William Corlett is now perhaps best known for his children's fantasy quartet "The Magician's House", which starts with "The Steps Up the Chimney" -- a mixture of Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising", Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows", and John Masefield's "The Midnight Folk" -- a story where modern children who move to an ancient country house find themselves caught up with the animals of the surrounding countryside, and the living spirit of a Middle-Ages magician who is battling evil forces. Strong stuff.

If Corlett had written nothing else after his first three books he would have been a children's writer to reckon with -- a Young Adult writer of great power, working before the term "Young Adult" gad been invented. Perhaps the fact that this trilogy, or triptych, starting with "The Gate of Eden", concerns a teenager at the end of his Secondary schooling, and then the same person as a man in his twenties, and then as an old man in a futuristic England rife with social collapse, explains why the three books have been neglected.

Yet the middle book "The Land Beyond" is extremely powerful: a modern-day story with a time-slip or time-blend with Ancient Delphi and the famous Charioteer -- a story where the ancient god Apollo is recognised by a modern sceptic as a great force of life. And the first of the three is a powerful exploration of the relationship between the central young man, an old and rather dubious English Literature teacher, and the young man's girlfriend. Subtly told, and moving, with hints of poetry, much play with language, and post-modernist narrative devices, all used decades before post-modernism was thought of.

"Bloxworth Blue" is less experimental, perhaps reminiscent of William Mayne or Robert Cormier or Robert Westall when they write strong stories about families in crisis. As with other Corlett books, haunted by forces from the past, legendary imps (mini-demons) that were a curse on medieval Lincoln cathedral, and were turned into gargoyles, come to life in the Twentieth century. They are released, to wreak their own kind of havoc, when a family visits the cathedral, each member carrying a burden, a secret, an urgent need. An elderly uncle, the marriage difficulties of the mother, the first sexual encounter of the teenage daughter, the son's exploration of the cathedral and discovery of his uncle's bitter secret -- these narrative threads weave together, with glimpses of the larger outside world, including a rare blue butterfly, the Bloxworth Blue.

Corlett is always a strong writer, seeking new territory, striving for the precise image, the words that express extreme feeling, the tension that conceals ideas that can only be inferred. As with "The Secret Line", a story of teenage breakdown, and the healing bond s that develop between young person and old person, "Bloxworth Blue" repays careful reading.

Well worth finding -- like a rare butterfly, or a suddenly discovered stone face in an unexpected and startling place.

A great man once said, "A book should be the axe that smashes the frozen sea within." 'The dark side of the moon' by William Corlett does exactly that.
The plot revolves around two central figures, David Mason, mysteriously kidnapped from his school, and an astronaut, sent on a mission to the dark side of the moon.
It is a deeply suspenseful and fascinating book, and just when I thought I knew how it was going to end, a sudden twist in the plot caught me by surprise.
This book raises questions about humanity, our lives and the universe. For days after reading it, I could not stop thinking about it, and the challenging and deep ideas it presented.

This short little book is probably the best introduction to the Metaphysics of Hinduism that i have ever come across. The emphasis here is not on the history of India, but on the relevance of Hinduism and Hindu ideas for today's seeker. This book is not for the narrow-minded, as it is one of a series that utilizes every facet of the world's wisdom. It uses meditation to show the existence of Atman or as Husserl had it, the "transcendental ego". The living experience of life is shown as taking precedence over theory and the true value of Hindu thought is revealed here. A must for all interested in genuine wisdom as opposed to mythology.

From the onset of his story, William Cortlett brings us into the heart of his main character, Christopher Metcalfe. While summoned home upon the death of his father, the rather detached Chris returns home to deal with lost innocence and the disallusionment of a wasted life. Finding among his fathers belongings a box containing memorabilia from Chris' own days at boarding school. This prompts a moving detail of Chris' romance with an older boy at school. The author brings us the intensity of adolescent love and sexual desire, with all the abandon given to it at that age. Never once do we doubt Chris' reasons for his love, his desire is felt by the reader, as is his confusion as to it's demise. While the focus being Chris' romance with Stephen at school, the chapters of Chris' life at present brings much to the reader as well. His mother's sense of loss is not nearly as profound as one might have expected, and her life parallel's her sons in many ways. These two characters both must deal with lives wasted on denial of one's true being, following safe roads, forsaking the heart by taking the safer and more constant way through life, only to have regrets later on. There are other characters in the Now part of the story who also show us what a treacherous road are hearts can lead us to. There is also much to be said of Stephen, Chris' object of desire while in school. Stephen, for all his classic British Upper Middle classman ship, has chosen to follow his libido through life, beleiving in his own pleasure first, a direct dichotomy to Chris and his Mother. I was left with a feeling of exhilaration after reading this book. I wanted to seize the moments of my life and live each day fully and honestly, wanting no regrets at the days end. I wish to follow the intuitive heart, the sensual path, and beleive I need not worry what sort of impression I'm giving others, but what a life fully recognized has to offer.

