Jobless, jaded and on the “wrong” side of thirty, he’s facing the threat of eviction from his London flat while reeling from the sudden death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the eighties, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, a film Jack loved as a child, idolising its fox-like hero Dune.
But The Shadow Glass flopped on release, deemed too scary for kids and too weird for adults, and Bob became a laughing stock, losing himself to booze and self-pity. Now, the film represents everything Jack hated about his father, and he lives with the fear that he’ll end up a failure just like him.
In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying home, a place creaking with movie memorabilia and painful memories. Then, during a freak thunderstorm, the puppets in the attic start talking. Tipped into a desperate real-world quest to save London from the more nefarious of his father’s creations, Jack teams up with excitable fanboy Toby and spiky studio executive Amelia to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy while conjuring the hero within––and igniting a Shadow Glass resurgence that could, finally, do his father proud.
Sometimes I think nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces in the world. And it can be such a tough feeling to describe. Recently, I saw a picture of myself when I was maybe seven or eight years old. It was Christmas and I was in my bedroom, surrounded by all the gifts I had gotten that day.
I don’t think I had ever seen the picture before, but goddamn…I was just flooded with all these sense-memories and could recall just about every item in the frame: a cool G.I. Joe vehicle, a tabletop hockey game, LEGO sets, stuffed Garfields…it just all came back to me in such a tactile way.
Josh Winning’s THE SHADOW GLASS captures so much of that feeling, and just transports the reader to another time. While the book is set in the present day, this is a book that is steeped in the culture of 80’s fantasy movies. If you are a fan of things like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Willow, and The NeverEnding Story, this book was written with you in mind!
In 1986, filmmaker Bob Corman released a dark fantasy/puppet movie called The Shadow Glass. It was a critical & commercial failure, but the movie went on to become something of a cult classic, with a wildly devoted fanbase.
Our main character is Jack Corman, the son of this idiosyncratic filmmaker. We meet Jack shortly after Bob has passed away, and he’s in a financial & personal rut. He returns to his childhood home to scare up forgotten relics from the movie that he might be able to sell, but he finds something quite a bit more fantastical waiting for him: these puppets that Jack loved so much as a child are actually real, and their world is in peril.
With his entire worldview tipped upside down, it’s up to Jack, a local teenager (and Shadow Glass superfan) named Toby, and two kettu (fox-like warriors), Zavanna & Bol to help set things right in Iri, the world depicted in The Shadow Glass.
This was a lot of fun & written with a ton of heart! There’s also some cool “supplemental material” in between the chapters, things like interviews, internal memos from the production of the film, and even excerpts from the novelization of the movie.
There’s some more somber moments too, as a large part of the story has to do with Jack’s relationship with his father, which had become quite strained. In addition to the story’s central quest, there’s also this big element of Jack discovering more about his father than he ever knew. Jack starts out bitter & resentful towards his father, but starts putting together all these different puzzle pieces that help him see his father not just as the self-involved alcoholic he (Jack) perceived him to be, but as a whole entire human with complex personal struggles.
Oof.
This is a trip to the video store on a rainy day. A Saturday afternoon movie that has you wondering…what if this was all real? What if I stepped through that door into a dark & weird new world?
What if I got to be the hero?
Grimdark Dad 
This is a fantastic review. Thank you for sharing!
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