Product Description

This is the Ultimate Fantasy: a quest of epic reach spanning the globe under the mythologies of five great cultures - and finally crossing the barrier between life and death. Jack Churchill, archaeologist and dreamer, walks out of the mist and into Celtic Britain more than two thousand years before he was born, with no knowledge of how he got there. All Jack wants is to get home to his own time where the woman he loves waits for him. Finding his way to the timeless mystical Otherworld, the home of the gods, he plans to while away the days, the years, the millennia, until his own era rolls around again . . . but nothing is ever that simple. A great Evil waits in modern times and will do all in its power to stop Jack's return. In a universe where time and space are meaningless, its tendrils stetch back through the years . . . Through Roman times, the Elizabethan age, Victoria's reign, the Second World War to the Swinging Sixties, the Evil sets its traps to destroy Jack. Mark Chadbourn gives us a high adventure of dazzling sword fights, passionate romance and apocalyptic wars in the days leading up to Ragnarok, the End-Times: a breathtaking, surreal vision of twisting realities where nothing is quite what it seems.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47715 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Graham McNeill, DEATHRAY
"There's a wealth of adventure here. [An] enjoyable fantasy romp."

Review
"There's a wealth of adventure here. [An] enjoyable fantasy romp." (Graham McNeill DEATHRAY )

About the Author
Mark Chadbourn was raised in the mining communities of South Derbyshire. He studied Economic History at Leeds before becoming a national newspaper journalist. He is the award-winning author of several novels, including The Age of Misrule and The Dark Age trilogies.

Customer Reviews

Absolutely Brilliant
I could not put this book down! I was awake until 4am reading it just because I had to know what happened. This follows on from both Always Forever and Hounds of Avalon. All hope has been lost but Jack Churchill is fighting his way back to the future to Ruth, whom he knows he loves, but can't remember much else after being thrown back in time.

I'm not really doing it justice here... This book was so beautifully researched I'm sure it could be used as a history textbook. It opens your eyes to different eras of history, yet keeps the people real... The year may be different, but underneath it all people are fundamentally the same. The same hopes and the same struggles and I think that's one of the important messages in the book.

This is the first in a new series, and my hopes are big. It has already impressed me far more than the Dark Age trilogy, mainly due to The Queen of Sinister, which I felt to be a bit lacking in depth, with characters that didn't really resonate with me. Here we have the original (and best!) five, almost back in business, struggling against despair to become champions once again.

This book wraps up nicely at the end, with a satisfying ending, but it also leaves you with a sense of dread, because other events at the end make you realise everything is not going to be ok. And it's this feeling which has got me filled with so much anticipation for the next book - I can't wait!

Chadbourn's completely on form, and he shows here better than ever his ability to show you the people at the heart of humanity, and makes you feel like you know them better than yourself. Worth it, undoubtedly.

Excellent Fantasy
Jack of Ravens is a great read and a massive scamper through history from Celtic times, Romans, Elizabethan, the Blitz through to the 60's and America. If you haven't read the previous books it doesn't matter, you will just get a slightly different perspective on it.

If you have read them then you will be pleased to be reunited with the original Brothers and Sisters of Dragons. There is some good dry humour in amongst the action and tension. The characters have plenty of flaws and a sense of evil truely comes out from the villains. I couldn't put it down either and as usual I was left with plenty to think about. :)

Tightening threads on the web of existence
This book, begins a third sequence in the "modern-world collapsing as technology fails and magic returns" setting that marked out the Age Of Misrule and Dark Age sequences as two of the most interesting fantasy trilogies of recent years.

All of the Chadbourn features are here- credibly flawed characters, taut writing, deep research and a plot that absolutely tears along, but this book has an engaging warmth to it that draws the reader in more than it's predecessors. Perhaps it's the return to familiar characters ( you should certainly read the Age Of Misrule books before starting this one- in fact, you should read them anyway as they're great ) or something about the way they grow through a story which revolves around the importance of hope and humanity but I felt more emotionally engaged by this than any of it's predecessors.

Running behind the scenes of reality, on a whistlestop tour of some of history's more mysterious corners, this is a very promising start to the new trilogy.