Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Ludluda was one of my most anticipated releases of 2024 following the superb first installment of this duology, Gogmagog by Jeff Noon and Steve Beard.

Events pick up immediately from the conclusion of Gogmagog and once again our unlikely crew are journeying up river and having some interesting stops along the way as the various pieces of the mystery are revealed. I really appreciated the 'show, don't tell' approach to the writing in the first book and this left me craving for answers in this concluding part, but equally I was hoping that the sense of bewilderment and gradual discovery would continue without hand holding exposition - thankfully for my tastes, not everything was fully explained, leaving room for interpretation and additional discovery on a reread. I spent much of my read of Gogmagog trying to figure out where this story was being told as in whether it was a secondary fantasy world or actually our own Earth but in a different time. With Ludluda, this question is answered but I will not spoil what this was here.

The Chronicles of Ludwich offers a truly unique reading experience which defies the boundaries of genre, pulling in elements of fantasy, fairytale, science fiction and beyond. The prose throughout has a dreamlike quality and at times can carry you along like the eddies and currents of the rivers depicted in this story whilst also having the ability in parallel to be crude and direct. As an avid Fantasy and Science Fiction reader, I can often get the sense when starting a new book of having previously read the story already as tried and tested tropes are repackaged again and again but with this Duology I was struggling to compare this with anything else or figure out precisely the literary influences that may have inspired it so I guess that is my way of praising the amount of originality that went into this work.

Many thanks to Angry Robot Books and NetGalley for providing an eArc in exchange for an honest review. Ludluda is due to be published on 3rd December 2024