‘The Perilous Promotion of Trilby Moffat’ by Kate Temple

Timekeeper Trilby Moffat’s highflying, hair-raising, non-stop adventures kept me glued to the pages far into the night. A brilliant story, it has exciting characters, dramatic situations and puzzling questions like What is going to happen next? Where is Time Keeper Trilby Moffat’s mother?

There are ideas, clues and cliff-hangers and Trilby has to navigate through it all. I enjoy Jasper Fforde and Jodi Taylor’s time travel books but Trilby takes it to another level of strangeness when she returns to the secret Island Between Time and investigates a time travellers festival suspiciously named Time Harvest Con. Of course, I am not the main reading audience for this book but it is easy to get hooked on the plot.

Among many inventive events, several digs at the adult world pop up e.g. Brian in a pink corporate shirt and a lanyard around his neck which reads ‘Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant of Someone Much More Important’ a running joke. I have to add that Mr Colin, the archetypal baddie, is one of my favourites. Quote ‘Their eyes met, his grey like a dead pigeon, hers the colour of a summer cicada.’

Watch for interesting snippets e.g. ‘We made it out of shards of time treasures…the stuff that can’t be repaired or salvaged,’ added Beatie, and what about Tove, Thumbelina, Xipil, Arwen, recognise those names? Don’t miss a nod to Agatha Christie, flying prehistoric Anton, and find out what is stored in The Passage Of Time or bake cakes in a Time oven. But don’t eat cakes from strangers. Other beautifully inventive stuff kept me reading like Medical Grade Time Spray which has side effects.

I love the way ‘non-adult’ books can use squiggly writing to denote words like Time Swap, and add a chapter crossword puzzle with answers in the back of the book. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the first book in the series yet, this plot is exciting and soon sweeps you along. I do love the bookcover and when I read the related chapter and what the balloon contains I had shivers. Kate Temple is one genius author. I suggest buying this book for a classroom or young family then secretly reading it first.

❤ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

AUTHOR INFO: Kate Temple always wanted a promotion and a corner office with an assistant who wore a small dark poodle for a hat. This didn’t happen. Instead, Kate took on the perilous business of writing books for children. She has written more than twenty books with her writing partner, Jol, and The Perilous Promotion of Trilby Moffat is her second solo book. Kate lives in Sydney with her two children. When she is not writing, Kate enjoys eating cake, and so do the characters in this book.😊

You Read Jasper Fforde Yet?

The author who pulled me back into reading…

On the brink of health and family dilemmas, I was flaying around to get my mind off what was happening, not settling on anything, unable to find something which would give me peace of mind even for a short time. I had lost my way regarding books, those recommended were not my style, and everyone seemed to be pushing their own agenda. Looking at you Goodreads. Naturally all the publishers had Number One Bestsellers. After all, an author has to eat, drink and support a family too. But nothing clicked for quite some time. Until…

Did you hear the drumroll? Or get a soft-fade kind of feeling?

A reverie, down memory lane…

I had a flex-day off work and decided to trot down to the small local shopping centre where the mobile library van parked once a week. Those were the days when you could park because everyone actually went to work in person in the city. Anyway, the mobile library was like a family caravan with shelves and books instead of bunk beds. The updated version is huge with flash modern stuff inside (and out) like a library space ship on wheels.

Sorry I digress. I actually visited twice before I selected a book. Of course my library card had expired so I set that up again. The book I had returned for was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, a UK author who, fortunately for me, had already published more books in the series. The one I carefully placed in my carry bag was obviously well-handled so I thought that was a good sign. Please note the bookcover had been artistically distressed. The Well Of Lost Plots (above) is my favourite through the prose portal, although other readers don’t feel this way when it comes to favourites, but I think it suited my Literatech nature.

If I had been in an advertisement for Gold Lotto Pot of Gold I would have had a rainbow encircle me as I started to read.
What is going on? Is this bloke off his rocker? This is fantastic! What an oddly intriguing twist!
Spec-Ops inside books!
Thursday Next is promoted to Detective Sergeant and inducted into SpecOps-27, the Literary Detective division of the Special Operations Network.
As you may have guessed I also liked the late Douglas Adams and his Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy so perhaps I was already predisposed to Jasper Fforde – anyway he took everything one step further, then another, and soon I was racing along with Thursday Next in Bookworld, a place which is familiar yet different. Not too scary, not too weird, just right.
And Thursday’s career and family life grow with each book.
From our world to the worlds created inside books, some very well known, with many inventive twists – and humorous twists too.
I loved it. Still do!
GBW 2023

The Well Of Lost Plots (above) remains my favourite absurdist fiction story, although now I fluctuate having enjoyed a similar sense of weird comedic novels from UK author Jodi Taylor, her Chronicles of St Mary’s series about a group of disaster-prone historians who investigate major events throughout history… they are very clever, well, not necessarily the historians but the way Jodi Taylor writes them. I haven’t revisited either series in a while… sharpening focus… back to the world inside books…

Check out these titles:

Thursday Next Series
   1. The Eyre Affair (2001)
   2. Lost in a Good Book (2002)
   3. The Well of Lost Plots (2002)
   4. Something Rotten (2003)
   5. First Among Sequels (2007)
   6. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (2011)
   7. The Woman Who Died A Lot (2012)

Jasper Fforde has written other book series for adults as well as teenage readers which I own and have reviewed in the past. Apparently he will have a looong awaited sequel Red Side Story to join his much-loved Shades Of Grey. Yes, ironically published at the same time as THAT book but no connection whatsoever. The blurb says “The long-awaited sequel to Jasper Fforde’s cult bestseller Shades of Grey, set in a world where social hierarchy revolves entirely around visual colour.”

