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June 8, 2017 by Betsy Bird

Forgotten Favorites: Remembering the Monster Blood Tattoo Series

June 8, 2017 by Betsy Bird   10 comments

To Do in 2017:

  • Get The Winged Girl of Knossos back in print
  • Watch America finally come to grips with the true glory that is Frances Hardinge
  • Get America to now appreciate Monster Blood Tattoo . . .

That’s the nice thing about a To Do list.  You can always find something new to put on it.  Things you never even thought would come to pass pop up and even though you didn’t have diddly over squat to do with them (see: Winged Girl of Knossos & Frances Hardinge) you feel some odd sense of accomplishment.

FlyTrap hc c
I love Helquist but maybe he wasn’t the perfect fit for this series.

America’s current love affair with Hardinge is particularly satisfying since it comes after so much time. When Ms. Hardinge premiered on the U.S. publishing scene with Harper Collins a little less than a decade ago, the company wasn’t quite sure what to do with her. Appropriate for middle grade readers but with complex texts more akin to the tastes and preferences of YA, she fell into that nebulous grayscape where no one knew how to market her.  She didn’t slot neatly into categories either.  Her books were too unique. Too strange. Too weird.  And so America stopped publishing her altogether while in Europe her star was on a continual rise.  It wasn’t until Abrams decided to dedicate themselves heart and soul to her publicity that things took a turn for the better.  It’s amazing what a gorgeous cover and a dedicated sales team can do (particularly when it comes from the company that brought the world Diary of a Wimpy Kid).

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Watching Ms. Hardinge attain all the sales and awards she deserves is deeply satisfying.  Imported authors, even if they originally write in the English language, are at a strict disadvantage in America. They can’t continually tour as easily, meet with local booksellers and schools, or promote themselves to the same degree.  They get a visit to a book conference of some sort if they’re lucky  . . . and then if their book belongs to a large publisher with a lot of money it’s entirely up that publisher’s sales team to get them into the hands of librarians and teachers and, by extension, readers.  This isn’t to say that there haven’t been successful imports. Cornelia Funke, in her prime, made mad bank.  Shaun Tan had the extra added advantage of being a genius. And thanks to J.R. Rowling, wildly successful imports became a little more acceptable.

Which brings us to D.M. Cornish.

We all have our favorite books or authors that didn’t quite do as well as we thought that they should the first time around.  I have lots in my back pocket, but I find that often they do well later on in life without me.  Author Laini Taylor started her career with a series called The Faeries of Dreamdark, which I thoroughly enjoyed when it came out, and she turned out all right.  Hardinge’s another example. But some books that I adored have stayed nice and obscure and haven’t budged from their low-level obscurity.  The Monster Blood Tattoo series is precisely that.

MonsterBloodThe trilogy debuted in 2008 and churned out the following books: Foundling, Lamplighter, and Factotum.  Each novel is set in the strange world of the Half-Continent. It’s a world where humans have made in-roads putting down stakes in lands where monsters are known to attack regularly. Our hero is an orphan (naturally) named Rossamund who aspires to someday join with his people to defeat the monster scourge.  As the books go on, however, Cornish begins to play with our expectations. We think we’re getting into a standard series where people fight monsters, when in fact it’s actually about colonization.  When Rossamund comes to understand the cruelty humans are capable of when it comes to their monstrous foes, as well as the fact that they really don’t know ANYTHING about them, he undertakes a shift in his soul that’s nicely played out.  Add in one of the most kick-ass female characters to grace YA pages in years and a world of such detail and complexity that it would make Hardinge proud, and you’ve got yourself (and I don’t use this term lightly) a book series that’s a true gem.

