I’m studying Science Fiction and Fantasy at Cardiff University. This week we were invited to write a short piece, or opening chapter to a longer piece in the style of another writer. I chose to use characters Tom Holt might employ and set it in the world created by Susanna Clarke in her wonderful novel, “Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell”. It is set about half a century after the events of Clarke’s novel in 1870. England is still at war with France and the denizens of the netherworld have returned to London.
Detective Inspector Camden Ironbell of the Gnome Office
By Martyn Winters
In the normal course of events in 1870, a person of gentle upbringing would not expect to cross paths with a member of His Majesty’s Constabulary while they are conducting an investigation. As rare as such a circumstance might be, it pales somewhat vividly compared to the chances of meeting a constable, or an officer, whose countenance is not that of a solid, square jawed son of London’s East End, but the enlarged nose and unwieldy ears of a gnome. Yet such was the occasion on that strange night of August the 8th when Captain Johannes Millwright emerged from his club on the Mall. Still robed in his dress reds despite receiving his discharge papers that very evening, Millwright cut a fashionable figure as he strode nonchalantly down the steps to pavement level, only to be greeted by shouts of “Stop thief,” as two diminutive figures chased a ragged beggar of a man across the road.