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Description edit
The Alienist meets Dracula in this gripping, gothic-horror thriller from young UK phenom Chris Wooding. Thaniel, just seventeen, is a wych-hunter. Together, he and Cathaline--his friend and mentor--track down the fearful creatures that lurk in the Old Quarter of London. It is on one of these... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters edit
- Thaniel Fox: Only 17 years old, Thaniel Fox hunts the wych-kin that plauge the city, following his deceased father's footsteps. With both parents dead, he lives with his mentor and good friend Cathaline Bennett. He was attacked by Alaizabel while on a Cradlejack hunt.
- Alaizabel Cray: Alaizabel Cray is the damsel of the story. She is first discovered by Thaniel at the beginning of the story. With no memory of her past and who she is, she goes with Thaniel who helps her discover her past.
- Cathaline Bennett: Thaniel's mentor
- Stitch-Face: The Anti-hero
- Dr. Mammon Pyke: Head doctor at Redford acres, a mental hospital.
Quotes edit
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“Rawhead close behind you treads, three looks back and you'll be dead. But close your eyes and count to ten, and Rawhead will be gone again. (page 161)”
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“...the force....its weapons are coincidence, unlikelihood, happenstance. it is there when a man stops suddenly to pick up a coin dropped by another man ten days before, and the woman who is to be his wife bumps into him, and five hundred years hence their offspring rules half the world. it is there when a chance comment causes a scientist to think, 'What if...?' and ten years later a great plague is cured. it is so vast that what we call chaos is simply another part of its order, with a shape to big to see. it has no name, nor will it ever have, though man may hint darkly at fate and destiny. It is what it is...the patern. We may choose our own paths, but the pattern is always ahead of us. It is a way. It is *the* way. (pages 226-227)”
Devil-boy
Organizations edit
- The Fraternity: Founded by Dr. Mammon Pyke, the main body of the Fraternity was simply a group of rich people joined together to look after their own interests with little faith in magic or the Wych-kin.
First Sentence edit
The airship lumbered low overhead, its long, lined belly a dull smear of silvery light in the fog as it reflected the gas lamps of the city beneath.
Table of Contents edit
I. Part One: The Lost Girl
1. Pursuit * Thaniel Gets a Cruel Suprise * First Impressions
2. The Irrepressible Miss Bennett * Meet Doctor Pyke * A Name For The Girl
3. A Woman of Ill Repute * Turning Tricks * An Unhappy Twist of Fate
4. Alaizabel's Fever * An Unwelcome Observer * A Letter From Doctor Pyke
5. A Race Against Time * Maycraft * Thaniel Gets a Second Chance
6. Cathaline's Attic * A Rite is Preformed * Plans Are Made
7. A Disturbance in The Night * The Fraternity Show Their Hand
II. Part Two: Stitch-Face
8. Charity Street * The Green Tack Murders
9. The Crooked Lanes * Grindle * Carver Makes a Discovery
10. An Audience With Crott * A Deal is Struck * The Rat King
11. The Strange Death of Alista White * A Carriage at Redford Acres
12. The Fiend in the Sewers * A Trick to Trap the Wych-Kin
13. Perris the Boar * Elisander and Sanforth * Maycraft Gets a Call
14. Honour Among Vagabonds * An Enexpected Ally
III. Part Three: The Fraternity Ascendant
15. A Lady in Distress * Thaniel Fights Alone * Disaster Strikes
16. Vigil for the Dying * Despair in the Bell Tower
17. A Gathering * Curien Blake
18. The Girl in the White Shift * An Ill Meeting
19. The Beggars Ready for For * The Inevitable Arrives
IV. Part Four: The Darkening
20. Portents * The Night mare * The First Dark Day
21. At Stich-Face's Mercy * The Siege of the Crooked Lanes * Reunion
22. The Wych in Alaizabel Cray * The hallow Ghoul * The Puppets See the Strings
23. Caledonian Road * Beneath the City * An Old Enemy Returns
24. General Montpelier * London by Airship * the Heart of Evil
25. The Cathedral * Guardians
26. The Wych-Dogs * Prophecies Fulfilled * The American Way
27. The Gallery * Gregor Gains His Freedom * The Tide Comes In
28. Pyke Holds the Answers * The Wych-Kin Revealed * All is Ended
29. Aftermath
Glossary edit
- Wych-kin: The Wych-kin are monsters that attack and kill humans. They live in every major city. They come in a large variety of types, each with its own power and weaknesses although all are vulnerable to sunlight.
