(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia)
It’s a rare thing indeed to proclaim, in musically buoyant Mary Poppins fashion, that something is “practically perfect in every way” but that’s really all that can be said about each and every instalment of Lightfall by massively talented writer and illustrator Tim Probert– 1: The Girl & The Galdurian and 2: Shadow of the Bird were, and are, absolute delights and of course the latest addition to this immersively wonderful series, 3: The Dark Times.
The reason for such a breathlessly flawless accolade?
Lightfall manages to combine wondrously thrilling and emotionally affecting storytelling with characters so richly and fully formed you feel as if they are family (and you care about them every bit as much; this is predicated on the basis that you love your family which hopefully is the case) and artwork so vivaciously alive and gorgeously colourful that rather than flying through this epic tale in excited anticipation (though you will because it near compels you to do so) you often stop just to sigh and wonder at the beauty of it all.
The Dark Times is, for all of the narrative travails that befall the endlessly hopefully characters, such a lovely piece of work to behold – every page feels like so real and beautiful that you could tumble into it, and each character’s expressions are so intense, funny, sweet, alarmed etc that it’s hard not to identify with each and every moment they endure.
Which is quite a feat considering you likely don’t ———- SEMI-SPOILERS AHEAD !!!!! ———- live in a fantastical land formed by mythic beings where the light has died and plunged the world into a darkness so complete that it’s easy to wonder if it will ever be light again.
To add to the stresses of this end of all this exuberantly light-filled life, where the only source of energy and nourishment is the living, breathing depths of Irpa, as it’s known, is the fact that the “Mire” is surging up through the ground without warning, a blackish liquid nightmare that consumes everything in its path.
There’s not a lot going right, and you can’t blame the survivors of the near-cataclysmic battle of Rinn where a supposed victory against great evil was won – though the consequences feel less than triumphal – fro wondering just what it is they’ve achieved.
Bea and Cad – the Girl and the Galdurian of the first book who are the beating heart and soul of these brilliantly engaging stories – are down at times (how in Irpa could you not be?) but together with Bea’s knowledge-happy adoptive dad the Pig Wizard a mystic Arsai they call their friend they set off for the Citadel of Knowledge where they hopefully believe the solutions to what ails their once verdant world lie.
It’s an audacious gambit given all other survivors of the end of the light and the Mire are racing to the capital city of Baihle, torches aglow and fear in their hearts, but you’d expect nothing less of Bea and Cad, firm friends of the unlikeliest kind, who have shown again and again that there is no obstacle too great for them to attempt to surmount even if there are times when the weight of it sits heavily upon them.
It’s a lot to ask of anyone to save the world but Bea and Cad believe they can do it, and while it seems like things only worsen rather than get better at multiple points during The Dark Times where personal trauma and environmental dangers seem to compete to sap their spirits, they continue on with the arrival of an unexpected ally (the best kind, really) giving them some sense that there is hope in what otherwise appears to be a fool’s errand.
What truly draws you into this fantastically thrilling tale beyond its audaciously imaginative groundings and characters who feel as real as your family and friends (good though many authors are, that can’t be said of every story you read) is the luxuriously sumptuous and evocative artwork which is truly a thing of evocative beauty.
Every colour, every brushstroke, every facial gesture brings The Dark Times alive so beautifully that you can well understand the series started as a proposed animated series; there’s something richly, colourfully cinematic about each and every panel and while the series is full of graphic descriptions and popping dialogue full of moving emotion and spirited good humour, there are also pages where the artwork does the talking alone and it speaks volumes with every lush panel.
It is like losing yourself in paintings upon paintings, a landscape so colourful, even when it is plunged into possibly life-ending darkness, and much of the joy of The Dark Times comes from falling in love with the perfect marriage of art and words which is as much about the eyes drinking in all that artistic wonder as it is about your heart wanting all the good things to happen to Bea and Cad and their friends even in the midst of all the worst of things.
The Dark Times is truly richly and escapistly remarkable, a return to old friends and a lingering threat balanced with unquenched hope that you takes you all in, with no reservations and rewards with a world so alive with possibility and opportunity even in the face of what seems like the end of all things, and you will regret not a second spend there in a place where death awaits but also, and this is where the heart soars, friendship, community and unconditional love too which will sustain Bea and Cad, and you, the reader too, as their adventure continues to new and exciting places …