And Put Away Childish Things

Terrible Worlds: Destinations

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Harry Bodie’s been called into the delightful fantasy world of his grandmother’s beloved children’s books. It’s not delightful here at all.

All roads lead to Underhill, where it’s always winter, and never nice.

Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. Harry himself is a failing kids’ TV presenter whose every attempt to advance his career ends in self-sabotage. His family history seems to be nothing but an impediment.

An impediment... or worse. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands?

Genres: Fantasy, Novella, Horror, Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Urban Fantasy

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 2023

About the author

ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY was born in Lincolnshire and studied zoology and psychology at Reading, before practising law in Leeds. He is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor and is trained in stage-fighting. His literary influences include Gene Wolfe, Mervyn Peake, China Miéville, Mary Gently, Steven Erikson, Naomi Novak, Scott Lynch and Alan Campbell.

Reviews

[Nataliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I just wanted to be the promised prince and heir to a magical kingdom,” he told the walls of his cell. “Is that so much? Is that bad of me? I mean, what did I do to earn this clusterfuck, precisely?”

There are portal fantasies (hello, Narnia — for those like me who haven’t read Narnia books, that’s the association that the wardrobe on the cover is apparently supposed to evoke), and there are anti-portal fantasies where the world behind the magical door isn’t all that hunky-dory (Lev Grossman’s Fillory). And then there’s whatever Adrian Tchaikovsky does here, with his off-kilter take on the portal fantasy set during the early pandemic months — what remains of the fantasy once the titular childish things have been put away and a bit of horror undercurrent comes into the story, with an eventual science-fictional flavor.

“He had his own problems, not least of which was discovering that not only was Underhill real, it was a bloody nightmare of epic proportions.”

This novella is rather a delightful mix of dilapidated fantasy setting and snarky reality, set in the shadow of lives full of wasted potential. The world through the portal - Underhill - is not a happy shiny Narnia place (“… childish things they hadn’t put aside when they grew up”), but neither is it a dark gritty setting. It’s a world bubble in strange decay, with quite a bit of odd creepiness there, the vibe of an abandoned playground just before full dark. Tchaikovsky pokes a bit of fun at the good old portal fantasy tropes here, yes, but with a bit of a thoughtfulness, skillfully and sometimes sneakily cynically, and overall in a weirdly enjoyable but twee-less way with the cuteness mercilessly stripped away.

“They were the usual sort of post-war kids’ stuff, born out of a world of rationing so that the young protagonists’ rewards for fighting giants or recovering stolen jewellery was often no more than a decent meal, which they were glad to get. They were ’50s nostalgia that the Baby Boom generation had grown up on, about another world that was green and magical and nice and constantly under threat by monsters both buffoonish and genuinely monstrous.”

I liked that Tchaikovsky grounded this book is present day reality by using the early days of Covid pandemic as the background for the “real world” part of the story. I haven’t quite seen this in my reading so far — and like it or not, this recent shared experience is not something we can pretend never happened.

Great read as usual, and yet again Tchaikovsky doesn’t disappoint.

4.5 stars.

“I don’t think you’re meant to think about magic kingdoms in terms of the physics,” Harry told her, feeling oddly proprietorial. After all, he was the heir to it all and he didn’t want people doing science to his birthright.

——————

Also posted on my blog.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up this novella on a whim because I needed a sub-five hour audiobook for a quick road trip and there aren't really a whole lot of choices in that category. I was just about to give up my search and settle for the book about a woman whose consciousness is transferred into a mastodon's body, which I'm sure is just as fantastic as it sounds, when I stumbled across And Put Away Childish Things on Libby. It sounded like a good compromise between my husband's preferred type of fantasy read (elves with swords) and mine (modern day witches who take on the patriarchy), and I have at least one Goodreads friend who seems to really enjoy Tchaikovsky's stuff (Hi, Ian!), so here we are.

And, well, it was fantastic. It's a little Narnia-ish (which the book itself pokes fun at — there's even a magical wardrobe) and a little humorous and a little enchanting. There are talking animals and fauns and terrifyingly large clowns, and Tchaikovsky really knows his stuff when it comes to world-building. But Underhill is different than Narnia in some very significant ways, and it makes for a much darker tale overall. Kind of The Chronicles of Narnia meets Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, perhaps?

Tchaikovsky also did a fantastic job with the audio on this one. I've had mixed experiences with authors narrating their own books, but he has a nice reading voice.

