The Pilgrims
The Pendulum Trilogy Book 1
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
Eric Albright, a twenty-six-year-old unemployed journalist, and Stuart Casey, a homeless old drunk, fall through a door in a graffiti-covered wall into the strange world of Levall, where a mountain-sized dragon with the powers of a god lies sleeping beneath a great white castle. Here they are the otherworlders, Pilgrims, and their lives are never going to be the same again.
In the castle the sinister Lord Vous rules with an iron fist as the Project, designed to effect his transformation into an immortal spirit, nears completion. But Vous' growing madness is close to consuming him, as is his fear of the imaginary being named 'Shadow'. And the arrival of the otherworlders in Levall is about to lend substance to that fear.
No one has ever seen what lies beyond the impossibly vast Wall that divides Levall, but the Pilgrims possess powers strong enough to break it down. If they do, what will enter from the other side?
Will Elliott's brilliantly subversive and creative imagination twists the conventions of the genre to create an unforgettable alternate-world fantasy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Elliott kicks off his Pendulum Trilogy in this less-than-gripping fantasy. Eric Albright, a journalist specializing in overly-emotional reports of lost pets, notices a red door in an underpass, and when his curiosity leads him to force it open, he finds himself in another world, Levaal. Complete with mages and other magical beings, the realm is 500 years past "the War That Tore the World," and the reporter finds himself pitted against its tyrannical ruler. Elliott offers incoherent explanations for basic questions like how Albright is able to communicate with Levaal's residents. Efforts to make Albright sound hip fall flat; his social icebreaker technique of retelling Batman stories is labored. Rapid shifts in tone leave the reader's head spinning: a few pages after a character clowns around with fearsome creatures, there's a grim rape scene. The half-hearted world-building, and dull lead and plot, won't convince many readers to line up for the second volume.
