As long as you are willing to think
of Britain as a hat in order to give a tired metaphor another moment in the sun,
then we may say that Scholastic has managed to pull another rabbit out of the
hat with Tunnels. Scholastic has done a particularly good job culling foreign
talent for the American Market, witness Cornelia Funke and J.K. Rowling. Then
Tunnels will continue that trend.
The central idea of the Tunnels is
that roughly one hundred years ago an underground city was founded beneath
London. The Eternal City was orchestrated by a shadowy group called The Styx.
The Styx form a master class below ground, and used their influence on an
influential surface dweller, or Topsoiler as they are called, in order to bring
about their underground realm. At the time of the story, present day London, The
Styx control a kind of apocalyptic religion, and some menacing scientific
gadgets, to keep control underground. The Eternal City was abandoned due to
plague, and its inhabitants now live in The Colony, on a slightly higher level.
Below the Eternal City lies the Deeps, a dangerous unexplored realm to which The
Styx banish their enemies.
Adult readers of YA fantasy are
required to forgive eponymous names for some reason, and so it is with Will
Burrows, the fourteen year old protagonist of tunnels. Will, though a Topsoiler,
shares with his father a passion for digging and urban archeology. When his
father disappears below ground Will, and his friend Chester follow. It turns out
that Will was actually born in the Colony, from which his mother escaped, the
only successful escapee on record, and that his Topsoiler family is not his real
family. To top things off his sister Rebecca turns out to be a Styx, planted in
the family to keep tabs on him.
For a co-written book (Roderick
Gordon and Brian J. Williams) Tunnels is fairly seamless. Filled with satisfying
characters, convincing action, genuine surprises, and a well controlled
exposition, Tunnels is both credible and compelling. The Styx, for example,
though evil, are complex and ordered in their actions. There is in fact a lot of
gray area in both the underworld and the surface world, which really makes
Will's individuality stand out. The bottom line is that Tunnels offers a
convincing, accessible world which many readers will find habitable indeed.
|