So, yeah. Great book, great writer, creepy clown. 4.4 stars, rounded down. (Hey, that rhymed!)

[K.J. Charles]

A Tchaikovsky take on the portal fantasy, which is to say it goes weird and dark and there's a lot of swearing.

Hugely enjoyable pandemic-set novella in which a washed up kids TV presenter slowly discovers that his grandmother's apparently knock-off Narnia series is based in, if not reality, at least alternative reality. It's nicely structured, deeply disturbing if you ever fantasised about being a portal kid and meeting fauns, and has a truly awful clown. Also an offer of redemption to a selfish middle-aged man that doesn't involve heroism or Chosen-One-ing so much as simply caring about people. I like.

[S. ≽^•⩊•^≼ I'm not here yet · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10

Sometimes books are just books. That’s why we call it ‘fiction.’ But sometimes are NOT!

This book reminds me of two things:

First, my grandmother's bedtime stories! My two cousins and I used to listen to her with eyes wide open in the middle of the night and I assure you that wasn't exactly a story to help you sleep, more like ok, what happened next and ... nothing, my grandmother fell asleep as we three jumped around, couldn't wait for next night. :)

Second, my passion for fantasy worlds! There was always for me another life, even before the time I waited for an owl with a letter, then waiting for Gandalf and her little companions at my door, and believing that still isn't late!

I had a very unexpected feeling while reading this book, did you ever experience it?! have a feeling, a thought, or an idea but never talked about it, only imagined it and then an author writes it, this feeling that I am not alone!

I was not alone when always imagine that one day I could be in other worlds, my books' worlds and save the characters!

"All those characters have been living their lives in it. And… I want to help them. I feel I know them, they’re old friends..."

How much I love Adrian Tchaikovsky for this.

And Put Away Childish Things, is about the very ordinary life of Harry whose great-grandma was someone very special, she wrote the Underhill books and when in a live show everyone knew Harry, the world was suddenly interested in Harry Bodie, but it was the wrong world. A world of scary hallucinations, middle-class secret societies and murder.
They believe Harry can go to an imaginary world of a kids’ book!

"They’d all read the books at an age-appropriate time, and somehow those stories had never stopped being part of their lives, childish things they hadn’t put aside when they grew up."

I wish there were more than 5 stars, I wish I didn't give all those books 5 stars and I wish I had another rating system because this is not fair right now, this book is far more better than I could express, the story, characters, sense of humor and all, And Put Away Childish Things was perfect, one of my favorite of all time!

Many thanks to Rebellion via NetGalley for DRC! I don't live in a cave but never had read Adrian Tchaikovsky before, and now he is the only writer I love just for one book!
And as you can read, this review is more about me than And Put Away Childish Things, so completely honest and my own!
I am so sorry that you should wait till march 28 to read this wonderful story! :)

“It’s hard, though, to know your creator didn’t even care enough to put you out of your misery. To be so thoroughly abandoned by your maker.”

[A Mac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harry is a middle-aged TV presenter for a children’s show who is unhappy with his career and his life. His grandmother published a series of children’s books set in the fictional land of Underhill that have quite the following, but he can never seem to do more than barely get by. But when he’s accosted not once but twice by mysterious strangers and begins to have strange visions, a terrible question pops into his mind – what if Underhill is real? And what if it’s not as lovely a place as his grandmother wrote it to be?

I enjoyed having an older protagonist for an adventure of this nature. The author did a great job at writing a main character who wasn’t likeable – Harry’s characterization was well done. Similarly, I enjoyed the author’s writing style and how self-aware the book felt without being obnoxiously so. I did dislike that despite being an older protagonist, Harry had almost no agency throughout the work – maybe this was meant to be part of his character, but it made the whole thing feel a bit too linear and left me wanting more.

The concept of Underhill was interesting, but it was too disconnected from the primary plot. The chapters each included a little excerpt from the children’s books that were written about Underhill to provide some context, but it wasn’t enough to fully flesh out this world. It made it difficult to really care about the inhabitants of Underhill or feel any sort of tension or emotional connection to the entire conflict surrounding it. And unfortunately, that’s where most if not all the conflict of this work stemmed from.

