Red Shift. This item is unavailable.Red Shift

When Alan Garner's first book, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was published he was hailed by reviewers as a great new writer. The Weirdstone and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath are magic-fiction stories set around Alderley Edge in Cheshire, which is his home. The next book, Elidor is of the same genre, but here the setting is Manchester (where Alan Garner went to school), and the magic is seen only through the children's eyes.

It was The Owl Service which undoubtedly brought Alan Garner to everyone's attention. It won two important literary prizes: The Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, was made into a serial by Granada Television and has established itself as a classic. Set in Wales, its roots grow so deep into Welsh mythology that the characters are often inseparable from their ancient counterparts.

In Red Shift conventional time means even less, and physical place even more. Lives which appear to be lived in different historical periods are bound together by a power that is outside space and time.

"At the bottom level, my stories have to work as entertainment, keep a reader turning the page to find out what happens next. At the top level, they have to work for me, say what I want to express. In fact, I must write poetry, making words work on more than one level, subjecting myself to the poetic disciplines - pace, compression, simplicity."

Alan Garner's book The Owl Service was widely acclaimed:

"Without doubt Mr Alan Garner is one of the most exciting writers for young people today. He is producing work with strong plot structure, perceptive characterisation and vivid language." - Times Educational Supplement

"The Owl Service is not meant only for children or anyone else; it's a novel; and not many better novels will be published this year." - John Rowe Townsend, The Guardian

"Alan Garner is one of the outstanding present-day writers for children; and The Owl Service takes him a step further into more magical, legendary, adult worlds than he's gone so far." - Isabel Quigly, Catholic Herald

"No confirmation of the stature of Alan Garner as a writer of children's fiction is needed: if it were, his latest novel, The Owl Service, would establish it beyond doubt." - Financial Times