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<< Books/Products >> Quicksilver, the novel by Sam Osman - Interview and Review

Submitted by Andy B on Tuesday, 07 August 2012  Page Views: 19180

Mysteries
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Quicksilver is an exciting mix of ancient mysteries for readers of all ages. The story is set in modern London and follows the children on their travels.

Page updated from Feb 2010. Then we ran a competition with 10 signed copies to give away and we announced the winners below. I have also added my interview with the author, Sam and a review from myself and my son.

Here is how Sam (Samira) the author describes her book:

Wolfie Brown, Tala Bean and Zi’ib Bakri live continents apart, but their destiny lies in a rundown London suburb. The mysterious force of ancient ley lines brings them to Thornham to fulfil a prophecy written in prehistory. As they fight their faceless enemies, they discover why their parents have vanished and learn the chilling truth of who they really are…

Sam writes: Quicksilver is my first book for children and it’s full of ideas and snippets of fact that I picked up while making documentaries for television.

Years ago I worked on a series called House Detectives where a team of archaeologists armed with old maps, tape measures, picks and shovels would descend on an ordinary family home and try to trace its history as far back in time as they could. It was amazing what they found.

The series got me thinking about the lost worlds that lie beneath our modern burger bars and backstreets and the tiny traces of the ancient past that still lurk in the most unlikely places if we just know where and how to look for them. So although Thornham (where Quicksilver is set) is an imaginary suburb of South London its ancient history is based on the very real and very ordinary South London suburbs of Streatham, Tooting Bec and West Norwood, which are near to where I live.

There is more at Sam Osman's web site, where you can currently download the first four chapters to start you off. Don't look at the page about book two (now out as Serpent’s Gold) until you have finished Quicksilver though.

The question to win a signed copy was "Name the three countries that the three main characters Wolfie, Tala and Zi’ib come from", the answers are: Wolfie: England, Tala: USA (California), Zi’ib:Sudan

We had an excellent response to the competition and following a random draw, I'm pleased to announce the winners as follows:

Peter Tuck, Sutherland
Janelle Mason, Brighton
Stephen Hill, Cheadle
Ed Galloway, Northern Ireland
Larry Quinn, Utah
JeanJeany, address TBC
Sue Craig, address TBC
Pat O'Halloran, North Yorkshire
Wayne Laws, Surrey
Pamela Kerr, Isle of Wight

Well done everyone, your books will be in the post shortly.
I am tipping this one for great things, Quicksilver is already climbing the charts at Amazon.co.uk since I last looked


Note: Hollywood film adaptation of Quicksilver announced, in script development

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"Quicksilver, the novel by Sam Osman - Interview and Review" | Login/Create an Account | 5 News and Comments
  
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Film adaptation of Quicksilver announced and in development by Andy B on Tuesday, 07 August 2012
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From Variety

Gold Circle Films has tapped Laura Harrington to adapt Sam Osman's fantasy-adventure "Quicksilver."

Project is being produced by Gold Circle's Paul Brooks, with Scott Niemeyer exec producing. Brad Kessell is overseeing for the banner.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118057274

with thanks and good wishes to Sam Osman, I hope it all progresses smoothly and they make a good adaptation of it
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Re: Review of Quicksilver by Anonymous on Wednesday, 11 August 2010
I love reading about ancient mysteries and haunted places, so this book looks like it would be rite up my alley. Anyone have any thoughts or recommendations for books dealing with real haunted places or ghostly mystery stories?
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Re: Review of Quicksilver by Andy B on Saturday, 30 January 2010
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My son Rowan, age 12, didn't need much encouragement to get stuck into the book and he has now almost finished it.

"It's very very good"
"I really like it"

He went on:
It's about these three children Wolfie Zi'ib, and Tula who have never met and were born on different continenets. But somehow, very strangely they all come together where Wolfie lives area, in Thornham in London.

Wolfie lives in a shop which isn't making money, a man comes in called Mr Forester, who wants to lodge there and demands to pay highly. He likes stones and astronony.

Tula is born in California and lived with his dad but when you first start reading the part with her in it, her father has been gone for three days. She goes to her neighbours for help and they give her food and the police come round. The next day her uncle turns up and takes her to London.

Zi'ib lives in Sudan with his mum and they keep moving around. Zi'ib is putting out a bucket when he sees a truck coming. He sees the light, then he hears shouting and then gunfire. His mum gets him inside and he hides under a bed. His mum gets shot and he comes out from under the bed but gets shot in the leg. A British news reporter called Rex Slinfold and his jeep has got two flat tyres. He walks over to the man by the car and tells him who he is. He finds out about what happened to Zi'ib and he thought that it would be a good story. He sends his cameraman in. He finds some stuff that he wraps up to give to Zi'ib. They take Zi'ib somewhere else and a while later back at the hotel his boss rings him up and says that there is a doctor in London who is an expert in gunshot wounds. So he is sent to St James Hospital in London to have his wound operated on.

The vicar comes round to Wolfie and tells him he is fundraising and he gives him leaflets to deliver with his paper round. He says he needs speakers, Mr Forester says he is doing a talk about Cosmic Museli.