This was an odd but enjoyable read overall – I did want it to have a darker atmosphere to match the darker and cynical tone, but it was still good. My thanks to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harry Bodie is a failing actor, demoted to working as a presenter in a children’s program. He is the grandson of Mary Brodie who wrote a very popular series of children’s books, not too dissimilar to C.S Lewis’ Narnia novels, where two children have adventures in the mythical world of Underhill with magical beings, always making it back home in time for tea. As Mary’s heir, fans of the book, who believe Underhill exists, want Harry to go there and continue the adventure. Harry is at first reluctant, but what if Underhill really does exist and has been waiting for the heir to arrive?

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s fantasy world of Underhill is definitely not Narnia, more like a shabby, dissolute cousin. All is not well in Underhill following decades of neglect and Harry’s experiences there will change his life. There is both a streak of horror as well as humour in this very entertaining tale with some likeable as well as evil characters. Great fun!

With thanks to Rebellion via Netgalley for a copy to read

[Phrynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick glance at the cover gives a major clue to what this story is about. The title plus that wardrobe in the snow says we are off on a portal adventure to storyland.

And indeed we are, but the trip is made, not with children, but with a failing, alcoholic actor called Harry whose grandmother once wrote a very famous series of books in which children had adventures in Underhill. Can Underhill actually exist? It takes a while for Harry to be pushed into making the trip to find out, and when he does he is definitely not in Narnia.

This turned out to be a very enjoyable fantasy with a touch of horror. Harry starts out as a sorry excuse for a person but he improves and many of the other characters are easy to like which leaves the reader hoping for a happy outcome. With this author you have to wait to the last page to find out.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very eagerly awaited book and one which sent me scurrying to netgalley some 10-11 years after requesting my last book there (and I never requested many). Thank you very very much to Rebellion Publishing for making it available to me through Netgalley. I read an ARC (dated August 2022) details might change in the published version, my opinions are totally my own and honest.

I love sf/fantasy novellas, I love Adrian Tchaikovsky writing and themes, and Adrian Tchaikovsky's novellas and this blurb was incredibly attractive to me. AT take on portal fantasies, I expected some cynicism but without falling into nihilism, anything twee surgically removed off (thank you!), perhaps some insects, a very very readable experience, and even some hope and I got it all. Was it just me or there is a bit (lot. Interesting lot) about cosmology also?

Of all of Tchaikovsky's fiction that I have read this is the one most tied to reality, and, in my opinion the most believable (human) main character. This is a book which inserts covid times into the narrative, but without it being the focus, and it is somewhat refreshing and brings a sense of reality to the story which contrasts with the portal fantasy aspect. Perhaps of interest only to pedants (sorry, I can´t help myself) the details did not quite jibe with the timeline of for example, mask wearing, and Barnard castle visits andwhen those visits became public though this might change in the published edition.

Adrian Tchaikovsky novellas are incredibly diverse in themes and tones and types of narrative, this is (again) very different from previous ones, original and worth reading.

Book will be published on the 28th of March.

[Nils | nilsreviewsit · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Harry squared his shoulders. "I am now going to step into the wardrobe," he told her. "I will, shortly after, step back out of the wardrobe, which is, after all, just a wardrobe. And then you can go tell the goddamn world that Underhill is just in books and I am not their free ticket to fantasyland."

Have you ever wanted to step into your favourite fictional world? Middle Earth, Earthsea, Narnia? Well just imagine if you could…

Meet Harry Bodie, a children’s BBC presenter, one who is failing at his job and pretty much all other aspects of life. Harry wants to be taken more seriously, he wants a big role, a more serious and prestigious acting career. Well, when Harry is invited on an episode of How Even Me? A television show which uncovers family history, he thinks the exposure might land him the perfect role, that he may finally have a moment to shine. And… well he does, just not for the right reasons. When some long hidden family secrets are uncovered it completely destroys any credibility Harry had in the television industry. You see, his grandmother is well known for her popular Underhill book series, and with those now being brought back into the limelight, it has bizarre consequences for our Harry.

What if Underhill is real and the world isn’t idyllic but in fact a nightmare? What if everything there is decaying and falling apart? And what if the characters from that world begin stalking you?

And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky marries together portal fantasy with sci-fi and a dash of horror to deliver a laugh-out-loud, gloriously entertaining read. This novella is one you’ll wish was far longer.

