Momenticon by Andrew Caldecott

(Joe Fletcher Books, 2022)

Reviewed by Susan Peak

Andrew Caldecott, who is a barrister as well as a writer, published Rotherweird in 2017. This book, a mixture of historical fiction (1558) and a modern setting (the village of Rotherweird), depicted twelve strangely gifted children and the deliberately isolated place in which they and a small number of other people lived. Two characters, whom the story follows, want to reveal its secrets.

That book was the first of a trilogy, and now Caldecott has written Momenticon, a separate book. It is similar in style, both in terms of Caldecott’s writing, and in terms of the strange location and people.

Rotherweird reminded many readers of Gormenghast—a complex and fantastical place with odd people carrying out incomprehensible rituals. It also had echoes of The Prisoner TV series, with one of the outsiders, a teacher, trying to find out about the place and about what happened to his predecessor.

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Review from BSFA Review 18 - Download your copy here.