Synopses & Reviews
More aptly called “Wonder Tales” than “Fairy Tales,” the first three novels in The History of Arcadia series were embraced as crossover titles, prompting critics and booksellers to ask readers to “imagine Lewis Carroll with footnotes by Jonathan Swift” while others made comparisons to Nicholson Baker, the Spiderwick Chronicles, Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, Homer, C.S. Lewis, the New Testament, Descartes, L. Frank Baum, Doris Lessing, and Joseph Campbell. The author herself credits Ursula K. LeGuin, Mary Shelley, Octavia Butler, and J.R.R. Tolkien as noble ancestors of the world of Arcadia. With their strong and loving female protagonists, accessible storylines, fantastical settings, sophisticated illustrations, and powerful messages, each novel in The History of Arcadia series is truly visionary.
Readers, however, won’t need to have read any of the other The History of Arcadia books to become engrossed in the drama of Aspern Grayling, whose obsession with creating a new life form — in the person of ruthless adventurer Pavo Vale — could destroy his whole world. A compelling descendant of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this is a tale of a man bent on conquest, and of an adversary that may yet defeat him: the ghost of the Arcadian Devindra Vale, the only woman he has ever loved.
Review
“Impressive....Report to Megalopolis creates and makes believable its imaginative world, a world that is both original and rooted in classical works of fantasy. With its lavish settings and dramatic events, it plays in a quite novel way with the old myths/fairy stories of orphans, muddled generations and incestuous couplings.” Janet Todd, author of A Man of Genius
Review
“Readers will feel right at home in this crossover world of ‘wonder tales,’ which has been described as ‘Lewis Carroll with footnotes by Jonathan Swift.’ If that description alone doesn’t get your bachelor’s degree in English Lit all tingly, then you’re reading the wrong list.” Westword
Review
"You can read Report to Megalopolis without having read the other books in the History of Arcadia (although why wouldn’t you?)." Deb Baker, BookConscious
Review
“Innovative form and spellbinding content....Stories, as Tod Davies’s History of Arcadia novels ultimately suggest, serve as civilization’s backbone, and it is therefore in stories too that we can discover the potential for fundamental change and a better society.” Marvels & Tales
Review
“Look inside this world and find wonder.” Kate Bernheimer, editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me and Fairy Tale Review
Review
“Cleverly explores the motifs of Frankenstein....Fans will appreciate the intriguing perspective on a familiar theme.” Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The History of Arcadia series tells the story of a world that was literally formed by a story, by one person discovering and claiming who she really is...and of the subsequent events that led first to a deceptively happy world, then to an inevitably tragic outcome, and finally to a slow rebuilding of the world on foundations more deeply and thoughtfully laid. Each book includes bonus Arcadian legends and fairy tales, and relates how the manuscript crossed the barriers between Arcadia and our own world to arrive at Exterminating Angel Press. The first three novels in the series are Snotty Saves the Day, Lily the Silent, and The Lizard Princess. The fourth, told by arch villain Aspern Grayling, is Report to Megalopolis or The Post-modern Prometheus.
About the Author
TOD DAVIES lives with her husband, the filmmaker Alex Cox, and their dogs, in the alpine valley of Colestin, Oregon. She is the author of Snotty Saves the Day, Lily the Silent, and The Lizard Princess, the first three books in The History of Arcadia series, as well as the cooking memoirs Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With What You’ve Got and Jam Today Too: The Revolution Will Not Be Catered. Unsurprisingly, her attitude toward literature is the same as her attitude toward cooking — it’s all about working with what you have to find new ways of looking and new ways of being.