As a reader who speaks English as a second language, I had to keep my dictionary while reading the book to the end. From the first day I started to read the book, I couldn't stop thinking of Kit's life and his love towards Stephen. His deep, poignant and still moving love made me shiver all the time. I even felt the turbulance of his inner state while he first started to think of Stephen when he sorted out things which his father had kept in his study and encountered his past looking at the photos of his schooldays. I sometimes think that it may be my future when I get fortysomething. Even though I was not in passionate love which Chris was in. I read the book six times in order to understand completely by looking up all the difficult words in the dictionary. I cried and shared all the sadness with Chris. Hope Chris will find his true happiness and let his poinant memories behind. This novel was simply magnificient, beautifully written and moving.

I really enjoyed this story. I believe any man who has suffered puppy-love and infatuation with another man should read this. I felt a kinship between myself and the Chris/Kit and a fear that someday I may become him.

The gist of this incredible story is when London book editor Christopher Metcalfe is fifty, he returns to his childhood home after the death of his father. As he prepares for the burial, he unearths his own past: the one pivotal relationship in his life, which occurred when he was fifteen and fell in love with an older boy at boarding school who promised to love him but ultimately did not.

The Author, William Corlett has grasped the art of infusing fictional characters with highly accurate human emotional response. Christopher Metcalfe experiences love for the first time with an older classmate in an English preparatory school. The reader is transported on a rollercoaster of emotion as the story evolves over a period of thirty years. This novel incorporates love and loss, betrayal and re-discovery into a work of art that expresses genuine humanity. It is extremely refreshing to find a gay novel that focuses on the journey of the heart and the reaffirmation of self knowledge.

I've finished reading the quartet of "the Magician's house". All of them are real good and exciting. Once you've started reading the book, you can't put it down again. Morever, the writing techniques and the desciprtions of the outdoors are fantastic. However, i found the fourth book somehow condusing. But overall, this book is an exciting adventure for young readers.

William Corlett has once again produced an outstanding novel in the young adult series The Magician's House Quartet. This fourth and final book in the series, The Bridge in the Clouds, is set in the mysterious Golden Valley, where the three Constant children, William, Mary, and, Alice spend their holidays.
From the moment the Constant children arrive at the Golden House, where their Uncle Jack, his fiancée Phoebe, and their friend Meg live, they know something is not right. The children's friend, teacher, and the past owner of their Uncle's house, Stephen Tyler also known as the Magician, has not come to visit them since the beginning of their holiday. The children fear he is growing old and is too weak to time travel from his home in the 1930s, as he has done on previous holidays. Even the valley, which is usually bursting with life, seems to be peculiarly quiet. When the children finally get the chance to ask Spot, their Uncle's dog, what is going on he tells them the humans are fighting.
So, the children take matters into their own hands by trying to travel back to the Magician's time, to ask what is happening. The suspense increases when a terrible mistake occurs in the process and they bring part of the Magician's evil assistant and the antagonist, Morden into their time.
Throughout the book you can feel the tension and relief, which is almost the constant mood as slowly the children solve their problems. In this book the reader will witness the joy of the children's journey to finally begin to understand magic. The three characters are all people we can easily relate to and that, in the end, seem like one of our own friends.
This is an excellent book that I think everyone will enjoy reading. It may be confusing to new readers of The Magician's House Quartet, but if you have read the first three books in the series I'm sure you'll enjoy this final book.

The Steps up the Chimney is the first in four books that accumulate into the Magician's House Quartet, revolving around three children who come to stay at their uncle's strange house, and Stephen Tyler, a time-travelling wizard who befriends the children on their stay at Golden Valley.

In the 'Steps Up The Chimney' the children arrive at the house after already experiencing some strange events - Will has meet a stranger at Druce Coven station who mysteriously disappeared and a fox seems to popping up everywhere they look. Within the house and grounds however, things become even more strange - Alice finds footprints in the snow that end abruptly in the middle of a clearing and Mary notices an extra window in the house that shouldn't be there. By researching the house's near-ancient origins and searching high and low, the children eventually come across an amazing discovery - that there are steps up the chimney...

