Those readers who have experienced the delights of Andrew Caldecott’s Rotherweird series (Rotherweird, Lost Acre and Wyntertide) may have some inkling of what to expect from the first of his latest duology Momenticon. That earlier series dealt with an English town cut off from the rest of the world, alternate realities, bizarre inventions and a roll call of eccentric characters. But even they may have to recalibrate in the face of the sheer post-apocalyptic weirdness that makes up his latest novel.
Momenticon opens in a museum full of famous art works, a lonely dome in a dying landscape. The Museum has been looked after for the last three years by a young man called Fogg but has received no visitors. As the third year ticks over strange things start to happen including finding a pill that gives him Monet’s perspective of painting his water lillies, discovering that a young woman called Morag Spire has been living above him in the ceiling of the Museum for three years and being visited by two malicious young men dressed as Tweedledum and Tweedledee out of Alice in Wonderland. Morag and Fogg catch each other up on the previous three years before the story catches up to the present and then hurtles forward.
There is so much going on in Momenticon that it is hard to encapsulate. But the overarching narrative is a battle for control between the two powers (Genrich who specialise in cloning and Tempestas who can control the weather) that remain over the damaged world with Fogg, Morag and their allies caught in the middle. The battle takes place in landscapes that have been created to resemble famous art works and involve not only people but robots and genetically altered creatures resembling characters out of Alice in Wonderland. And that is before we get to the momenticons themselves – pills that can transport the taker to another world – which only a few, including Morag and the evil Cosmo Vane, have the power to create.
Readers of Caldecott’s previous work will recognise many familiar elements but deployed in a new guise. The fundamental battle between good and evil, a range of characters with Dickensian names (such as Oblivious Potts, Peregrine Mander and Hilda Crike), a steampunk aesthetic (the main characters get around in windbag operated airships and there are plenty of automata), puzzles and quests, and a very English sensibility. But here, being post-apocalyptic, he also has an environmental point to make.
Momenticon is wild but fun and works within its own crazy frame of reference. The trick is to let accept the fantastical premise, don’t wait around for too much exposition and go with it. While Rotherweird took a while to get going, this book is more stripped back, only providing a little backstory before dropping straight into the action. After which it feels non-stop, splitting the protagonists up and bringing them together again, delivering a series of growing climaxes and then leaving readers hanging for an anticipated concluding second volume.