The Indigo King

Incidentally, I also finally finished The Indigo King last night. I started reading this book last month, and put it down when I started The Sandman series. I really, really enjoyed being drawn into a fantasy plot again, and though the plot was often complicated, it was an engrossing read compared with the forced nonfiction I've been battling.

In this book, Jack (C.S. Lewis) and John (J.R.R. Tolkien) meet with their friend Hugo Dyson to investigate a mysterious book delivered to them as Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica. The book is dated from the 6th century, but it has modern English writing on it in Dyson's hand. Little of this novel actually takes place in the Archipelago, instead the majority of the action takes place in Albion, the catastrophic "would be" England had Mordred been king rather than Arthur. A poorly educated man named Chaz also replaces Charles as the third Caretaker for the bulk of the novel.

The central question the plot seeks to answer is what is Mordred's (who is also the Winter King - see Here, There Be Dragons) true name. Like Paolini's Inheritance Cycle and other fantasy novels of some note, names are extremely powerful and important. They have the power to bind one to the servitude of another. Aided by the absent Jules Verne, the three men (and two badgers) go through time via a special projector with slides into the past. In the first slide, their mission is complicated considerably by the knowledge that Mordred is one of a pair of twins. They also find out that his other twin is the Cartographer of Lost places. Misguided by this knowledge, their journeys through four more slides encompass their efforts to turn the mapmaker against his brother.

As with the other stories, literary references abound. Mordred and his twin (Merlin) are the sons of Odysseus and Calypso, and their line intertwines with that of Jesus (and his mythical -- perhaps it's all mythical -- children). At one point, Chaz mispronounces the Argo as Aragorn, and anyone who is familiar with The Lord of the Rings will see what Owen is playing with there. A huge portion of the complicated plot is so because of the intricacies of time travel. Owen seems to prefer to blend science fiction with fantasy rather than delineate between the two.

I enjoyed this book, but I have discoverd that it is not a trilogy. Owen can continue to write these books indefinitely (although I imagine he is not a young man). I'm not sure that I will be looking for his next release, but if I find it accidentally in my future book buying ventures, I'll pick it up again.