Whenever you discover out that your favourite trendy novelist has written her personal new fantasy take in your all-time favourite novel, at first you are feeling elated. Then you definately really feel nervous. (Or at the very least I do.) In fact she’ll nail it—proper? She’s a beautiful author—however it’s a formidable job …
Seems I needn’t have apprehensive. A Far Higher Factor, H. G. Parry’s model of Charles Dickens’s A Story of Two Cities, is all the things I might have requested for, after which some.
A Far Higher Factor is a type of takeoffs that makes you each like it for itself, and love the e-book it’s primarily based on much more than you already did.
If you realize Dickens’s unique novel, then you realize—and doubtless love—the character of Sydney Carton, the hard-drinking lawyer lurking within the story’s background who finally steps as much as turn out to be the unlikeliest of heroes. In Parry’s novel, Sydney is our narrator, however the story he tells stretches right into a supernatural dimension. On this model, Sydney was kidnapped by fairies as a really younger little one; as an grownup he has been despatched again to the human world and compelled to behave because the fairies’ servant there, catering to whims which can be usually capricious or outright merciless. And Charles Darnay, the French aristocrat in exile who seems to be uncannily like Sydney, is his changeling.
Parry thus takes on the job of retelling Dickens’s French revolution story whereas concurrently constructing her personal new story round it. She skillfully weaves collectively the strands of the 2 worlds, taking parts giant and small from Dickens (like Sydney’s nickname of “Reminiscence”) and giving them a brand new significance in her personal story.
As in Dickens’s novel, Sydney feels fairly bitter concerning the man who seems to be similar to him however has all of the luck he’s by no means had—but Sydney nonetheless thwarts a formidable fairy’s functions by saving Charles Darnay’s life when the latter is tried for espionage. On the similar time, Sydney finds himself irresistibly drawn to Lucie Manette, the lady Charles loves—who’s herself the changeling of somebody Sydney as soon as cherished and misplaced.
The suspense builds as Sydney tries to seek out methods to strike again in opposition to the fairies’ tyranny, and the emotional pressure retains tempo as he slowly comes to appreciate that he loves Lucie for herself, not simply because she’s so just like the woman he cherished when he was a boy.
Charles Dickens brilliantly used the strategy of by no means totally letting us into Sydney’s thoughts to assist make him the intriguing determine he’s. Parry, by taking the other tack and making Sydney her first-person narrator, makes him intriguing in an entire new means. We’re aware of the fierce intelligence, uncooked emotion, and shrewd strategizing skills behind the morose facade. Furthermore, we’re aware of the key world that this Sydney is aware of, the place stage magicians dabble in forces too highly effective to regulate, and tricksters make harmful offers that threaten not simply people however whole nations, all whereas regular people go on about their lives unaware. This revamped story is difficult, intricate, and completely elegant.
A Far Higher Factor is a type of takeoffs that makes you each like it for itself, and love the e-book it’s primarily based on much more than you already did. I spent days lingering over the ultimate pages as a result of it was so good that I didn’t need it to finish. I can’t reward a e-book any extra extremely than that.
This assessment was initially revealed on Expensive, Unusual Issues on June 8, 2025. Republished right here with the writer’s permission.