- Cradlejack: A wych-kin with a narrow, skeletal body and long, spindly fingers. They have amber eyes and needle-like teeth. A bite or scratch fom one may infect the person, who will then become a Cradlejack. They make their lairs in quiet areas, dark and sheltered from daylight and usually high up because they climb well and it is safter up high with many escape routes. They are scavengers and when they cannot eat humans, they consume rats.
- Incubus: A wych-kin that hangs onto a person's back. You cannot see it or touch it, but it is there, weighing you down, making your heart sick, your soul heavy, and your body tired. Slowly, you will lose the will to live and, one day, you sink to your knees and never get up again.
- Draug: A wych-kin and a member of the Drowned Folk, which makes them exceedingly rare (with only two recoded cases). It has we, webbed-like footsteps and laboured wheezing, like the phlegmy breathing of an old man.
- Beggar Lord: The head of a beggar gang. There are four gangs, thus four Beggar Lords. They help out their members for a percentage of the profits and they see that anyone begging who is not a member of a gang is quickly seen off.
- Wight: A wych-kin that exists only in the light and cannot harm a person who is in total darkness. Too much light will destroy them. It is a shifting, amorphous thing that stretches thin, breaks, and reforms like liquid as it moves. Each hand is fully the size of its narrow body, impossibly out of proportion, and has no head to speak of, but rather only a pair of smouldering dots approximating eyes that are buried in what might be called its chest. Great long legs with sharp knees complete the mockery of a shape that it possesses, much like the stick--figure cast by a human at the end of the day when the sun is low and the shadow lengthy.
- Night Mare: A wych-kin seen as a naked, twisted old crone with long straggly hair who has hooves for feet and a long tail.
- Deildegast: A wych-kin that takes the shape of a narrow, lanky man in rags. It is a tall, mournful, dreadful thing.
- Dog-rat: A wych-beast that is a metre long (not counting the tail), has arched hindquarters, bristly black fur and jaws that can snap a man's hand off. They are twisted from within, possessed by wych-spirits that warps them and makes them huge and foul. The muzzle is leathery and dog-like in expression and the claws are hooked and vicious. The eyes glow with demonic light.
- Scrying stones: Flat, white, elliptical stones with a carved, black inked mark on each of them. They are a blend of old runic disciplines and tarot, a complex system of symbols that create pictures of great complexity when combined. They are extremely specific and not open to wide interpretation, unlike runes and tarot. It takes long study to master them and each has to be treated with its own Rite. To an amateur, they spell simple nonsense.
- Wych-dog: A wych-kin that has a vague shape of a dog, but seems swollen and twisted from the inside. It is barrel-chested with knotted legs of grotesquely thick muscles. The teeth are overgrown in such a way that the creature's gums are overgrown and spintered, making the drool pink with blood. The creature's eyes are blank, dark, and set within prominent ridges of bone that shadows them. The wych-dog's fur is bristly black.
- Glau Meska: Wych-kin creatures from the deep that are servants of the dark gods.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Chris Wooding (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Scholastic
Country: UK
Publication Date: 2006
ISBN: 9780439963954
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Country: UK
Publication Date: 2006
ISBN: 9780439963954
Page Count: 400
Awards edit
- Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (2001, #2)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 823.92
Subjects edit
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