A review by ailsaod
The Nameless One by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell

adventurous hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 I planned to reread 'The winter Knights' next but then I found 'The descenders' in the library (which I have yet to read) so I decided to reread this book in the hope of understanding book 3 in the trilogy without reading book 2. We shall see how that goes.

'The nameless one' is a bit of a weird entry into the series that I think is best described as swiss family Robinson but fantasy (but also somehow more realistic) and actually good (don't come at me if you like that book, I had to read it in primary school and I hated it!). Cade Quarter (the nephew of Nate) has to leave Great Glade after the suspicious death of his father and stows away on a Sky tavern and subsequently finds himself in many predicaments. Despite being 350 pages I read this in two days (and it probably could have been one if I'd felt like it!) but this might be because of all the lovely illustrations.

A lot of things happen in this book but a lot of it seems to be set up for later as the conflict of this book appears and is resolved fairly swiftly. I enjoyed the worldbuilding (as always) and how the book showed how Cade had to learn how to survive in the Deepwoods. I don't understand why this book has the title it does though - for all its relevance to the plot it might have been named Rumblix (Cade's powlgrin) and the last minute deus ex machina was strange, though I might appreciate it more if I remembered more of the earlier books!