Book description
Jack Chatwin has visions, which leave tangible evidence - sounds and
smells, which linger afterwards. What he sees are two primitive figures,
with painted faces - Greyface and Greenface, a brother and sister. He
calls them bullrunners.
John Garth is a city dowser, searching for the mythical pre-Roman city
of Glanum. He hopes to find an entryway to the elusive city beneath
Exburgh, Jack's home town. And he thinks Jack's bullrunners may be
connected to Glanum . . .
Years later, Jack, now grown up, agrees to take part in experiments to
investigate his bullrunners - until Greyface, the male, breaks free of
Jack and takes corporeal form. The bullrunner kidnaps Jack's young
daughter so Jack will force Greenface to follow her brother-husband,
even against her own wishes. Though Greyface returns the daughter, he
keeps a shadow of her, which takes on a life of its own. If Jack refuses
to co-operate, the shadow will drain his daughter's vitality and
personality - and her very future.
The story of Jack's search for Greenface is interwoven with the
connections between the bullrunners and the mystical city of Glanum in
this resonant tale of ancient mythic wonder. Robert Holdstock (1948
- 2009)
Robert Paul Holdstock was born in a remote corner of Kent, sharing his
childhood years between the bleak Romney Marsh and the dense woodlands
of the Kentish heartlands. He received an MSc in medical zoology and
spent several years in the early 1970s in medical research before
becoming a full-time writer in 1976. His first published story appeared
in the New Worlds magazine in 1968 and for the early part of his career
he wrote science fiction. However, it is with fantasy that he is most
closely associated.
1984 saw the publication of Mythago Wood, winner of the BSFA and World
Fantasy Awards for Best Novel, and widely regarded as one of the key
texts of modern fantasy. It and the subsequent 'mythago' novels
(including Lavondyss, which won the BSFA Award for Best Novel in 1988)
cemented his reputation as the definitive portrayer of the wild wood.
His interest in Celtic and Nordic mythology was a consistent theme
throughout his fantasy and is most prominently reflected in the
acclaimed Merlin Codex trilogy, consisting of Celtika, The Iron Grail
and The Broken Kings, published between 2001 and 2007.
Among many other works, Holdstock co-wrote Tour of the Universe with
Malcolm Edwards, for which rights were sold for a space shuttle
simulation ride at the CN Tower in Toronto, and The Emerald Forest,
based on John Boorman's film of the same name. His story, 'The
Ragthorn', written with friend and fellow author Garry Kilworth, won the
World Fantasy Award for Best Novella and the BSFA Award for Short
Fiction.
Robert Holdstock died in November 2009, just four months after the
publication of Avilion, the long-awaited, and sadly final, return to
Ryhope Wood.
www. robertholdstock. com
