This series will forever be one of my favourites. It was my favourite as a boy and, rereading the books now, I’m still in love. And how could I not be? The world is expansive and diverse, the characters are relatable and compelling, and the illustrations are beautiful (especially in the print books—the ebook version, perhaps not so much… the limitations of technology! Though the maps and many illustrations are available from the official website).
The series is set on The Edge, a jutting piece of rock that sits amidst a vast expanse—no one has travelled far enough over the edge (outward, upward, or downward) and returned. A river flows into nothingness. But on The Edge are lush and dangerous forests, barren wastelands, marshes and mires, towns and cities (including the floating city of Sanctaphrax). The world is populated by a wide variety of different creatures, some coexisting, some not, from humans to humanoid beings, spindly-legged spider-like creatures, flesh-eating trees, giant banderbears, and much more in between.
The series follows The Edge at different stages, with storylines focusing on a core of interrelated characters, all descendants of the same family across different generations. The epochs are defined by the stages of flight they go through, from ships mounted with lighter-than-air stones (flight rocks) able to keep them afloat in the sky, to specially varnished buoyant woods, to more industrial sky ships powered by stormphrax.
Sky pirates feature heavily, especially in the first two trilogies centred on Twig and Quint (one of the key reasons, obviously, why I love it), and the stories are bound together by sweeping adventures. The reader is taken to the variety of places across The Edge, and they meet numerous different peoples and societies, all wonderfully imagined. Within this world, the stories are able to tackle different themes: race and difference, identity and belonging, nature and industry, slavery and freedom—alongside the more familiar themes of good and evil, right and wrong.
The world created by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell is captivating and formidable. Enter at your peril, and be prepared to be swept along in breathless adventures to the farthest reaches of the land—and beyond!
Peter R. S. Thomas 