The vicar meet's Zi'ib in the hospital and he gets some old clothes to put on. The package from the cameraman arrives. All three of the children meet up in the church. The vicar introduces Zi'ib to Tala and Wolfie and Mr Forester's talk begins...
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Review of Quicksilver by Andy B on Saturday, 30 January 2010
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Quicksilver is a novel about three children, Wolfie, Tala and Zi'ib, originally from different parts of the world, but who seem to have been brought together by fate. The book is set in a deliberately unremarkable part of South London called Thornham (think Streatham and you've got the idea). Wolfie, who is the English character lives in a sweet shop that has been run by his family for generations.

One other key character lodges with them, Mr Forester. (No, make that two key characters, we mustn't forget the dog Elvis!) Mr Forester is an old fashioned Earth Mysteries researcher, of the kind who used to write for the Ley Hunter magazine. He has his own theory about ancient sites and alignments, including that Thornham once had a stone circle which has yet to be found.

Quite separately from all this, the children find they have parts of the same ancient key. They also find they have the ability to dowse - rather spectacularly - and some other mysterious powers that get them into difficulties at school. The author has great fun showing how they try to explain these away.

Something that appealed to Marion Lloyd, the publisher, and I agree with her, is that this is a very grounded, down to earth book, while still being a very engaging fantasy tale. It reflects the cultural melting pot that is modern day London, there are no magic wands or wizards and the magic is more believable (certainly along the lines expressed in our Mysteries forum in any case!).

Samira (Sam) like one of her three main characters, hails from Sudan. This was home to the fascinating and not very well understood ancient civilisation of Nubia, which built more pyramids than Egypt, according to the recent very enlightening BBC programme Lost Kingdoms of Africa (Part 1 - Nubia, catch it on BBC iplayer while you can). http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pq946/Lost_Kingdoms_of_Africa_Nubia/

As well as the pointed pyramids and the rest of the architecture of the ancient city of Meroë, there is a rock outcrop attached to the hill of Gebel Barkal which the ancient Egyptians held sacred as it was (and indeed still is) shaped like a cobra
http://www.learningsites.com/GebelBarkal-2/GB-index.htm

Anyway, I digress, I'll ask Sam more about her influences in my interview with her.

Getting back to the book, Sam has researched the subject thoroughly, attending the Megalithomania conference amongst many others, and this shows in the book's understanding of the Earth Mysteries subculture. However the EM crowd of the world of Quicksilver are totally unaware of what the three children are about to experience...

A great read for kids from about age 10+

Review by Andy Burnham
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Interview with Sam Osman, the author of Quicksilver by Andy B on Saturday, 30 January 2010
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Here is my recent interview with Samira:

AB Hello Sam, and thanks for agreeing to an interview. How did you get interested in the ideas that led to the book?

SO: I’m a documentary maker and years ago I worked on a television series called House Detectives which involved a team of archaeologists and historians descending on ordinary family homes to see how far back in time they could trace their history. On one occasion they discovered that the garden fence of a house in Swanage marked a bronze age boundary. The series got me thinking about the rich veins of history that lie beneath the most ordinary landscapes, which is how I came up with the idea of a lost stone circle lying beneath the common of a South London Suburb.

It was also while filming this series that I first saw a professional archaeologist use dowsing rods as an investigative tool. It really did seem like “magic” when we filmed at a supposedly haunted house and he used his rods to discover that the ghostly creakings, groanings and cold spots in the sitting room were due to an underground stream running beneath the building.

I also remember visiting megalithic sites as a child and when I asked “What are they for?” being shocked to discover that nobody knew. So the mystery of megaliths has fascinated me for a long time and when I came to write Quicksilver I really enjoyed inventing my own answers to that question.

AB: How did you research Quicksilver?

SO: When I came to research the book I did a lot of reading, both about megaliths and about the mysteries associated with them. I also went to a number of the “Megalithomania” conferences held each year at Glastonbury and of course I’m an avid reader of the Megalithic Portal website, which has been a constant source of inspiration.

AB: That's very kind of you, we appreciate it. Getting back to Quicksilver, my son and I have got to the part of the book set in Meroe, which is getting very intriguing...

SO: I visited Meroe in my early twenties when it made a huge impression on me and I went back a couple of years ago when I was researching this book. Meroe is the largest archaeological site in Sudan. It is a truly magical place and almost totally deserted so you can wander the ruins completely undisturbed. As the Professor in Quicksilver explains to the children, the Meoroites were one of the earliest peoples to master the complex process of iron making and it is extraordinary that you can still stumble across their slag heaps lying on the edge of the desert two thousand years after the smelting fires were extinguished.

AB: What other sites are there in Sudan that we should know more about?

SO: The site which I think most of your readers will associate with that part of the world is Nabta Playa on the Egyptian Sudanese border. Unfortunately some of the stones were vandalised and had to be removed but I understand that it originally contained the world’s oldest known astronomical alignment of megaliths. I know Nabta Playa only from photographs but it is very high on my wish list of places to visit.

AB: What other favourite ancient sites do you have?

SO: One of the inspirations for the story was the notion that a number of sites as important as Avebury (which is one of my favourites) may have been destroyed and forgotten, leaving traces of their power in the urban landscape.

AB: Have you had any interesting experiences at any?

SO: As part of the research for Quicksilver I went on a dowsing field trip around Avebury. The guide pointed out a stone which was said to have spiral energies swirling up through its core and warned us that if we touched it the current would fling us aside. Lots of the people on the trip touched the stone and were literally hurled about. I touched it and (as always) felt absolutely nothing. At lunchtime I met up with my family. As an experiment I told them to

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