Switchers (novel)
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| Switchers | |
 Red Fox edition 1998 |
|
| Author | Kate Thompson |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Darren Lock |
| Country | Ireland |
| Language | English |
| Series | Switchers Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Aran Press |
| Publication date | 1994 |
| Pages | 201 |
| Preceded by | None |
| Followed by | Midnight's Choice |
Switchers is the first book of the Switchers Trilogy by Kate Thompson. Originally published in Ireland in 1994, it was first published in Great Britain by The Bodley Head in 1997. It introduces Tess and Kevin, the two main characters of the series. The story begins in Dublin, although most of the book is set in the Arctic circle.
The first book by this award-winning writer, it was described as "unmissable" and "spellbinding" by the Sunday Telegraph while in the Guardian it was called "one of the best books of the year". [1] It was shortlisted for the Smarties Book Award in 1998.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Plot introduction
Two young Irish shapeshifters face the menace of an encroaching Ice Age caused by monstrous creatures in the Arctic.
[edit] Major characters
- Tess: The principal protagonist of the series. Tess is a Switcher, and is thirteen during the events of this book.
- Kevin: Another Switcher, Kevin spends more time as a rat than as a human. He is in his late fourteenth year during the events of the book, and so is confronted with the terrifying choice of what form to take when he Switches for the last time.
- Elizabeth "Lizzie" Larten: An elderly widow and former Switcher.
- Krools: The krools are the main antagonists of the book. They are enormous slugs which thrive in extreme cold, and hibernate for thousands of years at a time in frozen regions such as the Arctic. If awoken, they rampage across the world, eating everything in their path until their hunger is satisfied, after which they set about freezing the planet so as to make it more hospitable to their kind.
[edit] Plot summary
The book opens in Dublin, with a girl called Tess taking the bus home. After she gets off and begins walking home, she is followed by a scruffy-looking boy, just as she has been for the past two days. However, this time he talks to her, which he has not done before. He tells her that his name is Kevin, and claims to need her help, but will not say what for. When she continues to refuse, he tells her that he is aware of some deep secret about her. She pretends not to know what he is talking about, and continues home.
The next day, Tess goes for a walk in the Phoenix Park, where she locates a small copse which she frequently visits on such excursions. She checks that no one is watching, slips into the undergrowth of this copse, and shapeshifts into a squirrel. This power is clearly the secret to which the boy was referring. While enjoying the excitement of squirrel life, she encounters a chipmunk with whom she plays for several hours. She considers it odd to find such a creature in the Phoenix Park, as chipmunks are not native to Ireland. Human again, Tess returns home, and, while her family eats dinner in front of the television, she recalls the first time she "Switched", as she calls it. On the TV, the reporter mentions freak blizzards all over the world.
In Washington, several military generals watch a video link from a surveillance helicopter which recently disappeared in the Arctic. The video shows that everything seems normal, until, suddenly, what appears to be a colossal white slug moves across the Earth below. The men in the helicopter are terrified, and try to flee, but the slug raises itself high enough to apparently swallow the helicopter. The generals are all sworn to secrecy about what they just saw.
Tess enjoys another day as a squirrel, but cannot find the chipmunk. On Monday afternoon, Kevin follows her home again. He persists in asking for help, and when she refuses again, he asks her if she really believes that there are chipmunks in the Phoenix Park. Tess realises that he is a Switcher as well, and that he was in fact the chipmunk whom she befriended two days previously. She agrees to listen to him, and he tells her to meet him at Connolly Station at one o'clock. She agrees, and consents to tell him her name.
That night, Tess Switches into an owl and flies to the station, where Kevin informs her that the rats of the city have been asking him to help them. Tess is disgusted, as she detests rats, and flies home. Kevin follows her, and claims that he does not have "much time left". When Tess asks what he means, he tells her that all Switchers lose their powers on their fifteenth birthday. After a while, Kevin convinces her to come with him. The two transform themselves into rats, in the company of several other rats, they journey through the sewers to a house outside the city. When Tess and Kevin enter the house, the elderly woman who lives there introduces herself as Lizzie, and reveals that she was a Switcher in her younger days. She also claims that she has been waiting for Tess and Kevin to arrive. Kevin is irritated by Lizzie's many cats, as well as by her flippant and rambling attitude, and decides to leave. Tess, however, convinces him to give Lizzie a chance. Later, Lizzie introduces them to her goat, Nancy, and Kevin convinces Tess to join him in an excursion in the form of a goat. She consents, and the two spend the afternoon enjoying the mischievous nature of goats. Among other things, this enjoyment includes taunting cows and surprising a driver on the road so that she accidentally drives into a hedge (and emerges unhurt). A policeman visits Lizzie's house shortly after, claiming that a pair of goats have been causing havoc in the local area, and believing that it may have been Nancy. When the policeman encounters Tess, she claims that Lizzie is her great-aunt.