These books are highly original - I am a big fantasy reader and there was little in these books that I had run across before in other novels. Among other things the books include time travelling, alchemy, animals that can communicate with the children and the more mundane occurrences of the children's relationship with their uncle and his pregnant girlfriend Phoebe. Although the entire story is set within the valley, the story draws on larger themes that are not only world-wide, but stretch throughout Tyler's time to the present day, the main one being the nature of greed and its evils.

William Corlett shows a good knowledge and interest in English history, and is always adding in tidbits of information when describing the building or architecture of the house or grounds, which he no doubt planned and mapped in great detail.
Characterisation is, on the whole, very good whether it be the somewhat dithery vegetarian Phoebe, the talkative historian Mrs Prewett or the wide variety of animals that roam the ground such as the fox Cinnabar, the owl Jasper or the dog Sirius (or as Alice calls him - Spot). The wizard however, far from being a main character flits in and out of the story very briefly - his role is firmly restrictive to that of teacher, and a distant teacher at that - there is no real warmth in the relationship between him and the children.

Although the title of the book is captivating, many times the story itself falls slightly short of my expectations - often the narrative falls into meaningless history lessons or long-winded descriptions of the nature of alchemy, and much of the story structure relies on the reader having a good visual picture of the house and its features within their head. A map of the house and grounds can be found in each book, but a good idea would have been to include illustrations of many of the diagrams Corlett describes within the book and a family tree to keep track of all the Crawdens, Lewises, Mordens and Tylers that are so often mentioned throughout all four books.

Likewise, I could find very little to like with Corlett's protagonists William, Mary and Alice. If Corlett set out to make them - especially Alice - irritable, annoying, whiny, bickersome children, then he succeeded. If he wanted them to be enjoyable, realistic characters than he failed. To illustrate my point, read the passage where the children are getting into Jack's car for the first ride back to Golden House - it spans only two pages but within it Alice and Will fight over the front seat, Will sits on Alice and Alice moans about not getting her way; Alice says to Mary: 'Oh Mary, the last thing we want is one of your history lessons. They're so boring.' and Mary says: 'They're always squabbling. And that's really boring.' Once inside the car Mary talks with Jack about the length of her hair and Alice says: 'Ugh! Stop flirting, Mary. Be careful, Uncle Jack. She's man-mad!'
Mary: Honestly, you're such a baby, Alice.
Alice: You're blushing! Mary's blushing!
Mary: Shut up Alice!

See what I mean? If I was Uncle Jack I would have stopped the car and left the little brats to camp out on the train tracks. How we are supposed to find the three of them sympathetic, much less likeable characters I have no idea, and they get even worse as the story progresses.

These thoroughly horrible children aside, the books are thoughtful and original - though not the best of their genre, any fantasy reader should be interested enough by this opening novel to continue the story in the next book 'The Door in the Tree'.

This book is something of a mixed bag, combining good suspense with uneven pacing and description. There were also a few threads that were, honestly, not necessary in this book.

Three kids, in the manner of Alan Garner's books, are sent to their uncle's peculiar mansion, an old house with strange animals creeping nearby and a series of steps going up the chimney. Tension is rampant in the house, as Uncle Jack and his live-in, vegetarian girlfriend Phoebe are having a baby and are not married. At the same time, a mysterious, magical man named Steven Tyler is lurking near the house with designs on the people inside...

Though the suspense in this book is pretty good, it often slams to a halt rather than building to a climax. The descriptive language when talking about nature and the outdoors is wonderful, but unfortunately we never get clear pictures of the characters or the inside of Golden House.

I found that the whole subplot with Phoebe and Jack to be rather unnecessary, and an item that some parents may not want their kids to read about, as both characters believe that there's nothing unusual about cohabitation and single motherhood. It's a mature matter that somehow was jarring in with the innocent "children on holiday encounter magic" plotline. I also found it distracting that the girls spend so much time suspecting that Phoebe is a witch, then simply drop the matter when she has the child.

The magician unfortunately lacks the majesty of such wizards as Gandalf, Merlin, Albus Dumbledore... he simply appears, talks, then vanishes again. The ending is uneven, as we have one climax, and immediately switch to another.

This book appeared to need some editing, but is overall an interesting story.

This book is better than any other book ive read including Harry Potter, I stayed up past my bedtime reading it and the second i finished this one i started to read the second book in the series(The Door in the Tree).These books beckon you and persuade you to keep on reading till the end (unfortunatelyonly two books in the quartet are finished so far). It is not true(duh!) but it is more exciting than any book in the world.

