N.D. Wilson's Ashtown Burials Series
I have learned multiple things, this past week.
It is somehow emotionally draining to read four books in the span of seven days.
One can achieve an extensive amount of reading by locking oneself in one's room.
Ashtown Burials is brilliant.
I don't know why we hadn't read the Ashtown Burials before. I think there was maybe a snippet of the first chapter in the back of Leepike Ridge, and we thought it sounded weird. Until recently, when I finally came to the conclusion that, to date, I have never read a disappointing N.D. Wilson book. So I purchased the series on Thriftbooks "for our little brother's birthday present" (cough) and I whipped through the first book in under twelve hours.
Obviously, I was checking to make sure that they're appropriate for our 10-year-old to read. Obviously.
In the course of the series, I found only three possibly objectionable points. The first of these (and you already know this if you've already read some N.D. Wilson) is that some elements of his stories can be weird. I hear the word "creepy" tossed around a lot when discussing his books, but I don't think that completely fits. I never found the books to be creepy. "Bizarre" might be a better description.
In his 100 Cupboards series, he has the Fingerlings--men with a finger grown in the back of the skull and concealed in their hair. These are the "puppet strings" the witch Nimiane uses to control them. The "creepy" elements of the Ashtown Burials series are similar to this. The evil Dr. Phoenix began, as a young man in Ashtown, to experiment on his fellow Order members--the bodies of which were recovered years later. The story picks up with an older Phoenix still experimenting on people, now attempting to mutate them with animal characteristics: oxen strength, fish gills, baboon features. This process is only mildly disturbing, compared to Phoenix's goals in the second book: using a dragon's tooth (a resurrection stone) and stolen life to bring back the dead and transport his warriors' souls into new bodies. No good ever comes from this evil. The dead he awakens lack souls, so are not truly present; think Cybermen. Another example is the evil dragon gin Radu Bey. He builds empires from living comatose humans, feeding on their pain and sorrow. Eventually, they become an "empire of bones."
Violence-wise, I consider this series to be a bit more intense than N.D. Wilson's other books. This is partially why they are categorized for a higher age group than his other series. Cyrus and Antigone Smith are fairly normal kids who have been introduced into an ancient Order with dark secrets, and in a time of war. There is death. There is pain and loss. While there are no gratuitous descriptions of blood, the author does not shy away from depicting the battlefield. Cyrus is shot in the leg. At the end of Empire of Bones, a living Rupert Greeves is seen nailed to a door with blades in the middle of a battle. War is bloody, and N.D. Wilson does not attempt to lighten its darkness.
In other news, the word "bastard" is used twice to describe a villain. That is all.
After all that, note that these are our reasons for categorizing the books in a higher age group. Keep in mind, however, that our little brother is familiar with battle scenes in The Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. He is currently enjoying the Ashtown Burials.
So, why read it? First of all, the series is well-written. Even if it's not your kind of story, you can always count on the fact that an N.D. Wilson book will not rip you off with mediocre writing. In addition, the series is paced quickly enough to engage readers who need a fast-paced read to keep their attention.
The characters are true to themselves and to their values. Cyrus is perhaps the most relatable; N.D. Wilson says this is the character he was most like, as a boy. We have characters who are on a path to redemption, characters who are backtracking and choosing good after two books of making the wrong choices, and characters who will gladly spend their lives for the ones they love.
Almost overwhelmingly, Rupert Greeves is considered one of the best character in the Ashtown Burials. Rupe is the "Avengel" of the Order of Brendan; he assumes the position of an "avenging angel" who knows how to both maintain peace, and unleash fury when darkness and injustice encroach upon the light. In the words of one character: "Rupert Greeves would gladly die even for the least of these. For you. For your sister. For me. Do we deserve that gift?" Rupert has a love of all human life that has set his feet on a path of self-sacrifice for the seemingly least-deserving individual. He is almost a Christ figure, an idea emphasized by the image of him sacrificing himself for those around him, and in turn being nailed to a door and scoffed at.
Especially in the third book, Empire of Bones, the series takes on a theme of sacrificial love. From Rupert's willingness to die for those he loves, Cyrus gains a powerful role model. He realizes that he himself is willing to spend his mortal life to save those around him.
"Cowards live for the sake of living, but for heroes, life is a weapon, a thing to be spent, a gift to be given to the weak and the lost and the weary, even to the foolish and the cowardly."
--N.D. Wilson, Empire of Bones
Something N.D. Wilson does not take for granted in his books is that family matters. Our parents and siblings have an impact on our lives. From Henry's adventures with his family in the 100 Cupboards series and Sam Miracle's quest to rescue his older sister, to the Smith family of the Ashtown Burials series, N.D. Wilson maintains this theme.
All around, this is a pretty fantastic series. I can't believe I hadn't read it up until now.
But here's the catch: the third book ends on a sort of bittersweet cliffhanger, so of course I stormed about the house like a banshee for ten minutes before realizing that too many questions had been left unanswered and thinking to look up whether there was going to be a fourth book. Good news: N.D. Wilson says he's working on the fourth installment. And he likes it, so far. Bad news: Empire or Bones came out in 2013. For the sake of those befuddled time-travelers among us, I think it's worth mentioning that it is currently 2017--and there is still no fourth book. So read at your own risk, knowing that you may be left hanging for a while yet.
More good news: the 100 Cupboards series' recently-published prequel, The Door Before, intertwines the stories of the cupboards with the Smiths and Ashtown. Four years after the Empire of Bones was published, we once again have mention of the Ashtown Burials. Could this mean that the fourth installment is on its way??