The Light Ages

Reminiscent of Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, this is a vivid rags-to-riches story set in a country very like Victorian England but where the main source of power is a magical substance called aether rather than the steam which powered our own industrial revolution. MacLeod's England is coming to the end of the Third Age of Industry, social inequality is growing and the stocks of aether are getting dangerously low. MacLeod's protagonist is Robert Borrows, son of a lowly guildsman (everything is controlled by powerful guilds) and we see the ensuing violence and environmental catastrophe through his eyes. Borrows sees his mother horrifically transformed by exposure to aether into a changeling - hideous and dangerous creatures who are stuck in a netherworld between fairy and human. He runs away to London and gets involved with a gang intent on social change, then falls in love with Anna, a changeling who has the power to change everything. MacLeod's alternative history is not quite dystopian but is an interesting parable for the lengths that power-hungry men and women will go to when the source of their wealth starts to run out. He cleverly illustrates that, whether the energy comes from magic spells or industrial machines, those intent on personal profit at the expense of others are likely to be mean-spirited, careless with others' lives and criminal in their actions. With enough elements to make his strange, magic world familiar Ian MacLeod has written a book that would be an ideal stepping stone for those readers who have experienced fantasy via the usual starting points of Pratchett or Tolkien and want to explore the genre further. (Kirkus UK)