the author's ability to learn new words than to delight the readers or convey any useful narrative, Higgins’ words, chosen with delightful care, was a nice contrast and palette cleanser.
It may be that this book is not as well-written as the rest of the series. If that is the case, then I have the benefit of stumbling upon this book first, finding it excellent, and knowing that the series only improves from here. If the criticism of this book are so harsh, then the rest of Higgins’ work must be truly wonderful. I look forward to my next excursion into this world.
Many commenters have said that the problem with this book is that it slaps you in the face with how miserable the setting is and that it doesn't live up to its partner, the Black Book of Secrets. This is my first Higgins book, so perhaps that accounts for my ignorance. I found the characters and storytelling charming, all the more for being set in so dreary a setting. If the author makes it clear that the world is a dark place, what of it? I wonder if the complaints this book receives are a result not so much of a lack of quality on the part of the author but rather discomfort on the part of the reader, which to me indicates a job well-done. If you lived in the southern half of Urbs Umida, you'd be constantly thinking of how miserable the place was, too. Personally, I didn't find the reminders obtrusive. They set the tone properly. The cast of characters shine all the more for their dark surroundings. Pin is a charming, likable character. The interactions of all the characters are clever and witty. Overall, I find the tone to be well-balanced.
Another common criticism seems to be that the Bone Magician has little to do with its own title. On this particular issue, I must wholeheartedly disagree. There was a good amount of bone magicianing about the land of Urbs Umida. I truly don’t know what these complaints are about. Does the bone magician need to be the main character? Not a particularly imaginative approach to naming books. Perhaps I simply don't know any better. Perhaps my expectations have been dragged down by books far-less connected with their titles than this one (such as Death Comes for the Archbishop, wherein we are forced to endure far too much of the Archbishop's life before getting to the title). I find the best books are named after something significant, not necessarily something prominent. The Bone Magician is a story not about the bone magician but about the experiences of a boy living in a city as grim as bone, living a life still tied to his dead past. Like the deceased who are animated by Mr. Pantagus’ particular brand of magic, Pin is trying to breathe life back into his existence. In a way, the real bone magic is happening in Pin's soul as the events surrounding his experience of bone magic shape his future.
Besides the matter of tone and titular relevance, the author has an excellent vocabulary. Her choice of words is evocative but neither cumbersome nor ostentatious. I even encountered two words I was unfamiliar with and made a point of looking them up, which is a pleasant surprise for me, provided of course that it happens only occasionally. Finding a new and well-used word that still leaves you able to keep reading if you desire is like a pretty rock on a long walk. You want maybe one or two such rocks to arrest your travels and pull you aside for examination but not so many that they become an obstacle or a common sight. If it’s a particularly nice rock, you might even bother to keep it. Just so with this book and it’s occasional, well-placed new words (for those curious, they were ‘insalubrious’ and ‘chilblained’). Having recently finished another book with a bad habit of throwing in new words more to show off the author's ability to learn new words than to delight the readers or convey any useful narrative, Higgins’ words, chosen with delightful care, was a nice contrast and palette cleanser.
It may be that this book is not as well-written as the rest of the series. If that is the case, then I have the benefit of stumbling upon this book first, finding it excellent, and knowing that the series only improves from here. If the criticism of this book are so harsh, then the rest of Higgins’ work must be truly wonderful. I look forward to my next excursion into this world.
July 17, 2018
Not On Par With "The Black Book of Secrets"
This is the second book in Higgins' four volume "Tales From The Sinister Cities" series. The first book in the series, "The Black Book of Secrets", was marvelous, and widely regarded as such. It was dark, atmospheric, clever and compelling. As a consequence my hopes and expectations for this second volume were high. Judged that way, this book was a disappointment.
The setup is that our hero, Pin, lives on the south side of Urbs Umida, which is on the wrong side of the River Foedus and is a fetid slum. This is driven home over and over again to the point of near self-parody. The overall feel is, intentionally I suppose, Dickens-lite, with a Victorian period style, lots of colorful characters with exaggerated odd names, and so on. The book is aimed at younger readers, and pretty much everything is underlined, repeated, and highlighted.
Pin and our heroine, Juno, meet cute when Pin is guarding a corpse to make sure it's dead and Juno arrives on the scene as the apprentice to a bone magician who undertakes to briefly reanimate the corpse. This certainly had potential, but the bone magic is underplayed and more or less drifts out of the picture. Rather, the tale revolves primarily around a Jack the Ripper set of murders taking place in Urbs Umida, and the open question of whether Pin's fugitive father may be involved in the murders. That tale is the true backbone of the story, although how it will be resolved becomes clear very early on.
