Morgen erscheint: WALK THE WILD WITH ME von Rachel Atwood

His­to­ri­cal Fan­ta­sy ist so etwas Ähn­li­ches wie Urban Fan­ta­sy, aller­dings mischt die­ses Gen­re ver­gan­ge­ne Zei­ten mit Fan­ta­sy. Der Wer­be­text zum Roman WALK THE WILD WITH ME von Rachel Atwood ist so umfang­reich wie inter­es­sant, denn hier wer­den gleich diver­se Tro­pes mit­ein­an­der vermischt:

Orpha­ned when still a todd­ler, Nicho­las Withy­beck knows no other home than Locks­ley Abbey out­side Not­ting­ham, Eng­land. He works in the scrip­to­ri­um embel­li­shing illu­mi­na­ted manu­scripts with hid­den faces of the Wild Folk and whim­si­cal crea­tures that he sees every time he ven­tures into the woods and fiel­ds. His curio­si­ty leads him into for­bid­den nooks and cran­nies both insi­de and out­side the abbey, and he beco­mes adept at hiding to stay out of trouble.
On one of the­se forays Nick slips into the crypt bene­ath the abbey. The­re he finds an altar older than the abbey’s foun­da­ti­ons, anci­ent when the Romans occu­p­ied Eng­land. Behind the bricks around the altar, he finds a palm-sized sil­ver cup. The cup is embel­lis­hed with the three figu­res of Ele­na, the Cel­tic god­dess of cross­roads, sorce­ry, and cemeteries.
He car­ri­es the cup with him always, lis­tening as the god­dess whis­pers wis­dom in the back of his mind. With Elena’s cup in his pocket, Nick can see that the mas­ked dan­cers at the May Day cele­bra­ti­on in the local vil­la­ge are actual­ly the crea­tures of the wood: The Green Man—known to mor­tals as Litt­le John—and Robin Good­fel­low, Her­ne the Hunt­s­man, dryads, trolls, and water spri­tes. Theirs are the faces he’s seen and drawn into his illuminations.
Gui­ded by Ele­na along secret forest paths, Nick learns that Litt­le John’s love has been kid­nap­ped by Queen Mab of the Fae­ries. The door to the Fae­ry mound will only open when the moons of the two realms align. That time is fast approa­ching. Nick must release Ele­na so that she can use sorce­ry to unlock that door, allowing Nick’s band of friends to try to res­cue the girl. Will he have the cou­ra­ge to release her as his pre­de­ces­sor did not?

Das klingt doch mal eher abge­fah­ren. Das Taschen­buch kos­tet bei Ama­zon 16 Euro, für die eBook-Fas­sung wer­den 9,98 Euro fäl­lig, teu­er aber bei Neu­erschei­nun­gen lei­der ein nor­ma­ler Preis.

Cover­ab­bil­dung Copy­right DAW

AutorIn: Stefan Holzhauer

Meist harm­lo­ser Nerd mit natür­li­cher Affi­ni­tät zu Pixeln, Bytes, Buch­sta­ben und Zahn­rä­dern. Kon­su­miert zuviel SF und Fan­ta­sy und schreibt seit 1999 online darüber.