I cannot stress enough how readable his books are so visit his website—https://www.jasperfforde.com/

Back again to my discovery story! Pretty soon I had devoured (and reviewed) Jasper Fforde’s subsequent books, starting with The Eyre Affair through to The Woman Who Died A Lot. Love his YA The Last Dragonslayer, a four-part series featuring young orphan Jennifer Strange, and his newer standalone novels are just as quirky, just as enjoyable.

I kept tabs on his works and even purchased merchandise, the black Spec-Ops cap still fits but the t-shirt is a tad small now. I attended his author talks and book festivals here in Australia and, another drumroll please, actually joined a private group chat at Brisbane Writers Festival with drinks and hors d’oeuvre and devoted fans. See blog https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/2019/09/15/brisbane-writers-festival-notes-part-3/

The only glitch was that we were all too tongue-tied to actually chat to him like a real person. I think I said something about his newest standalone (not part of the Thursday Next series) but that was it. I will know better next time 😃

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2023

“Dream Worlds” panel discussion (left to right) moderator Sarah L’Estrange, guest authors USA Karen Thompson Walker, UK Jasper Fforde, Australia Krissy Kneen. And I purchased each of their books.

‘Mirror, Mirror on the Wall’ 10 True Facts

*Winter night © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2020*

The nerd in me just loves these ten crazy true facts about mirrors! I was actually searching for a fiction story based on a mirror but discovered Dr Ruth Searle’s website and decided her information was far more interesting.
Read on . . .

10. Mirrors And Time Travel

We know that a mirror can do more than reflect your image. And I won’t even start to document the amount of films I’ve seen or books I’ve read where the doorway to another world is through a mirror. A mirrored portal can lead you into an enchanted world of the future or the past; a doorway into a fantasy, paranormal or parallel world; a dystopian dreamscape or endless deep space—supposedly—however, with scientific know-how, Dr Ruth Searle explains HOW wormholes CAN make it possible to travel into the past.

9. Mirrors, Phantom Limbs, And The Human Brain

Experiments using mirrors on patients with phantom limbs have allowed researchers to learn a lot about the workings of our brain. Using a “smoke and mirrors” style optical illusion, researchers placed mirrors vertically on a table and used them to reflected the patient’s intact limb… there’s details on creating new neural pathways due to the plasticity of the brain and the connection between vision and touch.

8. Mirrors Cause Hallucinations

“A strange illusion is conjured up when you stare at your reflection in a mirror” writes Ruth Searle. This one slightly freaked me out because I remember as a girl I was told to stare into a mirror in the evening and soon I would see the face of my one true love. Anyway I stared and stared, and the more I stared, the more frightened I became. I never saw anything but I never did try that again.

If you are up for it, the instructions read “At first, you will find that there are small distortions in your face in the mirror. Then, gradually, after several minutes, your face will begin to change more dramatically, and look more like a waxwork, like the face doesn’t belong to you.” Shiver, no thanks!

7. Can Everyone Recognise Themselves In A Mirror?

Apparently children develop mirror self-recognition by about two years old but cultural differences can sometimes influence recognition and is not a sign that they lack the ability to separate themselves psychologically from other humans. One for those parental “aaw, cute” moments when their kid kisses the mirror.

6. Animals That Have Mirror Self-Recognition

Some researchers think certain animals are able to pass a test for recognising their own reflection. Animals which pass the traditional mirror self-recognition test naturally include chimpanzees and orangutans but several others surprised me. Killer whales anyone..?

5. Mirrors On The Moon

This sentence sounds like sci-fi but if you don’t believe me, read it yourself: “The Laser Ranging Retroreflector was left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts, and is used to calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon. It is essentially a series of corner-cube reflectors—a special type of mirror—which reflects a laser beam back in the direction it came from… Not only can the Laser Ranging Retroreflector measure the distance from the Earth to the Moon, but it has improved our knowledge of the Moon.” There’s more on the website.

4. Mirrors Can Also Reflect Sound

Before radars were invented, mirrors which reflect sound waves were known as “acoustic mirrors” and were used in Britain during World War II to detect certain sound waves coming from enemy aircraft. It is worth checking the photo to see this almost modern art installation.

3. Reflecting Matter With Mirrors

I absolutely love this Sheldon-like paragraph “Amazingly, mirrors can also reflect matter. Such mirrors are known in physics as atomic mirrors. An atomic mirror reflects atoms of matter just as a conventional mirror reflects light. They use electromagnetic fields to reflect neutral atoms, although some just use silicon water…” Put on your Big Bang t-shirt and read the rest of it, I dare you.

2. True Mirrors

Dr Ruth Searle writes “It’s actually a myth that a mirror reverses your image—your reflection is not flipped. What you see is the left-hand side of your face on the left of the mirror, and the right-hand side on the right, giving the illusion that your reflection is reversed. However, a non-reversing mirror, or true mirror, was developed… primarily for applying cosmetics.” On Zoom, there is a function which allows you to reverse your image and I find it very disorientating.

IMG_20171016_115002 — *Backward and forward*

1. Splitting Light With A Mirror

I did not know that mirrors not only reflect light, sound, and matter, but they can also split light beams. A basic beam splitter is a cube, made from two glass prisms connected at their base. The illustration for this one makes it look amazingly simple but the explanation says beam splitters are used in many scientific instruments including telescopes so their function would have to be precise.

So there you have it, folks, a short ramble through the never-ending joys of the internet.

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

ListVerse: 10 Crazy Facts About Mirrors | Ruth Searle | 30 December, 2013 | 80 Comments
Profile: Dr Ruth Searle is a marine biologist with a PhD in humpback whale ecology and behaviour in tropical marine environments. She is also a freelance writer and science nut.