So, without the prospect of the Gothic creepiness of "The Black Book of Secrets", this tale has to be carried by Pin's plucky Dickens orphan boy adventures. It is nice to report that in that regard Pin emerges as an engaging character - he's resourceful, thoughtful, observant, and steadfast and makes a fine hero. He does find himself in a number of amusing situations, and there are some suspenseful action scenes. There are some worthy secondary characters, (a potato-throwing dwarf poet steals every page he's on), and a number of set scenes that are charming and amusing despite not being central to anything. Whether that's enough to carry the book, though, probably depends on where you come out on middle grade Dickens-style stories.
So, this was a perfectly fine Victorian character adventure for younger readers. It just wasn't in the same league as "Black Book", which is what most readers, like me, were really looking for.
This is the second book in Higgins' four volume "Tales From The Sinister Cities" series. The first book in the series, "The Black Book of Secrets", was marvelous, and widely regarded as such. It was dark, atmospheric, clever and compelling. As a consequence my hopes and expectations for this second volume were high. Judged that way, this book was a disappointment.
The setup is that our hero, Pin, lives on the south side of Urbs Umida, which is on the wrong side of the River Foedus and is a fetid slum. This is driven home over and over again to the point of near self-parody. The overall feel is, intentionally I suppose, Dickens-lite, with a Victorian period style, lots of colorful characters with exaggerated odd names, and so on. The book is aimed at younger readers, and pretty much everything is underlined, repeated, and highlighted.
Pin and our heroine, Juno, meet cute when Pin is guarding a corpse to make sure it's dead and Juno arrives on the scene as the apprentice to a bone magician who undertakes to briefly reanimate the corpse. This certainly had potential, but the bone magic is underplayed and more or less drifts out of the picture. Rather, the tale revolves primarily around a Jack the Ripper set of murders taking place in Urbs Umida, and the open question of whether Pin's fugitive father may be involved in the murders. That tale is the true backbone of the story, although how it will be resolved becomes clear very early on.
So, without the prospect of the Gothic creepiness of "The Black Book of Secrets", this tale has to be carried by Pin's plucky Dickens orphan boy adventures. It is nice to report that in that regard Pin emerges as an engaging character - he's resourceful, thoughtful, observant, and steadfast and makes a fine hero. He does find himself in a number of amusing situations, and there are some suspenseful action scenes. There are some worthy secondary characters, (a potato-throwing dwarf poet steals every page he's on), and a number of set scenes that are charming and amusing despite not being central to anything. Whether that's enough to carry the book, though, probably depends on where you come out on middle grade Dickens-style stories.
So, this was a perfectly fine Victorian character adventure for younger readers. It just wasn't in the same league as "Black Book", which is what most readers, like me, were really looking for.
August 31, 2025
“Ο ανόητον θεωρεί ανόητο ως καλόν.”
THIS IS AMAZING. Top tier honestly. As a fellow lover of classic literature, so I consider myself somehow not that new to the world of books, grabbing this one resulted in a canon even that could’ve not been interfered. This, even after years of reading, for a reason felt like such a fresh gasp of air, the specific creepiness that is unfortunately uncommon in adult books, even if we are speaking about fantasy (for a reason), that as a kid I feel that could haunt you so well. The end got me INCREDIBLY hooked, I was devouring the last pages. Perhaps a light reading but it felt so haunting, the whole story reminding me well of David’s Linch masterpiece - The Elephant Man. I have many thoughts around this, but Deodonatus’s last article stroke a specific and thin but indeed sensible string in my heart. And the fact that the author also left the short fairytale at the end felt as a final testimonial from him. This should not only make the kids but also the adults once again think about the way we are treating eachother as a kind. The humankind is indeed complex and as beautiful as ugly it is.
THIS IS AMAZING. Top tier honestly. As a fellow lover of classic literature, so I consider myself somehow not that new to the world of books, grabbing this one resulted in a canon even that could’ve not been interfered. This, even after years of reading, for a reason felt like such a fresh gasp of air, the specific creepiness that is unfortunately uncommon in adult books, even if we are speaking about fantasy (for a reason), that as a kid I feel that could haunt you so well. The end got me INCREDIBLY hooked, I was devouring the last pages. Perhaps a light reading but it felt so haunting, the whole story reminding me well of David’s Linch masterpiece - The Elephant Man. I have many thoughts around this, but Deodonatus’s last article stroke a specific and thin but indeed sensible string in my heart. And the fact that the author also left the short fairytale at the end felt as a final testimonial from him. This should not only make the kids but also the adults once again think about the way we are treating eachother as a kind. The humankind is indeed complex and as beautiful as ugly it is.
December 10, 2023
3.5 stars.
I went into this with high hopes but, unfortunately, I didn’t love this as much as The Black Book of Secrets. Although the book opens clearly informing the reader that this is a “paraquel” to TBBofS (a word invented by the author to describe a separate book happening at the same time as their previous book) I was still let down to realize it wouldn’t have Ludlow Fitch.
The story itself isn’t even as quirky or delightful as TBBofS. There is a small resolution at the end but the interconnected threads just aren’t there. The characters are not as richly endearing as those in TBBofS, although I will admit to a few that made me smile.
