Hyddenworld
Introduction
Breaking a silence of fifteen years William Horwood returns to his hallmark fantasy. The beginning of an epic new, series Hyddenworld:Spring is a quest-story on a vast canvas, with a cast of unforgettable characters whose loves, fears and courage lead us on a journey of deep feeling and epic ideas to the very edges of the universe. Set in the world we know and the one we have forgotten, the journey begins here…
Hyddenworld is a quartet – each book named after a season, starting with Spring. In each the same central set of characters, some hydden or little people, others human, led by Jack and Bedwyn Stort, aided by the mysterious Peace Weaver and her sister the Shield Maiden seek a gem which holds the power of the season after which it is named. If they can be brought together they may combine to re-kindle the fires of a dying universe.
Each story is set on an ever broader canvas – Spring is set in Englalond, the hydden version of England; Summer takes our heroes to Europe and the dark empire of the Sinistral; Autumn journeys to North America and ultimately the world, seeking ancient wisdoms; and with Winter, as final disaster threatens, the story takes us to the universe itself.
How the series started
The idea for Hyddenworld came to William during a motorway journey to the Cheltenham Literary Festival when he wondered what kind of creatures might live in the inaccessible central reservation of motorways and similar spaces to which humans have little access. His answer was ‘the hydden’, little people adept at ‘hyddening’, meaning they can see us but we can’t see them. The story took many years to evolve into a season-based quest quartet concerned with the environment.
Hyddenworld: Spring
At the heart of the series is the legend of Beornamund, 7th-century founder of ‘Brum’ or Birmingham as it became. He was a Mercian CraftLord, or maker of objects of great beauty and power. When his young lover Imbolc or Spring died he made a sphere of glass and metal, which he hurled in anger at the Gods. They broke it into a thousand pieces but could not destroy its power. Four of the fragments became gems each of which ‘stole’ something of the fires of the universe and earthly seasons.
Over the centuries these gems were lost to mortals. But it was said that when they are found and brought together again, Beornamund’s Sphere will be recreated and the fires of the dying Universe saved.
The story’s protagonists are humans and little people called Hydden who live in parallel but connected worlds. The Hydden lives and cities are intertwined with those of humans, who they can see but who cannot see them.
One day a Hydden called Jack, aged six, who is a ‘giant-born’ and as such is seen as threat to the Hyddenworld, is sent to live in the human world for his own survival. When he saves the life of Katherine, a human girl his own age, their futures become entangled with the quest for the first of the gems. So begins Hyddenworld: Spring and an extraordinary journey leads Jack and his Hydden and human friends to find all the gems and save a dying Universe.
The Importance of Love
William rarely says much about his stories as they are being written and never gives the plot away… But about this series he does say this: ‘Traditionally writers of fantasy, even adult fantasy, avoid a subject like love in all its forms, staying with simpler virtues like courage, loyalty and faith. I write about those themes too but at its core Hyddenworld is a love story, or series of love stories, whose different stages and forms are represented by the different seasons. The theme is important for Hyddenworld especially because unless characters are driven by love’s greatest dreams and desires and learn to overcome the obstacles of its difficulties and disappointments, they are unlikely to build the inner strength and external support they need to reach to the very end of their quest…’
The Publishing Program
The books will be published by PanMacmillan over four years, starting in Spring 2010 and then each year in the appropriate season of the title, ending with Hyddenworld:Winter in 2013. These are the dates for hardback publication. The titles will be paperbacked in tandem with the hardback of the following book in the sequence, but the paperback publication will be a little earlier. Readers and reviewers who would like to be informed of publication dates as they firm up can add their name to William’s emailing list here.