Under the Pendulum Sun

“An opulently atmospheric piece of neo-Victorian fantasy set in a 19th century in which the British are sending missionaries to Fairyland. It’s a strange, brooding and occasionally perverse debut.” – The Guardian , The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2017“An evocative, claustrophobic Gothic novel with strikingly creepy set-pieces, which repeatedly dislocates its reader’s and characters’ worldview in a forceful examination of faith and the power of stories.”– Aliette de Bodard, Nebula, Locus and BSFA Award-winning author of The House of Shattered Wings “ Under the Pendulum Sun is a weird, ingenious, and ravishing story of the Fae and the outsiders driven to discover their secrets, told with a heady melange of disturbing beauty and enticing dangers.” – Kate Elliott, author of Cold Magic , Black Wolves , and Court of Fives “Poetic, elegant, the writing feels filigreed and heavy with silk… the most nonchalantly menacing thing I’ve ever read.”– Cassandra Khaw , author of Hammers on Bone "Threads together the Brontës, Fae mythology and the Biblical Apocrypha into an intricate gothic tapestry, the sort that seems to shift slightly when you glance away, the sort that throws away imagery in every half-sentence that makes the “shifting tapestry” metaphor in the previous sentence wince at being a bit predictable."xa0– Kieron Gillen , co-creator of The Wicked + The Divine “An enchanting literary debut – I couldn’t put it down!”– Lavie Tidhar , World Fantasy Award winning author of A Man Lies Dreaming and Central Station “Jeanette Ng has no time for Victorian attempts to sanitise and prettify Faerie. A story as intriguing as it is eerily disturbing.” – Juliet McKenna "Extremely beautiful, entertaining, and emotionally compelling...read this excellent book." – Grimdark magazine "Intriguing... fascinating." – Publishers Weekly “The world-building and atmosphere are just incredible. It’s especially gripping because the normal rules don’t apply, and nothing is as it seems.” – Syfy Wire , The 10 Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books of 2017“This isxa0The Woman in Black, Heart of Darknessxa0and fae all mixed up in a magical debut novel.” – Morpheus Tales Reviews “ Under the Pendulum Sun is without a shadow of doubt one of the best fantasy stories I’ve read in 2017. I was engrossed in the mystery, delighted by the scope of the intertextuality, thrilled by the reversal of situations I hadn’t seen coming, and amazed by the world building. Under the Pendulum Sun not only has a fantastic cover, it also has a great story to tell that I would urge any fantasy reader, particularly if they are keen on gritty Victoriana, to try.” – Black Girl Nerds “A brave and startling debut, one that’s both sensual and sinister, a foundation for what should be a glowing career.” – British Fantasy Society “ Under the Pendulum Sun contains wonders and terrors, sweet love and brittle disgust. ” – Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog “A brilliant fantasy that challenges the characters’ faith and hearts, and creates a world entirely of its own.” – Scifi Now “Jeannette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun is big and unruly and spills over in various directions in ways that genuinely excite.” – Strange Horizons “Jeannette Ng weaves an incredible tale in the vein of a creepy Victorian novel that blends elements of fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, and more into a dark and captivating tale.” – San Francisco Book Review “A perfectly twisted novel.” – SFF World "A stroke of pure brilliance." – the Guardian “Hauntingly beautiful and masterfully told. This looks like the start of a brilliant career.”– Keith Yatsuhashi , author of Kokoro “Jeannette Ng's imagery is breathtaking, her setting dark and delightful, and her use of theology is pure genius. Like some sinister elf, Under the Pendulum Sun will steal your imagination and never give it back.”– N S Dolkart , author of Among the Fallen “ Under the Pendulum Sun does live up to its fabulous pitch. A richly woven fantasy from a brilliant imagination. Definitely one for readers interested in fairy lore and Gothic fantasy.”