Tchaikovsky spends quite a few chapters building up Harry’s character. We learn of his loneliness, his few ambitions and we gain a general sense that Harry lacks any real purpose in life. Yet his family, particularly his grandmother, has a more colourful past than he ever knew of and when he begins to uncover the truth his life takes a rather chaotic turn. It all starts when the faun, Timon, from the Underhill books pays him a visit. Except Timon is nothing like how his grandmother had written him, he’s actually far more monstrous. This novella is where the fandom's dream comes true. Where the imaginary places we read, the places we loved and longed to escape to are real and come to life. Yet Tchaikovsky turns that ideal on its head, he presents to us the notion that these worlds might not be as pleasant as we remember them, that they too change and decay over time, that they may not in fact be the Disney version but the Brothers Grimm one. Harry’s reaction to Timon’s appearance and the utterly bonkers events which follow is absolutely hilarious, he just cannot fathom what he has done to deserve this monumental fuck-up!

“Harry ran. Just away, because he had no other reference, He ran downhill, at first because it was all downhill, and then because downhill should have been easier, except of course that was where the drifting non-snow had collected deepest. But he ran, and kept running, and the dreadful voice of Gombles resounded behind him. Perhaps he heard the shouts of Timon and Hulder, too, but right then he reckoned that was a them problem and not a him problem. He had his own problems, not least of which was discovering that not only was Underhill real, it was a bloody nightmare of epic proportions.”

Along the way we meet some mysterious characters such as the shady Underlings and Seitchman, who became one of my favourites, but we also meet some extremely bizarre fantastical characters, who are indeed quite horrific on first appearances, though I expected no less from Tchaikovsky. The contemporary setting was also a clever device to show how Harry was going through quite a terrifying, surreal crisis and no world offered any kind of escape, no world made any sense. Harry’s journey takes place when the plague (whose name I will not utter here) changed everyone’s way of life, and when Harry finds himself in Underhill then later returns to our world of deserted streets, empty buildings and mask wearing, he questions whether he’d come back to the right world. I laughed so much here as it completely mirrored my own confusion at the time of the epidemic. Had I stepped into one of those dystopian worlds I’d so often read of? Was I facing an apocalypse?!

“You think other books might be... I mean, for all we know, Aslan's in a zoo enclosure at Longleat and Frodo works the night shift at an Amazon warehouse."

However, beneath the surface of this highly entertaining and absolutely bat-shit crazy story is the deeper journey of a man who goes through a monumental change in his life, whose world is literally turned upside down, but he comes out all the better for it. Without giving away too much, Harry's life is ultimately renewed as he gains agency.

And Put Away Childish Things is a story of resilience in a surreal world and the search for meaning. It is Narnia on a much darker, comical and riotous scale.

ARC provided by Jess at Rebellion/Solaris Publication in exchange for an honest review. Thank you so much for the review copy!

And Put Away Childish Things is out now!

[Ian Payton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our main character, Harry, scratches the dark underbelly of a fairy tale children's book series - one that definitely did not have a furniture based portal. A beautifully twisted and somewhat dark take on back-of-the-wardrobe fantasy worlds.

Harry Bodie has a famous grandmother, who wrote beloved children’s books set in the delightful world of Underhill. What if Underhill is real? What if it has been waiting decades for a promised child to visit? What if it isn’t delightful at all? And what if its denizens have run out of patience and are taking matters into their own hands?

Adrian Tchaikovsky really seems at home in a dark novella, and this doesn’t disappoint. As with the other books in this series, there is dubious morality, selfish desires, and half-hearted ethical choices - in this case it’s in a fantasy-world-gone-bad in a knowing parody of the Narnia books.

“really flicking the noses of their lawyers now Magdo!”

Harry is a nicely drawn mediocre antihero, and Tchaikovsky does a great job in dragging him through the plot with lacklustre motivation powered by the flickering flame of a sense of duty. He is so very human - with unremarkable levels of luck, behaviour, achievement, and inspiration. This is nicely balanced by Seitchman the (dare I say “plucky”?) sidekick, and together they get embroiled with the fairy tale sized villain of Underhill.

One ongoing minor quibble with Tchaikovsky is that he tends to have little unexplained nuggets that aren’t important to the plot, but can feel slightly like smug inside knowledge. For example, not every reader will know who Dee and Crowley are (apparently historical English occultists), nor why mention of Barnard Castle is funny (a political incident in the UK during COVID). And the half-explained context of COVID lockdown is likely to age. But these are minor niggles.

The plot is meticulously constructed, and at the culmination of the story I really enjoyed the callbacks to the compulsive behaviour of some of the fantasy characters that were developed earlier in the narrative.

