Sophie Masson is one of a band of Australian fantasy writers who are establishing themselves as among the world’s best.  With writers like Garth Nix, Sara Douglass and Isobelle Carmody, she is creating challenging, exciting and thoughtful stories that explore the far reaches of the imagination. 

In Hollow Lands draws deeply on her personal history to explore the challenge of being caught between worlds, trying to determine to which culture you belong.  Masson’s French/Celtic heritage provides the setting of the faery world with a tale of stolen children and the seductions of magic, but the struggle of twin Tiphaine to keep her identity and rescue her brother Gromer has an emotional intensity that could just as easily be any multicultural divide. 

The strange, magical korrigans had always been lurking around the children as they grew, protected by their governess Dame Viviane.  When Tiphaine and Gromer are finally tricked into the hidden faery world, they become pawns in a battle between two korrigan rulers.  The desperate attempts of Viviane and the squire Bertrand du Guesclin to find and rescue them take years of searching and learning, just as Tiphaine has to search for understanding and learn how to deal with a world that does not obey human rules. 

The story is based on tales of Brittany and King Arthur, as well as real characters from medieval history.  It is intricate, mysterious and as enchanting as the korrigans’ magic.  Masson keeps several story threads running alongside each other, sometimes intersecting, then drifting apart until they all twist together at the end. 

She does not explain all the details of the korrigan or medieval world, but lets the reader piece them together from the clues of the story.  The hints of other stories are intriguing and make In Hollow Lands a great starting point for the rich world of Celtic and Arthurian legends. 

It is also a fascinating story by an excellent writer.

Other books by this author:
The Hand of Glory (Hodder, 2004)

Review by David Beagley

© 2004 David Beagley