Promotional Information

Dystopian vision of the urban future, with a smattering of a Victorian past Shortlisted in the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards 2010

About the Author

Ian Beck is well known as an illustrator as well as more recently a writer of young fiction with the publication of the very successful Tom Trueheart titles by OUP. This is his first foray in to the world of teen fiction. Ian lives in west London.

Reviews

'Well-paced with more twists than the Fantom's slippery path' The Bookseller 'I loved every single page of Pastworld. It was engaging and original' Wondrous Reads 'The descriptions of Pastworld are haunting and evocative' The Book Smugglers 'Extremely accessible, pacy and tense ... bags of originality' The Bookbag

Gr 7 Up-In 2050, civilization has become sterile, controlled, peaceful, and very, very boring. In an effort to capitalize on the ennui of the rich and famous, Buckland Corporation has created the ultimate vacation destination: Pastworld, a city modeled after 19th-century London where visitors also known as "gawkers" can immerse themselves in a Victorian world complete with grueling poverty, near-primitive medicine, lawlessness, and a casual disregard for human life. When 17-year-old Caleb Brown enters Pastworld with his father, one of the theme park's creators, he is unwittingly embroiled in a Scotland Yard investigation of a series of Jack the Ripper-style murders. Befriended by a young pickpocket and a beautiful girl with amnesia, he fights for his life and future in the dark underbelly of Pastworld. Readers who enjoyed Eleanor Updale's "Montmorency" series (Scholastic) will find this novel equally suspenseful and gripping. This spellbinding page-turner will keep readers on the edge of their seats.-Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.