A very fitting conclusion to the “Terrible Worlds: Destinations” series of novellas.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another deconstruction of the portal fantasy, a little like Seanan Mcguire's Wayward Children books or even the first Terry Pratchett Tiffany Aching book, but done as a vehicle for a moderately successful actor coming to terms with his family legacy and midlife ennui. I thought it was superb and felt a lot longer than its novella length.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an adult portal fantasy that is equal parts creative and terrifying, and I admired it more than I enjoyed it. Say, 3.5 stars because it made me shudder more than once (so...how do you feel about clowns?), but I doubt I'll ever desire to reread it.

In And Put Away Childish Things fantasy decays into horror. Washed-up television presenter and actor Felix "Harry" Bodie has just one claim to fame: his grandmother wrote a highly successful series of children's books set in the Underhill, which is peopled by fauns and tree spirits, faithful dogs, and dastardly giant spiders. After a disastrous appearance on a talk show in which his family's dirty laundry (great-grandmother died in an asylum) is publicly aired, strange things start happening to him that make him question his own sanity:

[He] looked at the someone and sobered up pretty much immediately. Not literally, of course, biochemistry working as it does, but a savage cocktail of other hormones overrode the worst of the drink because something in him was screaming fight or flight! and, being a sedentary middle-aged TV presenter, he just froze up and did neither.

Tall. Freakishly tall. [...] Wearing a long coat, like a flasher. Standing weirdly, every part of him was held wrong. The legs as though the man was right on the balls of his feet, and then those feet were stretched too long. Sour reek of spoilt milk. Aquiline face with a briar-patch beard and sunken eyes. Filthy, ancient, like a vagrant. Like an icon of a saint unearthed from a dig site. Looked at one way, exactly the sort of disturbed homeless man Harry would cross the street to avoid. Looked at another, an ancient king.

And that's just the start of the weirdness. And yes, there is a wardrobe, but not that wardrobe. This one, unfortunately, goes somewhere involving spiders and clowns. And...computers?

The juxtapositions are interesting here: between cloying children's fiction (excerpts of which head the chapters) and what faithful dogs and bumbling clowns have become after decades of neglect, middleclass English lives and worlds that do not follow rational rules, brave fictional children and the bewildered, bumbling hero.

I appreciate how skillfully Adrian Tchaikovsky writes unlikable protagonists who nonetheless remain sympathetic in a that-could-have-been-me way. I preferred the misanthropic protagonist of One Day All This Will Be Yours to the self-pitying main character of this one, but as someone newly middle-aged, I get the underlying, inextinguishable desire to still be a hero to somebody. Maybe that's something you don't outgrow.

This story is set at the start of the pandemic, and there's a cute/sad/wry moment in which Felix thinks that, having lost a couple months in Underhill, the pandemic will be over by the time he re-emerges in summer. Yeah, try three years later.

[Andrews WizardlyReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

A simply stunning book. I loved everything about this

[Alex Bright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay. I really enjoyed that — a lot of the story was predictable, but there were some definite quirky twists I’ve come to expect from Tchaikovsky. Comforting, nostalgic, and familiar… without being saccharine. No need to put away childish things, even as an adult.

[L.L. MacRae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review first posted on FanFiAddict: https://fanfiaddict.com/review-and-pu...

I read this in an afternoon! At first, I didn’t think it would be for me, as the setting opened up in our world. And not just our world, but England in 2019, just before the pandemic. I am not always a fan of contemporary settings (especially as I read for escapism more than anything else), but trust Tchaikovsky to win me over with this fantastic story!

This is a real genre blend by the end, from contemporary to portal fantasy to science fantasy with flavourings of mythology and folklore, and more than one nod to literary works - including a very iconic wardrobe.

I loved how everything interlinked and grew from what seemed like a small seed of an idea and concept. It reflects so much of the fever dream, “what is time,” during the pandemic, and the story is brilliant that grows around it. It reminds us of consequences, the decay of time, and how things aren’t always what you expect, hope, or want them to be.

There are also little feelings of Toy Story/Made Things scattered throughout, and just a hint of absurdism to tie everything together.

It was wonderfully written, with some strong characterisations for such a short read. The ending was especially lovely, especially when there were a few ways it could have gone (some very dark indeed).

The audiobook was also narrated by the author, which is always a lovely touch :)

Highly recommend!