This is the second book in the 'Magician's House Quartet' and sees the three children of the previous novel ('The Steps Up The Chimney') return to their uncle Jack's Golden House, where the year before they had meet a time-travelling wizard called Stephen Tyler, befriended a number of wild animals and mastered the magical art of sharing their bodies, and helped deliver their uncle's girlfriend's baby when the wizard's assistant Morden had attempted to sabotage the birth.

The children William, Mary and the youngest Alice are delighted to be back during the short spring break, eager to begin living more of the magic, but are slightly disconcerted to find that nothing out of the ordinary occurs. Just as William begins to doubt the reality of the magic of however, Alice once more joins minds with the dog Spot, who leads her to the Door in the Tree...
In this story, the badger sett of the valley is under attack from badger-baiters - a fact the children learn from their new friend, the elderly woman Meg Lewis, who lived by herself in Four Fields where she has appointed herself a guardian of the wildlife in the area - in particular the badgers. When the children discover a dead badger upon the path that Spot calls 'The Dark and Dreadful Path', and find several ominous messages signed 'the Fang', they realise that something indeed is amiss within the Golden Valley, and once more it's up to them to restore balance.

'The Door in the Tree' is a step up from its predecessor 'The Steps Up the Chimney' - it takes the children further into the woods and grounds of Golden House to discover further beauties -and harsh truths - of the natural world, a pattern that is continued in the next book 'The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall' where the children trek even further to find the lake known as Goldenwater. In this second book the children also find new acquaintances - not just Meg, but animals such as Falco the kestrel, Bawson the badger, Merula the blackbird, and re-appearances from Cinnabar the fox and Jasper the owl.
The story is more focussed and to the point - in the previous book suspense is built up only for nothing to happen, but here there are several exciting and interesting occurrences of the children's adventures - especially those that occur during the night. Although disappointingly the door in the tree actually plays a very little part in the story (you never actually learn where it came from), other happenings slowly begin to build up and create tension till the children are once more separated and relying only on their individual talents to resolve the problem. Corlett's descriptions of the children entering the animal's bodies are especially vivid, and his greatest strength is action-sequences (seen used to best effect in the final volume 'The Bridge in the Clouds'). Also worth re-reading is the lovely description of Four Fields, Meg's home.

However, as it was in the first book, the magician and his evil assistant Morden have very little to do in the main plot strand of the book. Morden appears only as a lurking threat at the back of their minds, and the magician himself Stephen Tyler arrives without warning to spout ideas of philosophy, alchemy and human nature that young readers may find confusing and are perhaps better suited to books of a higher age group than these are intended.
There is some more information on the history of the house as told from Meg's point of view - its interesting, but a little hard to piece altogether, especially if you can't quite remember little tidbits of history that were first told in the first book. A timeline or family tree would have been appropriate to chronicle the families that lived in the house - the Crawdens, the Tylers, the Mordens, the Lewises and now the Taylors/Greens.
Luckily the children improve - in the first book I could barely stand them due to their quarrelling and rudeness, but here there is a slight improvement on their manners, though Alice still needs a lot of work to make her even remotely likeable - the fuss she makes over Phoebe breastfeeding her baby is vulgar as well poorly written. Parents might not enjoy reading such passages out loud (Alice shrieks out - "Boobs! Boobs! Will's got a thing about boobs!). Like the plot strand of Jack and Phoebe's living together without being married, it is too crudely and awkwardly written to belong in a children's book. Other authors have tackled such subject matter with far more sensitivity than Corlett does here.

All in all, its an enjoyable enough book, a good continuation of the 'Steps Up the Chimney', but nothing overly special, with a few moments that unfortunately drag this series down from what it could have been.

In the door in the tree the three constant children go to stay with there uncle and his patner in Golden House. While there the children come across a door in a large tree with a room looking out onto the whole valley. Here the children first meet Meg Lewis a local woman who is trying to protect the badgers. They soon learn more about how the badger's are being hunted for sport by the badger baiters and there vicious dogs and become very interested in what they can do to help them. But when the magician refuses to help with magic they find themselves left with a terrible choice to make. I really enjoyed reading this book but at times it was dragged out a bit too much. I'm looking forward to reading more books in this series so if you're someone that likes reading books about magic you'll really enjoy this one.