After the departure of the policeman, Kevin and Tess demand to know what they are needed for. Lizzie explains that the recent blizzards and other bizarre weather conditions are the result of the emergence of enormous slugs called krools from hibernation in the Arctic Circle. These krools have been awoken from their millennia-long slumber by recent oil drilling in the area of their hibernation, and that now that they are wakeful, they will not stop until they have brought the entire planet into a new Ice Age. Only Tess and Kevin have the power to stop this from happening.
Discussing the matter of the goats with his partner, the policeman recognizes Tess as a girl who was recently reported missing. The two call on Lizzie, who assures them that Tess and Kevin have both left, but they decide to search her house anyway. They do not, however, find either of the Switchers (both of whom are hiding in the form of cats).
Kevin decides to leave for the Arctic, and barely convinces a skeptical Tess to come with him. In the forms of dolphins, the two Switchers swim along the Liffey, into Dublin Bay. Once they reach the open sea, they become whales and swim northward. Far away, between Norway and Iceland, a ravenous krool slides across the ice, devouring all in its path. The krools are described as flat and black, and as large as a small town. They are so cold and flat that snow, rather than melting on contact with them, simply carpets their bodies, providing them with perfect camouflage. They eat anything which they encounter, and the only thing of which they are afraid is heat.
Once they reach the Arctic, Tess and Kevin sleep in an ice-cave in the forms of polar bears. When they wake the following day, Kevin mentions that he has been thinking about a piece of advice Lizzie gave to them about "being what isn't". He believes that it was important, but cannot figure out what it means. He tells Tess that he has been considering what form to take when he loses his powers, and Tess realises for the first time that the loss of a Switcher's gift on their fifteenth birthday does not mean that they must remain human; it simply means that they permanently become whatever animal they are at the moment they turn fifteen. Kevin claims their current circumstances will probably force him to become a polar bear for the rest of his life, but Tess insists that he is human, and must remain so. Kevin explains that, as a child, he was never able to fit in with other humans, and so, when he discovered his power to Switch, he used it as a means of escaping from his life. He eventually decided not to return to his family at all, and from that point on ceased to think of himself as human. Tess briefly falls asleep, and has a dream which suddenly allows her to understand Lizzie's advice with perfect clarity. She explains to Kevin that because the two of them have been so focussed on what exists in the here and now, they have closed their mind to alternative possibilities. However, if they stop being bound by their own perceptions and beliefs, there is nothing to stop them from Switching into creatures which do not exist, or rather, which once existed and are now extinct. Kevin realizes that she is right, and the two successfully transform themselves into mammoths, in which form they continue their journey.
A krool sees the mammoths approaching, and worries about eating them, owing to the fact that their body heat will cause problems to its digetive system. However, it is so hungry that it resolves to consume them anyway. As they pass in front of it, its enormous body rears up to swallow them whole, but Tess's instincts allow her to make a sudden leap of imagination, and she Switches into the one creature which can destroy the krool: a dragon. Kevin follows suit, and the two dragons melt the krool with their fiery breath. Unfortunately, an American military helicopter sees them and mistakes them for UFOs. These helicopters attempts to destroy the dragons with missiles, but the creatures are too clever and fast to be hit. They move about the Arctic, killing all the krools they can find. This causes the snowstorms all over the world to die down. After an entire day of hunting krools, Tess and Kevin become polar bears and settle down for the night in another ice cave.
Ont their way back to Ireland, Tess and Kevin are pursued by the military again. They attempt to get to safey, but while they are both flying low, the war-planes launch a napalm bomb to destroy them once and for all. They both swerve away from the explosion, Switching into birds as they do so. However, Kevin's Switch comes a few seconds too late, and he is caught in the blast. Tess waits in the sky above the bomb-site until the dawn of Kevin's fifteenth birthday, but it is clear that he died in the explosion. She therefore returns to Dublin, and speaks to Lizzie, who is not nearly as upset about Kevin's demise as Tess had expected. Lizzie explains that she does not know whether there is an afterlife or not, and therefore is not in a position to think about where Kevin now is. When Tess explains that she will miss Kevin, Lizzie reasons that this is more self-pity than pity for Kevin. Tess is curious as to why she and Kevin were chosen to be Switchers, but Lizzie explains that all children are Switchers, although very few of them learn how to use their gifts.
Tess returns home, and her parents are overjoyed to have her back. However, they notice that she has gone through considerable changes during her absence, and that her attempts to make friends and are done more out of sympathy for them than out of genuine desire to resume her old life. For the next several months, she considers what to become when she turns fifteen, and finds a downside to almost every option. Without anyone to talk to, she becomes increasingly lonely. One night, while Tess is in bed, a beautiful golden bird alights on her window-sill. She feels a strong sense of familiarity toward this bird, and suddenly realizes that it is in fact Kevin. She deduces that her friend must have made an immense leap of faith as he was swept up in the napalm explosion, and transformed himself into a phoenix, which allowed him to survive because phoenixes, by nature, rise from their own ashes when killed. The book ends as Tess pushes open the window, ready to become a phoenix herself and fly with Kevin over the city.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
