Customer Reviews

Is Underground

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a fan of the 'Wolves' series, but they are beginning to vary a lot in quality.

The first three, "The Wolves of Willoughby Chase", "Black Hearts in Battersea" and "Nightbirds on Nantucket" are all highly recommended. Unfortunately, there are numerous potboilers, in which Dido Twite is stuck in some strange place--"The Cuckoo Tree" et al.

The real story continues in "Dido and Pa." As Aiken's characters grow older, she loses her touch with them; this is why her adult stuff is much less interesting. "Is Underground" is pretty variable. The set-up, with the soccer bit, lacks Aiken's usual wit, and the mind-speech and other stuff seems forced. But Is's relationship with her grandfather and aunt is good. Gold Kingy is a yawn, compared to other villains like the Slighcarps and Dido's parents.

To answer your question: Dido and Penny are full sisters; Is is their younger illegitimate half-sister.

Re: the dispairing notes in Aiken's writing. See "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" regarding Aiken's family history.

I believe 'Black Hearts in Battersea' is the first novel in Joan Aiken's series of novels set in an alternative British Empire in which the Stuarts never left the throne and are constantly threatened by agents of the Hanoverian faction. Presumably this is the last, though I won't say why! The title is perhaps a TAD confusing: Is is the name of the foster-sister of the redoubtable Dido, the latter the star of the superb novel 'Nightbirds on Nantucket'. 'Is Underground' is a LOT darker than the previous novels and takes the theme of child labour, which runs through all Aiken's juvenile novels, to an extreme.

Is returns to London following the adventures of the previous novel ('Dido and Pa'?) to discover that the city is almost devoid of children - a mysterious pied piper has lured them north to the secessionist county ruled by the mysterious "Gold Kingy". The heir to the throne has disappeared in an attempt to solve the riddle and Is is sent on a mission by the ailing king himself to unravel the mystery. She finds a secret railway, an underground city and a horrible policy of cruelty to children that is surprisingly inventive, given the variety of English ideas on the subject from 'Chitty Chitty Bang-Bang' to Dahl's 'The Witches'.

All in all a good deal darker and a great deal less humourous than the preceding stories.

The ninth volume in Aiken's Wolves Chronicles, set in an alternate early-19th-century England where the Stuarts kept the throne, shifts the series focus to Is (short for Isabella) Twite, the recently-discovered half-sister of irrepressible Dido. Living with their much-older sister Penny in an old barn in the forest, Is unexpectedly meets an uncle she didn't know she had, who is searching for his vanished son Arun, and agrees to take over the quest. Arun, it seems, has run away to London--where Is discovers that he isn't the only missing youngster; indeed, it seems that half the children in the city have disappeared from their accustomed haunts, including the only son of good King Richard, who begs her to add the Prince to her to-find list. Is isn't quite sure what she's letting herself in for, but she's a loyal subject of the crown (like her sister Dido, who's off visiting friends in America), and she agrees. The trail leads her to the North Country, which has seceded from the rest of England--under, as she discovers to her great surprise, yet another Twite uncle. And the economy of the place is dependent upon the labor of child slaves, including the vanished ones from London. Now Is must find a way to free them--and herself--and hopefully bring down her tyrannical uncle as well.

Based upon factual conditions, this book isn't for over-sensitive readers, and it also includes not only a great tsunami that destroys most of the North Country's underground civilization and its adult inhabitants, but also the murder of a cat (admittedly not a sympathetic one) and a major adult character. Is is brave, clever, resourceful, and self-reliant, but she somehow doesn't seem quite as vivid as her big sister. For those who require continuity in their book series, it's a necessary read, but not the best that Aiken has ever turned out.

In the book Underground, the main character Is tries to find her missing cousin, Arun, in the city of London. She later finds out that more than half of the children are gone and they are going to a place called Playland.
I liked this book a lot since I thought most of the clues were different and more clever than other types of mysteries. The book was also easy to read for me which makes the book a lot better.
I don't usually read a lot of mysteries , but compared to the ones I did read this book is just as good. I would give this book a 5 out of 5, or 5 stars in this case.

Good book, picking up from the earlier Dido and Simon pieces. Is is Dido's younger half sister, first mentioned, i beleive in Dido and Pa. Did sends her to stay with thier mutual sister Penelope but obviously she is a younger version of Dido, and gets into equally interesting adventures. The consequences of the ending of this book are rather heavy for Dido's friend Simon as becomes clearer in a later work.

I really love Joan Aiken's books, especially the Wolves chronicles. This book is a fantastic adventure story/mystery, just like all the rest. I am puzzled, though, as to the relationship between Dido and Is. Sometimes they are referred to as sisters, sometimes Dido claims to be the youngest in her family, and in a review for "Dido and Pa", she is said to belong to Penelope, though she never calls her mother. I can't find Dido and Pa because it is out of print, does anyone know anything about the backstory about Is?