[Read By Kyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not sure what I feel about this one yet, but once again Tchaikovsky is unique and interesting. The first half of this I found somewhat dull as it felt like it took forever to get to the actual story. I was tempted to DNF and then everything clicked and I loved the last third. It helped me appreciate the setup in the first half more but I still think it could have been done a bit more efficiently.

This novella examines portal fantasy and the effect of fiction on us, and is definitely in conversation with Narnia and Tolkien (both of which are name dropped several times), but I also found it remiscent of Winnie the Pooh, if Christopher Robin had abandoned 100-Acre Wood and left Pooh and the others to fend for themselves. It also reminded me quite a bit of Stephen King, both in some of the plot reveals but also in the dialogue.

Tchaikovsky continues to impress me, even with the things I like less.

7/10 I think?

[Veronique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Latest title from the prolific Tchaikovsky, featuring portals. The wardrobe on the cover is a clue but don’t expect THAT kind of story. Nope, this novella is much darker and threatening - feeling exacerbated by the brilliant and snarky use of the 2020 pandemic lockdown in the UK. The result was entertaining and can I say fun. I guess so ;O) Not my favourite of his, Elder Race is, but totally worth the read.

[Lukasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Sometimes a wardrobe is just a wardrobe. Sometimes books are just books. But sometimes they aren't.

Harry Bodie's life has turned into a joke. His actinga nd media career is in shambles, and he consoles himself with alcohol. But, for bizarre reasons, weird types are trying to get hold of him.

Harry's grandmother has written beloved children's books set in the sunny world of Underhill. For Harry, it's just a sporadic source of income through royalties. For some, however, Underhill is serious business.

ARC through NetGalley

Its inhabitants, for example, are deadly serious about it. And not happy with their current state. The world of Underhill looks nothing like the one in Grandma's books - it's decaying and everything there, including the fantastic creatures, is coming apart. Will Harry's presence be enough to restore it to its glorious blooming state?

In And Put Away Childish Things Tchaikovsky deconstructs middle-grade stories and makes things nightmarish. Harry is a disillusioned Kid's TV presenter unable to start serious acting. He has no agency or charisma, and that makes his reaction to all the craziness even more compelling. He simply can't understand what did he do to earn this clusterfuck.

Underhill and its creatures were created for the bold child to have adventures there but the child never came. Everything there decayed, including dreams and hopes of Underhill's citizens. I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a Faun, a giant spider able to travel between worlds, giant clown, and more.

The writing is clear, concise, and to the point. I appreciate it.

And Put Away Childish Things is a fine example of Adrian Tchaikovsky's writing skills and versatility. It combines middle-grade tropes, horror, humor, and excellent twists. It's impressive how much he packed in around 200 pages.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by this author and it will definitely not be the last. This book is a very dark take on the beloved Narnia, filled with alternate worlds with a few wicked witches just to spice things up. I was fully immersed in the story that was unfolding and only came up for breath after I had turned the last page. This is one very talented author. Loved it!!!!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having a famous children's author for a grandmother, not to mention a delusional great-grandmother, can be detrimental to one's career advancement, especially if you are Harry Bodie, a failing children's TV presenter. This is a portal fantasy where the portal world is anything but pleasant - it's decaying. And the denizens of his deceased grandmother's fictional world, Underhill, have grown impatient waiting for the promised child to arrive and save them, so they take matters into their own hands... er paws... claws? The story subverts several portal fantasy tropes by featuring an unwilling, middle-aged protagonist who must confront the reality behind his family's magical legacy. I loved the spider that features in this tale. Also Harry Bodie's development from a slightly obnoxious, self-centred man to something else.

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's not much finer than an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, and this title is unsurpassingly adorable. That trademark subtle humour, which sneaks up on little cat paws so that I often found myself chuckling aloud even before my conscious mind caught the point, the character depths and revelations and [applause] the character evolution; other characters coming to terms with their "lives" [you'll understand the quotation marks as you read the story]; and Mr. Tchaikovsky's presentation of the travails of the Coronavirus Pandemic. Especially touching was the delicate uncovering of government flailing in the face of rampant biology and the helplessness of law enforcement, social services, government, medicine, to address the issues of quarantine and social distance and prevention and cure.

But AND PUT AWAY CHILDISH THINGS doesn't stop at that. Not just the story of a failing actor turned feckless (and helpless Hero, this story is about recovering childhood, memory, lineage; about thought and creation, and the persistence of selfish evil. Definitely a rereader and rereader is this special story.

[Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

hmm... it was ok. Some cute moments, but not his best. But not very long, so there's that at least.

[Whitney (SecretSauceofStorycraft) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow this is a weird dark riff on Lion, witch and wardrobe….

We follow our main character a failing actor whose grandmother wrote childrens books called: Underhill which is almost exactly like Narnia. Only the adult MC is taken there to discover the place in a state of decay and ruin because it was abandoned…. And he is faced with many choices and left us asking: what do we owe to our creations? What makes life fulfilling?

There were very cool visuals and interesting ideas here but he Spent to much time focusing on main character’s life rather than exploring the back half of the story…. And never got in depth of questions he brought to light

But do I recommend it? I do.

I liked it better than many of his other novellas but its not my favorite and not without some flaws.

[Fantasy boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book seem like I am reading Narnia “The Last Battle” and Piranesi by Susan Clark. Not like Narnia books , this is a grimmer and abhorrent story; without gallant protagonists and magic battles, with more horror vibe to the story; especially the fact of the Underhill world was decrying, enervating, was deteriorating to a worth state that the living creatures like fauns and magic dogs, wood deities were facing the predicament of losing the existence of living in Underhill.

Our protagonist, Harry is a children TV presenter, who loathe child dish things, one day he had found out a faun was in his garden and watched him, after that, he was entangled in discovering the truth of The fairy land and trying to reposition his identity as one of the Underhill heir’s predecessor.

Actually, this was a fun read for me, the themes pique my curiosity of reading this Narnia-like fantasy, the story is indicated to Narnia and occasionally mentions JRR Tolkien. It feels like I was in a parallel universe where C.S Lewis would encounter a fictitional writer Mary Boide. The ending of the story is much better than Narnia’s The Last Battle. Moreover, the concept of the energy that was maintaining and molding the structure of Underhill and a vampiric creator’s longevity is quite intrigue. Maybe one day we can find a seemingly alien creature is from other dimensions.

[Marlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the title of this book sounds familiar, it’s because it’s from the New Testament quote from Chapter 13 of I Corinthians below. But as much as the first line is directly referenced in the title, the second line is every single bit as applicable to this story and the way that it all works out.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

The first question the story raises is “who decides?” Who decides what a childish thing is and when we should put it away. The second revolves around what it takes to truly be known, by oneself as well as by others.

Because as the story opens, Felix “call me Harry” Bodie doesn’t know himself or where he came from very much at all. And honestly doesn’t seem to want to. What he wants is to hide himself behind the mask of a working – if barely – actor and bury his past as the grandson of a famous juvenile fantasy author.

His grandmother, Mary Bodie, was the author of the Underhill books, a story and a world not all that different from Narnia. Or at least a Narnia without Aslan and the overt Christian allegory that seemed to exude from the lion’s mane.

Underhill was a place with quirky, intelligent animals and not too perilous dangers just perfect for a pair of young human scamps to slip into for adventures. Harry is more than happy to cash the decreasing royalty checks that still drop into his accounts and forget the rest. Or so he believes.

It’s only when he takes a rather desperate chance on a spot in the British equivalent of the Finding Your Roots program that he learns that Grandma Mary was born in an insane asylum to a woman who claimed to come from fairyland, and that she told her daughter all about it. It’s those stories that became the roots of the Underhill series.

The revelation of his great grandmother’s insanity draws the most rabid side of the still-active Underhill fandom out into the light of day – just as the real-world pandemic is about to drive everyone, everywhere under quarantine.

The world is going insane, and Harry is all too afraid he’s going with it. Especially when he starts seeing a diseased, desiccated version of Underhill’s resident trickster faun in the alleys behind his apartment – while a woman who claims to be a private investigator stalks him on the street.

Together they drive Harry straight out of this world and down into Underhill, which is rather more real than he ever imagined. And considerably more dangerous than his grandmother’s books EVER led him to expect.

Escape Rating B+: The thing about this book, at least for the first half of it, is Harry. And it’s not exactly a good thing, because Harry himself isn’t exactly a good thing. Nor does he have a good thing. Nor does he believe he has or is a good thing. Harry’s a bit ‘meh’ at best, pretty much all the way down to the bone. He doesn’t like himself, he doesn’t like his life, he isn’t going anywhere and he thinks nobody likes him because he honestly works at not being likable. He’s no fun to be with, not as a character and not even for himself.

