The Child Thief Review

I was surprised to find that this book is apparently violently popular with Goodreads members, as I personally found it very disappointing. Of all the Peter Pan re-imaginings/Prequels/Sequels I have read, from [b:Peter Pan and the Only Children|1115332|Peter Pan and the Only Children|Gilbert Adair|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1276564680s/1115332.jpg|1304397] to [b:A Bottled Cherry Angel|1687899|A Bottled Cherry Angel|Jean Ure|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1186926125s/1687899.jpg|1684851] it is easily the worst, quite simply because it does nothing new with the material but re-write it before piling a whole heap of miscellaneous stock clichés from other sources on top.

After opening with a bit of dramatic urban child abuse to give the story that modern angle Brom is so desperate to achieve we proceed to the story proper and meet our hero, dull Mary-Sue Nick. We find him involved in some trendy, zeitgeisty state-of-the-nation gang/drug trouble such as the modern youf is prone to, which remains partly unexplained at this point to facilitate some unearned drama and mystery. After this putters along for a while we meet the eponymous Child Thief, Peter (without the “Pan”, as an exciting distinguishing feature from the [a:J.M. Barrie|5255014|J.M. Barrie|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1318047214p2/5255014.jpg] character) and proceed to an other-world island which is not Never Never Land (see previous parentheses). This island has been relocated to just off the shores of Manhattan, which seems somewhat reductive compared to its previous location of everywhere and nowhere.

The reason for the island’s relocation is briefly touched upon with an explanation that despite being as curt and unilluminative as possible still manages during its brief appearance to cause a noticeable plot hole. It also appears to have the knock-on effect that every historical figure and event making an appearance is of US origin (pilgrim, slave, Native American etc.). The insistence of specifically reiterating that Not-Neverland has been an American colony full of American citizens only (not counting non-humans) for several hundred years minimum serves to completely negate all the original source works, [b:Peter Pan and Other Plays|7687|Peter Pan and Other Plays The Admirable Crichton; Peter Pan; When Wendy Grew Up; What Every Woman Knows; Mary Rose|J.M. Barrie|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165638440s/7687.jpg|10763] (the play) [b:The Little White Bird|288600|The Little White Bird|J.M. Barrie|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173444096s/288600.jpg|14761428] and [b:Peter Pan|34268|Peter Pan|J.M. Barrie|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337714526s/34268.jpg|1358908], which seems slightly presumptuous. As a side-note, Peter’s insistent use of American idiom at a time some long while before the USA existed remains unexplained.

The plot basically consists of yet another lazy re-tread of Arthurian mythology, complete with magical sword MacGuffin and long-lost-heir trope. For the first half of the novel we meet a series of characters lifted at random from English, Irish Scottish and Welsh folk tales and thrown together at the whim of the author. In case the reader has missed the skill with which he researched these characters he congratulates himself warmly on the matter in a smug “Author’s Note” at the end of a book. The whole thing is glued together with the same vaguely defined and poorly understood concept of “Fairy” evidenced in other books I’ve had the misfortune to read lately (e.g [b:Dracula in Love|7763145|Dracula in Love|Karen Essex|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320470396s/7763145.jpg|10635930], and the execrable [b:Sookie Stackhouse|140082|Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse, #3)|Charlaine Harris|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1329501590s/140082.jpg|602144] Series), with plenty of uses of phrases like “The Sidhe” and “Faerie Folk” interchangeably and at random and much talk along the lines of “The time of the Fay is over, the time of man is here”.

None of this mythology has anything to do with “Peter Pan” as originally written. Nor for that matter does our hero Nick, who distracts the novel from Peter whilst contributing absolutely nothing other than slowly and dully learning to fight, for use later in the text. Meanwhile events that have presumably been simmering for hundreds of years suddenly come to a head purely because the protagonist has now arrived. Secrets are unnecessarily revealed to people who are then immediately captured by the enemy and surrender all they know. A captain who has been merrily murdering children for centuries meets a cute not-Lost-Boy, suddenly realises that his mass infanticide was a bit off, and starts a fight with an insane minister who has been leading a thus-far unchecked community of religious lunatics in a murderous rampage since the 16th century. Seasoned warriors of immense experience die in silly accidents to save Nick. Meanwhile all the female characters continue to be either archetypal damsels-in-distress, seductive witches or unseen mothers, who are also in need of saving. There is also a repeated worrying cross-over between the sexualised femme fatale and the maternal nurturer, which doesn’t say much about the author’s personal sexual issues.

After a lot of dull battle scenes events finally come to a head when both the otherworldly creatures and the murderous pilgrims find themselves in modern day New York in a strangely anticlimactic end sequence which eventually forms some sort of conclusion. Meanwhile Nick does pretty much nothing for the latter quarter of the book other than shouting “Why Peter? Why? WHY?? Was it Worth it! Was all the death worth it??!!! Was it?? Was it worth it??!! WWWWHHHYYY!!??!!” over and over and over again, to such an extent that the actual dénouement was pretty much drowned out for me by his histrionics.

Then we are treated to the aforementioned “Author’s Note”, in which Brom lauds his own genius in noticing from one give-away line the darkness at the heart of the Peter Pan story. Unfortunately he has apparently neglected both the innumerable other instances of darkness, death, tragedy and violence both veiled and openly stated in the original text, plus the previous highlighting of this darkness by basically every critic and reader for the past 100+ years. This amply displays the ignorance that has lead him to believe that simply by throwing in a heap of mostly laughable swears and a mention of gang-culture into his work he is adding a darkness not already present in a text rooted in child death, fear or mortality and the horror of innocence.

Conclusion: if you don’t understand something, don’t try to re-write it. You will only end up looking stupid.