Thimblestar - M. J. Westley

A Faery Story

Here is a heroic quest ? in miniature, you might almost say ? an Odyssey where wasp stings serve as daggers, set in undergrowth, in tree branches and trunks, inside hollow skulls buried underground. Its eloquence is as idiosyncratic in words, and as gorgeously evocative, as a painting by Richard Dadd, except that human beings scarcely feature in this world of faeries, elves, goblins and other exotic, though very visceral and believable entities, gorgeously, cunningly, and eerily evoked.

Here is something very different from tall elegant elves riding horses into battle in movies, or twinkly fairies ? Michael Westley's beings are on the edge of alien, cohabiting our world scarcely perceived by us.

This may be one of the strangest books you will ever read, and I even recommend reading it aloud, so as not to miss anything. "Once when the seasons were six... was the first dream stolen. Twas placed beneath a mirror, guarded by a dog of bronze." To build a mythic world, mostly woven out of nature, is a great achievement. ?Ian Watson, author of the screen story of Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Thimblestar is the novel that might have been written by one of Shakespeare's 'Midsummer Night's Dream' fairies. - Storm Constantine, author of The Moonshawl