So the beginning of the story is a bit rough because we don’t care about Harry – because he doesn’t even care about himself. At least not until he goes through a wardrobe, even though that’s the other fantasy series, and finds himself in Underhill. Or what’s left of it.

The place is dying and diseased and scabrous and NOTHING like the books. But for once in his life Harry is not being paranoid – everything left in Underhill really is out to get him. Or at least to find him.

Because he’s the heir to the entire blighted mess. Whether he wants to be or not. It’s the first time he’s been important in his whole, entire life. So he decides to seize the day – or at least the creepy twilight that is all that’s left in Underhill.

Only to discover that being the heir to the place isn’t remotely what he thought it might be. But then again, nothing and no one in this adventure has turned out to be anything like he expected. Not even, in the end, himself.

And that’s where things get interesting. At last. One way or another.

While it’s the off-kilter resemblance to Narnia that initially hooks the reader, it’s the subversions of any and all expectations – about Harry, about Underhill, about pretty much everyone and everything he’s met along the way – that give the story its, well, everything.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a bit like Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which is also a play on Narnia. But The Magicians plays it more or less straight, turning Fillory into a version of Narnia that, while still fantastic, doesn’t mess with religious allegory and simply turns into an adult version of Narnia with a heaping helping of dark academia on top.

Instead, And Put Away Childish Things mixes the central theme of Never Too Old to Save the World with Carrie Vaughn’s Questland, and Tchaikovsky’s own Ogres to create a story about being called to save a portal fantasy world in midlife only to learn that the whole setup is SFnal and not fantasy after all, and that the person who can really save the place – or at least its heart – is the folklorist who everyone believed was just hanging on to prove her weird theories about literature that so-called “true academics” have discounted as either childish or merely unimportant and uninteresting to “real scholars”.

At the end, the seemingly childish things turn out to be not so childish after all, and Harry is known, to himself and to others, in a way that he never would have let himself be or even feel in the so-called real world. And it’s the making of him and the making of the story – even though – or perhaps especially because – he turns out not to be the true hero of after all. Although a hero he certainly becomes.

Originally published at Reading Reality

[JasonA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a letdown. The first half was pretty hard to get into. The biggest problem for me was I didn't like the main character; if this was a riff on Narnia, then the main character was Eustace (I hate Eustace). The second half wasn't bad, but not really good enough to save the story. I was hoping for The Magicians for adults, but there was just too much set up and not enough payoff when it came.

[Trent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine if Stephen King (or Neil Gaiman) wrote Narnia, and it was set during COVID, and it starred Martin Freeman.

For better or worse, that’s exactly what this was.

[Runalong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very intelligent and funny portal fantasy with a decidedly ly adult perspective. What if Narnia never got kids to play with it? A fantasy world in decay; a look at how quickly reality changes and we can accept it and despite all that darkness a bit of hope too into the mix. Highly recommended!

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...

[James Morpurgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite being an acclaimed and award winning Science Fiction author, Adrian Tchaikovsky has an ingrained love for Fantasy.

'And Put Away Childish Things' is a humorous and playful subversion of the classical Portal Fantasy style tale but at its core there is a fond remembrance and acknowledgement to Lewis and Tolkien.

I enjoyed the flawed and jaded character of Harry and how the deteriorated and neglected land of Underhill mirrored in some way his imperfect adulthood compared to childhood. Through this character we get to see an adult coming to terms with the creations from his Grandmother's novels being reality and not children's fantasy.

Underhill, contrary to the idyllic lands discovered via a C S Lewis wardrobe is now in fact a nightmare-fuel version of Narnia and some of the inhabitants are horrifying yet comically tragic. Each chapter begins with an epigraph taking a passage from the fictional Underhill novels and part of me wishes that they were actual full stories that you could read.

This book is set in England and some references to UK television and pop culture from the last 40 or 50 years may be missed by younger or international readers but I don't think that this would ruin the story but some lines might not make complete sense. Personally, I was delighted to see an unexpected nod towards Bagpuss (1970s children's television programme) and was momentarily also transported to my childhood....

Adrian Tchaikovsky once again shows how skilled he can write in a variety sub-genres and narrative styles and always writes with incredible freedom to explore ideas.

Many thanks to Rebellion Publishing and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. 'And Put Away Childish Things' is expected for publication from 28th March 2023.

[Gabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bitter sweet story about a children's fantasy world grown old and abandoned with the Tchaikovsky typical anti-hero in the center.