– Rod Duncan , author of The Bullet-Catcher’s Daughter “Imagine Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland confined to a particularly mysterious corner of Gormenghast with the Faeries of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for company and you start to get an idea of how delightfully intricate and beautifully realised a novel Under the Pendulum Sun is. A remarkable debut.” – Jonathan L Howard , author of Johannes Cabal the Necromancer series“ Under the Pendulum Sun is a delicious fusion of repressed Victorian missionary values and the horror of the Fae. A sumptuous account of the journey into the land of the Fae, and into the darkest recesses of the human soul, this book delighted and shocked in all the best ways.” – Emma Newman “A novel whose big heart enables it to engage with big ideas. Read it carefully, and be rewarded.” – Andrew Wallace , author of Sons of the Crystal Mind "Jeannette Ng has written an utterly brilliant gothic novel, using all the tropes and cliches of the genre and rising above them in magnificent style. I highly recommend it." – Intellectus Speculativus “Ng draws us into the fantastic quickly, with gorgeously imaginative details.” – Shoreline of Infinity “There is a wisdom, but also an exquisite beauty in her words that stun you... Under the Pendulum Sun is a gorgeous book.” – Utopia State of Mind “An intricate distortion of myth and history… A pre-Halloween puzzle box of a book.” – Victorian Soul Critiques “A deep, rich and very definitely eerie gothic novel that asks some very hard, very interesting questions about god, faith, the nature of truth and what stories and storytelling have to do with all of it.” – Kam Reads and Recs “ Under the Pendulum Sun is a dark, psychological fantasy in a gothic vein, paying considerable literary homage to authors such as the Brontës. Impressively, Jeannette Ng manages to keep her debut novel grounded in historical reality despite its taking place entirely in the faelands.” – The Fancy Hat Lady Reads “Holy wah. Holy wah! Holy WAH! This book was an amazing read!” – Purple Owl Reviews “Jeannette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun expertly weaves fantasy, the Gothic, academia, and religion in this compelling novel about missionaries to Arcadia, the land of the Fae.” – Fairy Book Mother “The writing and the world building are an absolute treat and the story is very original.” – Helen’s Bookshelf “ Under the Pendulum Sun is a towering work of imagination.” – Alan Brenik “Jeannette Ng has subverted the Gothic novel and given it a fresh lease of life.” – Strange Alliances “The writing is, in a word, beautiful.” – YA On My Mind “Beautifully crafted and structured, but containing a deeper, hidden heart that takes patience to reach. 5 Stars: Excellent.” – Occasionally Random Book Reviews “ Under the Pendulum Sun is an amazing debut novel from an author to watch.” – The Illustrated Page “A book that will pull you in about fourteen different directions and refresh your imagination.” – Chain Interaction “Ng’s writing is first rate and this is an enjoyable, immersive book that is able both to take seriously the perspective of its Victorian characters and to show their worldview under assault from a cultural encounter for which they’re wholly unfitted. It’s a haunting, intricate book which is like nothing I’d read before. I’d strongly recommend it.” – Blue Book Balloon “The author does an excellent job of building suspense and setting throughout, and gives us interesting characters.” – JD DeHart “A stunningly different fantasy that mixes Crimson Peak with Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell .” – Fine Print “ Under the Pendulum Sun is a debut novel from a writer who knows her prose craft.” – Pop-Verse “Really interesting and refreshing.” – Bofinkins vlog “ Under the Pendulum Sun is fantastic and I can’t wait to see what Jeannette Ng writes next.” – Pretty Terrible “Ng’s writing is stunning. It’s rich and lush, full of description and atmosphere. You can practically feel things moving in the shadows as you’re reading. The language Ng has used fits perfectly with the story she’s writing -- descriptions balancing on the edge of over-done, utilising old-fashioned styles of perhaps ’telling’ more than is common now. It’s all beautifully done and Under the Pendulum Sun could easily sit next to any of the classic Gothic Romance novels.” – Foxes & Fairytales “Utterly captivating and super weird. Loved it.” – Way Too Fantasy “A rich, strange, increasingly nightmarish phantasmagoria of both horror and beauty. It’s impressively erudite and sly. It draws the reader expertly in, builds steady tension, then lays shocking plot twist after plot twist. It’s a novel that opens into landscapes of wonder, and becomes a moving, even rapturous, journey. ” – It’s a Jumble “An excellent eerie trip… If you would like a chance from fantasy that constantly looks for a quest or quasi-detective story then I think this would be a perfect novel to take you away but you may not be quite the same person afterwards. Pass the salt…” – Runalong the Shelves “So much its own thing that I don’t hesitate to recommend it, and am extremely curious to see what Ng does next.” – Asking the Wrong Questions “ Under the Pendulum Sun is without a shadow of doubt one of the best fantasy stories I’ve read in 2017. I was engrossed in the mystery, delighted