The Indigo King (Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, #3)

by James A. Owen

On a September evening in 1931, John and Jack, two of the Caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica, discover a plea for help on an ancient medieval parchment. It seems to have been written by their friend, Hugo Dyson! But when they rush to warn him, they find that Hugo has already been abducted by fierce creatures called the Un-Men, who have mistaken him for the third Caretaker, Charles. And in that moment, the world begins to change…

The Frontier which separates our world from the Archipelago of Dreams has fallen. Dark and terrible beasts roam throughout England. No one can be summoned from the Archipelago. And worse, their mentor and ally Bert seems to have forgotten them entirely!

The only hope of restoring order from the chaos lies on a forgotten island - where a time travel device left by Jules Verne must be used to race through history itself - from the Bronze Age, to the fall of Troy and the founding of the Silver Throne. And in that single night, John and Jack discover that the only way to save their friend and stop the chaos destroying the world is to solve a two-thousand year-old mystery: Who is the Cartographer?

• ISBN10: 0857070312
• ISBN13: 9780857070319
• Publish Date: 29 April 2010 (first published 1 October 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

This series gets more and more complicated the more books that are added to the series. It might be necessary to go back to Book 1 to understand Book 2. Time travel makes my head hurt!
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A few years ago I discovered the novel Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen. This is the first book in the 7 books series known as the “The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica” which follows the lives of Jack, John and Charles as they battle the forces of evil in an effort to save the World. Quite a tall order for three unknown gentlemen from Oxford.

This is a wonderful series of books that draws on many of the known myths and histories laid out in our most treasured stories. The books mix elements of time travel and fantasy to produce a rich and dense forest of interconnected story lines–both real and fictional–that keep you moving forward to discover the Grand Reveal at the end of book seven, The First Dragon. The artwork at the start of each chapter is also stunning! That’s right, each chapter in every single novel of this series is illuminated. Each image is hand drawn by the author himself.

By the third book in the series, The Indigo King, the plot gets a bit complicated and becomes one of those time travel books/series that will keep your mind spinning and trying to work it all out. The shear number of the characters with their similar names and the overlapping, intertwining timelines also cause the mind to spin a bit. However, I stuck it out after a confusing third book and thoroughly enjoyed book 4, The Shadow Dragons, and book 5, The Dragon’s Apprentice, which set the series up for the what I hoped would be a fantastic finish. Book 6, The Dragons of Winter was once again just a s complicated as book 3 and once again confusion set in. However, all was made clear with book 7, The First Dragon. The conclusion was satisfying even if it felt a little rushed with some of the true historical background about the three main Caretakers not being fully fleshed out and shared with the readers.

Overall, I liked “The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica” by James A. Owen. The world he creates is partially known and brand new. The illustrations provided in each book at the start of every chapter are amazingly detailed. “The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica” series by James A. Owen gets a thumbs up.

This review was originally posted on Second Run Reviews.