To be fair, Penguin did right by him, at first. They made him a nice little website that no one has touched in about nine years.  When his initial cover didn’t seem to sell him they tried new ones.  All for naught, I’m afraid.  Sadly the series is now entirely out-of-print here in the States and insofar as I can tell there are no plans to bring it back to life.  I have no idea how well it’s done in Cornish’s native Australia (the book is, in many ways, a close examination of the effects of colonization in Australia on the native population) but to my infinite delight, Cornish hasn’t abandoned the series himself.  He recently updated his blog with the beginning of a favorite character’s backstory, a fact that may give us hope in this cold, cruel world.

And so, Santa, if I could have only one thing for Christmas I should like very much for this series to be republished.  Make it straight up YA if it helps (like Hardinge, Cornish falls right in the center of middle grade and YA).  Follow in the footsteps of the Hardinge releases and re-releases. Give them even better book jackets than before.  And for those of you that missed it the first time, go out to your local libraries and give them a read.  Delight synthesized.

 

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

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About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Monica Edinger says

    June 8, 2017 at 8:24 am

    This reminded me of one of my favorite overlooked series, Peter Carey’s Iremonger books. Think they’d appeal to Hardinge, Cornish, and Peake fans. Inspired by this post to do one of my own celebrating it: https://medinger.wordpress.com/2017/06/08/revisiting-peter-careys-iremonger-series/

    • Elizabeth Bird says

      June 8, 2017 at 9:51 am

      I always blamed the book jackets for their obscurity. They came out when I was reading everything in my path, but I just couldn’t bring myself to pick the first one up. I’ve regretting that decision since.

  2. Joe says

    June 8, 2017 at 9:22 am

    I wish I could post screenshots for you here, but Cornish’s series was a *nightmare* for me to catalog for the school district.

    In my library alone there are three versions of Foundling (a hardback with a demon silhouette; a paperback with a side-eyeing woman with a chignon, and a paperback with a cityscape). The hardback has Monster Blood Tattoo prominently displayed; below it, Book One: Foundling in small letters. The spine doesn’t even have the words Foundling on it. The chignon copy has Foundling prominently displayed and MBT in a small arc under a stylistic design. The cityscape cover reads Foundling with no mention of MBT on the cover. Unionizing the catalog for the other schools became a back-and-forth among the librarians that lasted far longer than it should have.

    So I’m with you: let’s reboot and start all over again. With some synthesis, maybe I’ll read them (and better be able to promote them)!

    • Elizabeth Bird says

      June 8, 2017 at 9:50 am

      Someday I’m going to do a whole post on Cataloging Nightmare Books. This description would fit beautifully. Other suggestions welcome.

      • Joe says

        June 8, 2017 at 10:44 am

        As the person responsible for merging records and maintaining cataloging standards in a district with rogue librarians, I’ll gladly co-author.

        • Elizabeth Bird says

          June 8, 2017 at 11:31 pm

          Oo. Rogue librarians. Sounds more keen than it is. All right, let’s consider it then. I bet you have some good examples right off the bat. We shall discuss.

  3. C Baker says

    June 8, 2017 at 4:41 pm

    I will pay the shipping from Australia if we ever get a conclusion to the Monster Blood Tattoo books. Do you know how expensive it is to ship books from Australia? IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE.

    Ditto England, Mosca Mye. But it’s not quite as expensive to ship books from England.

    • Elizabeth Bird says

      June 8, 2017 at 11:31 pm

      Full well I know. I ordered A FACE LIKE GLASS long before Abrams announced it would publish it here. Could have saved myself a pretty penny.

Trackbacks

  1. Revisiting Edward Carey’s Iremonger Series | educating alice says:
    June 8, 2017 at 8:42 am

    […] Bird’s forgotten favorites post immediately made me think of one of mine, the sorely overlooked Iremonger Series by Peter Carey. To […]

  2. Revisiting Edward Carey’s Iremonger Series | educating alice says:
    June 8, 2017 at 8:42 am

    […] Bird’s forgotten favorites post immediately made me think of one of mine, the sorely overlooked Iremonger Series by Edward Carey. […]

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