The second volume in William Corlett's "The Magician's House Quartet", The Door In The Tree finds thirteen-year-old William and his sisters, Mary and Alice, visiting their Uncle Jack and his Girlfriend Phoebe at Golden House. It's spring and the world of nature is reawakening from winter's slumber as the children prepare to enter the world of magic with their guide, Spot the dog. With Spot's help the kids explore the nearby forest where they discover the Dark and Dreadful Path, eventually stumbling onto the Magician's secret hiding place through a door in a tree. The Magician teaches the children that the secret to magic is believing, and shows them how to inhabit the bodies of animals. Soon the children are coming to the aid of a family of beleaguered badgers who are battling the forces of Evil in the form of a wild dog named Fang. A superbly written fantasy adventure for young readers. Also highly recommended is the first title in this marvelous quartet, The Steps Up The Chimney. The final two eagerly awaited Archway Paperback titles planned are The Tunnel Behind The Waterfall and The Bridge In The Clouds.

The premise of this book is funny enough...a slightly
mismatched gay couple buys a mansion in a small English
country village next door to a homophobic retired
brigadier general. Unfortunately, this cute premise is diluted by the
author's introduction of far too many characters and
subplots that go nowhere and a writing style that feels
as if the author was being paid by the page. There are
entire chapters that have no laughs, no insight, and
no significance to the main plot. Boil this book down
to half of its length, and it would be a winner.

While I enjoyed the book to a certain extent it didn't win me over. I read William Corlett's other book (NOW AND THEN) which is a much better book (5 Stars). This is just 'ok'. I wouldn't run out & recommend it very strongly. There were a bit too many characters for my liking. It was a cute concept of a gossip-ridden little village somewhere in England--which seems rather realistic (in parts). Enjoy...if you need to.

I bought this book after reading "Now and Then". At first I was a little disappointed, "this is not the Corlett I know" I thought. Then I started laughing. This comedy which goes from humor to farce, is irresistible. It reminds me of the Italian "commedia dell'arte" or the British "comedy of manners". Funny characterization, farcical situation make of this novel one of the funniest thing I ever read.

It is pathetic to see the white middle-class Americans sell themselves to empirically failed utopian theories. Capitalism has afforded them this freedom to spout endlessly about the inequalities that persist in the world while contributing little to the actual growth of real wealth that might as well improve everybody's condition. It is despicable hypocrisy, and just look at the price of this book!

Contrary to the previous reviewer (who, I doubt, paid much attention to the content of the book but rather the contextual implications of it), I found Corlett's work inspiring and highly insightful. The capitalist orthodoxy that has prevailed over the academic minds of America for far too long calls for a thorough re-evaluation of paradigms. The author has no scruples about attacking the yuppie ethos of personal autonomy that has contaminated American society since god-knows-when. While wallowing in the riches bestowed on the few by the highly inequitable system we now refer to as market economy, large parts of the globe are suffering -- it is a systemic wrong, if anything, and it will take large-scale bottom-up action to correct it. Kudos to this singular effort!

This is a great book, if you are interested in self-enlightenment -- if you are searching to find out what life is all about and are interested in exploring the various traditions (in this case, the Islamic tradition), but it does not give one a very good idea of what Islam is all about. Of all the faiths of the world, Al-Islam is among the most dogmatic and narrow-minded in character. The text that Corlett uses exclusively in his interpretation of the Islamic tradition is the "Conference of the Birds", a Sufi text that most Mohammedans are unaware of. This is in keeping with the author's approach of using the more mystical interpretations of each and every major religion (this book is the last in a series of six such books), but also puts one at a distance form the faith and practice of most Moslems, and completely ignores nearly all of the commonly-held tenets and ignores the Al-Qur'an as well! So, if you pick up this book with the intention of learning anything new about Islam, you will be sorely dissapointed. The author seems to have no interest whatsoever in exploring the religion as it is understood by most of the Mussselmen in the world. many of the things he suggests will be considered heretical by the vast majority of Muslims, and the overall approach seems to be more in keeping with Vedanta. Still, since it is obviously not the author's purpose to explore the cultural fact of Islam, or any other religion, but to get to the gist of existence -- to explore the religions and ideas that casued all religions to come into being in the first place. If these are the questions that interest you, then this is one of the best books to read. Like the author says in the introduction, the book does not attempt to come to a definite conclusion or to be dogmatic or final in any way. It is just a guide of self-exploration that may allow one to get something of the wisdom from various of the world's major faiths, in this case, Islam. The words and style that the author's use gets a bit old if you read all of the books in the series . . . it can get a bit repetitive after a while and there seems to me more verbiage than is necessary . . . large parts of the book don't really say much. If you want a good idea of what Islam, as it is commonly practiced is all about, however, look elsewhere.