The Edge Chronicles

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The Edge Chronicles is a Fantasy series written by Paul Stewart and illustrated by Chris Riddell. Originally published in the United Kingdom, the series has since been published in the United States as well.

Contents

[edit] Setting

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The Edge is set on the Edge, which appears to be either a huge cliff jutting out of the clouds, or an island floating in the sky.

The Edge is made up of many different environments, the first of which is the Edgelands, the very northern and southern edges of the cliff. It is a barren rocky place forever clouded in mist. There, people may stumble into the Twilight Woods, fall over the edge of the Edge itself, or find the gloamglozer, the most feared of the demons in the Edge.

The second is the Deepwoods, the forest to which many woodland creatures, both peaceful and deadly, call home - including the hero of the first three books of the Chronicles. It is the largest area of the Edge; a seemingly endless panorama of teeming life in so many diverse forms. In the Deepwoods there are a few settlements apart from the normal villages and tribes. There is the Foundry Glade, the Eastern Roost, the Goblin Nations and the Free Glades. The Free Glades consist of The Ironwood Glade, which is next to the South Lake and the Great Lake. Near the edge of the Great Lake there is the Lake Landing, which is near the Waif Glen where the reckoning takes place and where only the invited can get in. Next to the great lake there is the Woodtroll timberyards, and in the North Lake there is Lullaby island. At the very edge of the free glades, there is a cliff, which is full of caves where Clottertrogs reside. And most important of all, there is New Undertown. At the east end of the Deepwoods, after the Nightwoods, or Waif Country, is a giant cliff which leads to the bottom Riverrise. Behind the waterfall that is there, there is a staircase, which leads above the clouds, to the top of Riverrise. In the middle there is a pool, which the waterfall at the bottom flows from. Around it, there are hundreds of trees and flowers, making it seem like a huge garden. New Undertown, as well as many of the villages, are only seen in the last three books. Another site in the Deepwoods is the Great Shryke Slave Auction. There creatures of any kind can come to buy or sell creatures they had captured and sell them as slaves. The whole market is owned and operated by the shrykes, a bird-like race of creatures who live on the Edge.

Third comes the Twilight Woods, a place of decay and immortality which gives off a strange force that makes anyone who enters forget themselves and be lost forever in daydreams and nightmares. It is a place that robs inturders of their senses and faculties, but never grants the peace of death. Great storms are attracted to the place to release great bolts of lightning that hit the earth in solid form, as the revered substance "Stormphrax", and despite the risks many venture there in search of the powerful crystals. Because perpertual twilight exists there, the Stormphrax is slowly ground down into a powder, called Phraxdust. This powder can purify any liquid, making it safe for drinking.

Next is the Mire, a bubbling brownish-white land coated by ooze that resulted from the dumping into it of waste and sludge by nearby Undertown. It is a place of hidden blow holes and sinking quick-mud, and seems perfectly uninhabitable - except for the creeping monsters that hide in the waste. In the last three books, there exists a great road over the Mire, controlled by birdlike Shrykes.

Old Undertown is next door to the Mire. It is the capital of the Edge. Holding a diverse population, the city is still less than prosperous in many areas, and shanties are pressed tight to its outskirts. Undertown is also built on the banks of the large Edgewater River, which splits the city in two. This is the centre of commerce on the Edge, a place of merchants and pirates - each trying to undercut the other. It was destroyed afterwards by a dark Maelstorm created by the character Vox Verlix.

When pieces of New Sanctaphrax fell, it destroyed part of Old Undertown, creating Screetown. It is as uninhabitable as the Mire; only rubble ghouls, which suck the moisture out of everything they encounter, leaving it completely dry, can dwell here, as well as the mysterious Ghosts of Screetown.

An enormous buoyant rock is the site of the scholarly city of Sanctaphrax, which teaches students a variety of subjects - mainly concerning the weather and how to predict it. There are Colleges of Raintasters, Cloudwatchers, Mistsifters, and so on. Other scholars also come here to pore over the many texts here for study. Very little use is made of the knowledge acquired in Scantaphrax; it is largely the home of pedants, each of whom attempts to outdo or destroy his fellows. Sanctaphrax is attached to Undertown by a huge metal chain to prevent its floating away. In Midnight Over Sanctaphrax, the chain holding down Sanctaphrax is cut, and the city floats away. It is replaced by New Sanctaphrax, a second giant rock, which in later books has given in to stone sickness, causing it to sink and almost rot away. It is now supported by a forest of support beams, maintained by thousands of slaves.

The final part of the Edge is the Stone Gardens, at the very western area of the Edge. The Gardens are where buoyant rocks slowly "grow" from the surface, and eventually float away into the sky. The Garden is guarded by the White Ravens, which keep an eye on the cultivation of the strange stones. These stones are used to build great flying boats known as Sky-ships; without the stones, transport on the Edge would be a very limited affair. Later in the series, the Stone Gardens are infected with "Stone Sickness" - a degenerative disease that brought to an end the "First Age of Flight", which in turn brought about many other changes to the Edge.

The Edge finally ends here, and the Edgewater River slips into the void past the western edge, at the very tip of the cliff, to endlessly tumble into the void below.

[edit] List of Main Characters

[edit] The Family

[edit] Sky Pirate Crews

[edit] Stormchaser

[edit] Villains

[edit] Allies

[edit] Animals and plants of the Edge

One of the elements the series is known for is its interesting array of plant and animal life, described in such detail (and accompanied by grotesque line drawings) that it feels like the story is taking place in an actual living, breathing fantasy world.

See also: Animals of the Edge Chronicles and Plants of the Edge Chronicles

[edit] Works in the series

Here is a list of all of The Edge Chronicles so far in the chronological storyline order, with original date of publication. There will be twelve books in all.

[edit] The Quint Saga

[edit] The Twig Saga

[edit] The Rook Saga

[edit] Reference

(There is some debate over where The Stone Pilot is placed in the chronology, as although the story is set in a certain time period, the narration of the story is told from the persective of a later time period in the canon.)

The last book, The Wrath of the Gloamglozer, will reunite all 3 main characters according to the authors. What they mean is obscure, as the 3 protagonists live in different ages.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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