Fully Booked: Weird and Wonderful Worlds

One of my favorite things about reading – and I’m sure any other book-lover would tell you the same – is the way you might be sitting in your bed, or on a beach, or a smelly train, but as soon as you open those pages, you can be transported anywhere in the world.

As I considered what series’ to talk about for this post, I realized a lot of the ones that came to mind were books for children and young-adults. I thought that might be a bit weird, but then I figured, why not? Young people are fantastical and open-minded and don’t conform to your rules, and the books written for them reflect that. And if you think you’re “too old” to read quality literature then maybe you need to get down off your high horse.

So here it is I guess, a few of the series’, adult and otherwise, that I think create the most interesting, immersive, exciting worlds.

Chaos Walking trilogy – Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness may be the most under-appreciated young-adult novelists of all time. In a world where the teenage sci-fi section is full of hundreds of variations of the same dystopian romance, the Chaos Walking trilogy truly stands out. The writing style is strange, written in Todd’s broken English dialect, and takes a little while to get into, but it’s definitely worth it.

The first of the series is “The Knife of Never Letting Go.” Todd is the last boy in a town of entirely men, where everyone can hear each others’ thoughts in the never-ending Noise that surrounds them. When Todd discovers the town’s horrible secret, he makes his escape, only to be confronted by something he never thought he’d see: a girl. With Viola, Todd embarks on a terrifying and incredible journey, and discovers that the world is much bigger and more twisted than he ever realized.

I have never read something more difficult to describe than this, so I can’t properly explain to you how truly immersed I became in this series. Todd’s narration will have you white-knuckle gripping the pages and the last chapter will have you sobbing your heart out.  Image courtesy of Moviepilot

A Series of Unfortunate Events – Lemony Snicket The 13-book series follows the lives of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire, three siblings suddenly orphaned when their parent’s are killed in a fire. They encounter difficulty after difficulty as they jump between guardians, and are pursued by Count Olaf, an evil relative who wants to steal their inheritance. The plot gets more complex as the series continues and the three orphans’ lives get entangled with a mysterious organization called V.F.D. Snicket has this incredible ability to describe people and places. Every character is memorable: the man with hooks for hands, Carmelita Spats, a rude young girl they meet at boarding school, and the mysterious Quigley Quagmire. And however outlandish the places the orphans end up, from a crab-infested shack to a desert island, Snicket creates a vivid picture for the reader. I may have been in 4th or 5th grade when I read these, but my mum was 40 at the time and she loved them too. Although they’re written for kids, Snicket’s unique, sarcastic voice and artist Brett Helquist’s gorgeous illustrations could suck anyone in.

Image courtesy of Hollywood Reporting

His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman His Dark Materials, beginning with “Northern Lights” (I think you guys call it The Golden Compass), is set in a series of parallel universes, following two children – Lyra and Will – as they travel between them.

The characters are beautiful, each one individual, not over-the-top like Snicket’s but real, and memorable just the same. And I love Lyra’s home universe, a steampunk version of Oxford, England, where every person is accompanied by a daemon, an animal companion that acts as an extension of their soul.

Talking polar bears, matriarchal witches, a knife that can cut through universes, this series combines magic and science in a fantastical world, yet still manages to make the story beautifully and heartbreakingly real for the reader.    

Image courtesy of Rutgers Prep

The Thursday Next series – Jasper Fforde

I’m not exactly sure what drugs Jasper Fforde was on when he came up with the premise for the Thursday Next series, but I’m glad he was on them. This series is the strangest world I have ever read about.

It’s set in England in the 1980s, or some crazy alternate universe 1980s. In this version the Crimean War never ended, time-travel is totally normal and dodos are kept as pets. Thursday Next (yes, that’s her real name) is a Special-Ops literary-detective; she solves crimes that take place literally inside books. When Jane Eyre is kidnapped from the pages of her novel, Thursday has to go into Bronte’s world to pursue the culprit.

This series takes weird and wonderful to a whole new level. It’s definitely a ‘suspend your disbelief and just try and roll with it’ kind of situation. New endings to famous novels, a movement for Neanderthal Rights, satirical challenges to the government system, gorillas disguised as secondary characters: you name it, this wacky world probably has it. And, though this might only be funny to me, it’s set in Swindon, possible the dullest place in England.

Image courtesy of Bookishly Witty