by the scope of the intertextuality, thrilled by the reversal of situations I hadn’t seen coming and amazed by the world building. Under the Pendulum Sun not only has a fantastic cover, it also has a great story to tell that I would urge any fantasy reader, particularly if they are keen on gritty Victoriana, to try.” – The Middle Shelf “ Under the Pendulum Sun is a fascinating story.” – Earl Grey “Ng’s novel is a dream that does not disappoint. It’s a rich, strange, increasingly nightmarish phantasmagoria of both horror and beauty. It’s impressively erudite and sly. It draws the reader expertly in, builds steady tension, then lays shocking plot twist after plot twist. It’s a novel that opens into landscapes of wonder, and becomes a moving, even rapturous, journey. ” – It’s a Jumble “I loved this book… A genuinely delightful and thought provoking read.” – Fox Spirit “ Under the Pendulum Sun is no fairytale; its ancestors are Jane Eyre and Ann Radcliffe, not the faerie-tinged historical fantasies of Susanna Clarke and Zen Cho.” – The English Student “ Under the Pendulum Sun is more than a simple novel of the Fae (to quote it’s subtitle) but instead is quite a rather clever morality tale that shows what can happen to those who believe their culture is far superior to everyone else’s. It’s a great novel and ... I enjoyed it alot.” – Resolute Reader “I’d be lying if I said this book hadn’t utterly blown me away. As debut novels go, I think this is a damned hard one to beat, and I’ve read some really great ones. In fairness, both to it and to others, though, I’ve never read anything quite like this. As an example of SFF at its finest, it shines like a faerie moon hanging before an angler fish. Just watch out for those teeth.” – Over The Effing Rainbow “Beautifully written.” – Fantasy Book Review “Ms Ng’s rendering of the Fae world is a must-read. Such vast imagination that takes authors years to build. Weird, quirky, and intricate details that are so subtle yet immensely powerful–like a well-added spice.” – Moore Fantasy “Geat prose, effectively told story, utterly captivating and super weird. Loved it.” – Way Too Fantasy “Stanislaw Lem meets George MacDonald meets VC Andrews meets Sylvia Townsend Warner. If having your expectations swung back and forth sounds like fun give this a go.” – 10 Bad Habits “Captivating, thoroughly recommended.” – Novel Gazing Redux “This is a masterful debut, although it won’t be for everyone – it’s slow, often ambiguous, as religious as it is profane, and takes great joy in its broken edges. Bravo.” – One More “Vibrant, complex, and engrossing... a sorrowful, heartfelt masterpiece.” – Literary Nocturne Review “This tale weaves folklore, history, and the gothic tradition into a tapestry of horror, unease and suspense that I just couldn’t put down, this combines with a beautiful insta-worthy cover meant it was definitely a big favourite of my year.” – The Trouble with Tribbles “An interesting read and a beautiful one and definitely worth the effort.” – Fangs for the Fantasy “The premise is irresistible and strange, and Ng’s crisp and luminous prose is ideal for navigating faeland, a gloomy world, full of secrets and mysteries, and casual cruelty.” – Head Shoulders Knees & Toes “The writing in this book was phenomenal, and the way the world was designed and built was so intricately done, so extraordinary and just a pleasure to read. ” – Ayundabhuwana’s Blog "There are times when the 'real' crosses over into delightful absurdism that reminds readers of the work of Lewis Carol or Hayao Miyazaki. But above all one of the most captivating elements of this book is its novel and alluring premise: Victorian missonairies travel to the Faelands to convert the fae folk to Christianity. " – The Writer's Corner "Basically, I really love this book and would highly recommend it!" – Brenhines Books Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 The Quiet in the Port Great and ancient empires, Mahomedan and Heathen, have received a shock by the prowess of British arms, nerved and strengthened by GOD, which has broken down strong, and hitherto invulnerable barriers; and so a way has been opened for His blessed Gospel to pass from here to the remotest bounds of reality. Thus, Palestine is now accessible; and Englishmen may travel freely through the length and breadth of the Holy Land. The enlarged, and still enlarging, boundaries of our dominions in India, open new fields of labour for the Lord’s servants. China, its forbidding gates forced open by war, calls out to the faithful. But it is the Faelands that arrest our attention. Arcadia’s vast unknown, which has been for many ages closed against us and the Divine Word, is at last made clear and knowable. And, as Britain has had the high and singular honour, in