The writing is still intriguing. Higgins knows how to suck you in and keep you hooked! I was certain I’d leave this book not wanting to continue the series but Higgins took the very last page and hooked me for the next book. I still love TBBofS (to my core) but I’m headed to the next book to discover how these two seemingly unrelated plots connect with each other.
I went into this with high hopes but, unfortunately, I didn’t love this as much as The Black Book of Secrets. Although the book opens clearly informing the reader that this is a “paraquel” to TBBofS (a word invented by the author to describe a separate book happening at the same time as their previous book) I was still let down to realize it wouldn’t have Ludlow Fitch.
The story itself isn’t even as quirky or delightful as TBBofS. There is a small resolution at the end but the interconnected threads just aren’t there. The characters are not as richly endearing as those in TBBofS, although I will admit to a few that made me smile.
The writing is still intriguing. Higgins knows how to suck you in and keep you hooked! I was certain I’d leave this book not wanting to continue the series but Higgins took the very last page and hooked me for the next book. I still love TBBofS (to my core) but I’m headed to the next book to discover how these two seemingly unrelated plots connect with each other.
July 7, 2022
The Bone Magician is an enjoyable enough book with a secondary plot more interesting than the main story, a "villain" who, to be fair, was pretty justified, some misses when attempting to do a Lemony Snickety-esque writing style, and a scene that genuinely surprised me at its emotional impact.
The most interesting part of my edition of this book is the fact I got it some years back from my old secondary school library, and somehow they had gotten hold of a NOT FOR SALE - UNCORRECTED ADVANCE PROOF, complete with formatting errors, no cover art, and a table of contents where every chapter starts on page 000
The most interesting part of my edition of this book is the fact I got it some years back from my old secondary school library, and somehow they had gotten hold of a NOT FOR SALE - UNCORRECTED ADVANCE PROOF, complete with formatting errors, no cover art, and a table of contents where every chapter starts on page 000
"'Here,' said Juno. She handed him a posy of dried white flowers. 'Daisies from the Moiraean Mountains. I was going to put them in the coffin. They mean "sorry".'"
February 6, 2022
The synopsis and title of this book is a bit misleading. There’s very little focus on the bone magician. It seems more so about whether or not the boy’s father murdered his uncle as well as a possible serial killer with an antagonist newspaper columnist. A multitude of other characters are introduced, so the story frequenters shifts perspectives making it quite hard to connect with the characters or the plot. It didn’t hold my interest at all and I often wondered where the story was going because I was so bored with it. Maybe it was meant to be suspenseful but I felt nothing. DNF. 109 pages.
September 1, 2017
The book is fairly simple in its dialogues and whole structure, and the final plot-twist isn't that surprising to the adult reader. However, the atmosphere, the wicked adjectives chosen to describe a wreck of a city full of personality (and the bravery to do so in a "childish" book), and the lovely characters (specially the skull inspector and the potato thrower) are what make this book such an unforgettable short story that I still love to revise from time to time.
August 6, 2022
3.1
I didn't like this one as much as the first. There were three or four different stories going on at the same time (and the bone magician was not the most prominent most of the time), and it was hard to see where the plot was going. There was no goal, no increasing tension. On the plus side, the writing, the setting, the humor, all of that made up for a bit of a messy plot. At the end of the day, these books (this is the second in a series) are still a fun read.
I didn't like this one as much as the first. There were three or four different stories going on at the same time (and the bone magician was not the most prominent most of the time), and it was hard to see where the plot was going. There was no goal, no increasing tension. On the plus side, the writing, the setting, the humor, all of that made up for a bit of a messy plot. At the end of the day, these books (this is the second in a series) are still a fun read.
May 6, 2017
I'm enjoying the sinister city world. While the series might seem dark for children's fiction, there's a faint but promising note of hope in them. I'm expecting things to resolve in a way that is satisfying, but probably not perfectly happily-ever-after.
December 10, 2020
I truly. truly liked this one, literally read it from cover to cover, adored Pin's diary, and the people he met all peculiar, ans has their own tales...and this connection between it and the Black book of secrets at the end ...all in all I wont mind reading more of F.E.Higgins
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April 10, 2023It was absolutely fine...
Pin was a little annoying.
I can't imagine how a moving body of water can smell that bad... And why do people die when they fall in? Only in the winter, or also in the summer?
That the skeleton is pins mother is completely unnecessary.
Pin was a little annoying.
I can't imagine how a moving body of water can smell that bad... And why do people die when they fall in? Only in the winter, or also in the summer?
That the skeleton is pins mother is completely unnecessary.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 1, 2017
Review by T.R.: "It was weird in a good way but it was boring at the same time."
July 31, 2017
2.5 stars. I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first book. But I am interested in finding out how the characters cross paths and to see how things get wrapped up.
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