Name: Arcadia
Rating: 3.454545454545455 (11 reviews)
ISBN: 9780571301584

Iain Pears

An inventive, captivating and richly imagined new novel from bestselling writer Iain Pears. The novel will also be published as an interactive app.

Arcadia

Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. April, 1960: In the cellar of a professor's house in Oxford, fifteen-year-old Rosie goes in search of a missing cat -- and instead finds herself in a different world. Anterwold is a sun-drenched land of storytellers and prophecies. But is this world real -- and what happens if Rosie decides to stay? Meanwhile, a rebellious scientist is trying to prove that time does not even exist -- with potentially devastating consequences. As the three worlds come together, one question arises: who controls the future -- or the past...'

Beth Benbow

This book is centred around quite a complicated premise however I think Iain 
Pears has tackled it brilliantly. It is a novel which has been cleverly brought together toward the end. The reason I give it three stars is because the last third of the book consisted of most of the action which resulted in the start being very slow and hard going. It took me the best part of a month to read this book which is, by my standards at least, a considerable amount of time for a book of this size. Despite this, I am glad I stick with this book for it is a thought provoking read.

From the author of the international best seller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Arcadia is an astonishing work of imagination. Three interlocking worlds. Four people looking for answers. But who controls the future--or the past? In 1960s Oxford, Professor Henry Lytten is attempting to write a fantasy novel that forgoes the magic of his predecessors, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. He finds an unlikely confidante in his quick-witted, inquisitive young neighbor Rosie. One day, while chasing Lytten's cat, Rosie encounters a doorway in his cellar. She steps through and finds herself in an idyllic, pastoral land where Storytellers are revered above all others. There she meets a young man who is about to embark on a quest of his own--and may be the one chance Rosie has of returning home. These breathtaking adventures ultimately intertwine with the story of an eccentric psychomathematician whose breakthrough discovery will affect all of these different lives and worlds. Dazzlingly inventive and deeply satisfying, Arcadia tests the boundaries of storytelling and asks: If the past can change the future, then might the future also indelibly alter the past? From the Hardcover edition.

Magnus Hambleton

Lizzy Grayson

Steven O'Toole

Moray Lyle McIntosh

Lea de Sousa

From the author of the international best seller An Instance of the Fingerpost, Arcadia is an astonishing work of imagination. In Cold War England, Professor Henry Lytten, having renounced a career in espionage, is writing a fantasy novel that dares to imagine a world less fraught than his own. He finds an unlikely confidante in Rosie, an inquisitive young neighbor who, while chasing after Lytten's cat one day, stumbles through a doorway in his cellar and into a stunning and unfamiliar bucolic landscape—remarkably like the fantasy world Lytten is writing about. There she meets a young boy named Jay who is about to embark on a journey that will change both their lives. Elsewhere, in a distopian society where progress is controlled by a corrupt ruling elite, the brilliant scientist Angela Meerson has discovered the potential of a powerful new machine. When the authorities come knocking, she will make an important decision—one that will reverberate through all these different lives and worlds.

Arcadia

Reviews

Highlights