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The Secret Country (review)

Ben Arnold has saved his money for weeks so that he can buy a really cool pair of Mongolian Fighting Fish, but his plans are thwarted when a talking cat at the pet shop insists that Ben buy him instead. Puzzled but intrigued, Ben soon learns that he is at the center of a tragedy: he is the half-elven heir to the throne of Eidolon, a parallel world of magic and mythical creatures that is under threat due to the absence of its queen (Ben’s mother). Taking advantage of her long sojourn in the nonmagical world, her brother has joined forces with a nasty, dog-headed felon known as the Dodman to ply a black-market trade in magical beasts to wealthy Londoners; as a result, magic is draining out of Eidolon, turning it into a dying world. After many chases and narrow escapes, Ben and his family manage to shut down the illegal trade, but the Dodman’s threat to kidnap Ben’s mom looms at the end of this first installment of a trilogy. Fantasy fans will appreciate Johnson’s inclusion of many classic conventions and motifs—a mythical world, ley lines (wild roads, in this book’s terminology), an exiled ruler, slathering hell-dogs, a prophecy foretelling the victory of our hero, and magical creatures from multiple mythic traditions—and the lashings of boyish humor. Unfortunately, the book fails to infuse the components with a unifying sense of mission or much atmospheric tension; the Dodman’s menace is rendered mundane by his petty mercantilism, and inconsistencies in the plot (why can some characters travel unscathed between Earth and Eidolon while others find it physically dangerous?) interfere with credibility. Better fantasies abound, but this might nonetheless keep a rapacious fan occupied or serve as a non-demanding entrée into British fantasy conventions. KC