the wonderful providence of GOD, the Lord of Hosts, of breaking down that barrier, it is but apposite that she should have the honour of being the first to carry in the balm of the blessed Gospel. Rev William E Matheson, “Appeal on Behalf of Arcadia”, News of the World , 5th December 1843 xa0 My brother and I grew up dreaming of new worlds. Our father had owned a paltry library of books and a subscription to the most fashionable periodicals, all of which we gleefully devoured. We would linger by the gate, impatient for the post that would bring new sustenance for our hungry imaginations. Bored of waiting, we told each other stories of what could be. I remember my brother, Laon, finding one of our tin soldiers at the bottom of his pocket. The red paint was barely worn and it looked up at me with a long-suffering expression. I snatched it from Laon’s hand, declaring it the Duke of Wellington, and ran off claiming that the two of us would adventure together. Like Lord Byron or Marco Polo. We invented whole new worlds for our soldiers to explore: Gaaldine, Exina, Alcona, Zamorna. From our father’s books we learnt of pilgrims and missionaries and explorers, and so we wrote of grand journeys, long and winding. As we read of the discovery of the Americas, of the distant Orient, and of strange Arcadia we added similar places to our ever more intricate maps. We mimicked the newspapers and periodicals we read, writing new ones for our tin soldiers. In the tiniest, tiniest writing, we detailed their exploits, the politics of their parliaments, and the scandals of their socialites. But for all our stories, our imaginations were small and provincial. For the talk of tropics and deserts, our childish fictions filled them with the same oaks and aspens that grew in our garden. We built on their landscape, exotic buildings that were just our littlexa0xa0 whitewashed church in Birdforth in disguise. We rained down on strange soil the same Yorkshire rain as that which drenched our skins and drove us inside, peeling off our clothes, housebound by the weather and desperate for diversion. As such, I could never have imagined Arcadia. I was familiar with all the tales, mind. The first explorers had spun overwrought stories upon their return: until I laid eyes upon the Faelands, I was blind, and now I see. I have never seen colour, nor grandeur, nor wonder, until I saw the shores of Arcadia. Later travellers were more prosaic, but still offered no adequate description. There were few maps and fewer landscapes available, and almost all of them had been denounced by one explorer or another as fraudulent. For all the many contradictory theories I had read on the relationship between our world and that of the fae, I was no more enlightened. It was said to be underground, but not. It overlaid our own, but not. It was another place, but not. All I do know was this: Our ship, The Quiet , sailed in circles on the North Sea for six whole weeks. On the dawn of the first day of the seventh week, my wavering compass informed me that we were heading straight back towards smog-shrouded London. Nervously, I clutched my compass. My brother had given it to me before he left for Arcadia to become a missionary. He was among the first to be tasked to bring the Word of God to the Fair Folk. He had been there three years now and had been nothing but terse in his correspondence. I tried to swallow the worry that consumed me, but it knotted around my heart. That was when I caught my first glimpse of the Faelands. Impossibly white cliffs rose from the white sea foam. For a moment my mind feared it to be Dover, that I had simply returned to those mundane cliffs of chalk and stone, that no foreign land awaited me. Yet those cliffs were too white, too stark. They could not be Dover. Behind them I expected the rolling hills of home. But instead the landscape was jagged and jutting knife-sharp from the sea. It seemed cobbled together, each part eerily familiar but set against something other. I recognised the leering profile of a hill, the knuckle-like crest of a mountain. Yet as wind and wave shifted the shapes, it all seemed different again and my strained eyes watered. The Quiet glided gull-like into a wide, wide river. Unfamiliar structures sprawled against the green grey mass of the land in arching, crumbling lines. Squinting, I made out the spined turrets, barbed roofs and oddly leaning walls. For a moment I thought the town to be an endless dragon coiled around the edge of the harbour, huffing smoke from its distended nostrils. It shimmered, the shingled roofs seeming scale-like, and then it shifted . I blinked, and buildings were back to where I remembered them. There was no dragon made of shifting structures. Just a town of crowded streets. The ship heaved under our