Book description
At the heart of the wildwood lies a place of mystery and legend, from
which few return and none emerged unchanged: Lavondyss...the ultimate
realm, the source of all myth.
When Harry Keeton disappeared into Ryhope Wood, his sister Tallis was
just an infant. Now, thirteen years old, she hears him whispering to her
from the Otherworld. He is in danger. He needs her held. Using masks,
magic and clues left by her grandfather, she finds a way to enter the
primitive forest and begin her search. Eventually she comes to Lavondyss
itself, a realm both beautiful and deadly, a place in which she is
changed forever . . .
Robert Holdstock's Mythago Wood
won the World Fantasy Award and is among the most praised post-war
novels of the fantastical. In this haunting sequel, Lavondyss
, we are returned to the Wildwood and the mythos that Holdstock has made
his own.
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1988 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