feet like an unruly stallion. A shout broke out among the sailors in words I didn’t understand. They started busying. As they clambered up and down the ratlines and hauled rope this way and that, they muttered invocations under their breath. I wanted to chide them for their superstition but we were sailing to Arcadia and none of it made any sense. I tried to stay out of the way as the sailors blasphemously crossed themselves in the name of salt, sea and soil. An unnatural wind curled around the sail, whipping it back and forth. It fluttered full and then deflated with each breath of the wind. The Quiet became anything but as the timber groaned. The cabin boy flung his arms around the prow and cooed at it. It was a long while before the ship was tamed and brought to shore. And then I was simply there, stepping unsteadily from the ship into the shamble of a docks. Twisting streets full of seeming people reminded me of crowded London. The ground was a shock to my feet, and I staggered. My carpet bag and trunk joined me on the docks. I fumbled for my documents and scanned the milling crowd for my guide. I tried not to notice the oddities of each figure – the strange colours and the wings and the horns. There would be time aplenty for the wonder of Arcadia once my bags had been unpacked and I had found my brother. “Miss Catherine Helstone, I presume? The missionary’s sister?” With an upturned nose, round chin and soft, brown eyes, the woman I turned to meet was perhaps one of the least ethereal people I’d ever met. She was shorter than me. But as her skirts hung long and limp, without a murmur of wave or curve, her figure seemed tall and lank. She dressed in sombre, mortal colours, her gown being a muddy shade of navy blue and her shawl more grey than white. A smile spread across her freckled cheeks as I nodded. “I thought I recognised you,” she said. “You look just like your brother.” “I do?” Though Laon and I shared the same dark hair and strong nose, few remarked on our resemblance. Features that were handsome on a man were becoming on a woman’s frame. “I’m Ariel Davenport, as I’m sure you know. Your guide.” “I am very pleased to finally meet you,” I said. We had exchanged a handful of letters through the Missionary Society in preparation of my journey. She shook my hand vigorously between her two clasped ones and swooped in two sharp kisses. Her smile getting wider, she added, “Though I’m not the real one.” “I’m… I’m not sure I follow.” “I’m not the real Ariel Davenport, you see.” There was an unpleasant edge to her laugh; it was a touch too brittle. “I’m her changeling.” “Her changeling?”xa0 Many of the intermediaries between the fae and humans were said to be changelings. One of Captain Cook’s botanists was said to have learnt of their fae origins upon arrival to Arcadia and was conscripted to their cause. Despite such accounts, changelings never seemed quite real to me. But then, given how sheltered I had been, the French were never quite real. “So you were raised as her–” Ariel Davenport gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes at my ignorance. “She was a human child, I was a fairy-made simulacrum of a human child. We traded places. I grew up there and she grew up here.” “What became of her?” I asked. “That’s not for me to tell.” She gave me a disarmingly lopsided smile and in an impeccably proper accent, added, “And it’s hardly polite to ask.” “I- I’m sorry,” I stuttered. I dropped my gaze. Our nanny, Tessie, used to keep a pair of steel scissors by our beds to ward off faerie abductors. In restlessness and boredom, I once said to Laon that we should close the scissors, so that they no longer formed the sign of the cross, and invite in the fae. He was horrified. And so I never suggested it again. “Regardless, now I’m here again. Because I’m useful to them and I understand you humans,” said Miss Davenport. “Speaking of which, I am most remiss in my duties. I should hardly keep you talking here all day.” She waved for an expectant-looking porter to hoist up my trunk onto his shoulders. His sallow skin glinted green as it caught the sunlight. --This text refers to the paperback edition. Jeannette Ng is originally from Hong Kong but now lives in Durham, U.K. Her MA in medieval and Renaissance studies fed into an interest in medieval and missionary theology, which in turn spawned her love for writing Gothic fantasy with a theological twist. She runs live roleplay games and is active within the costuming community, running a popular blog.Emma Lysy is the narrator of over 100 audiobooks. Born and raised along Michigan's west coast, she has worked at libraries, universities, wineries, and (fictional) castles. Her goal is to read and travel her way through life. --This text refers to the audioCD edition. Read more