Title: The Shadow Glass
Author: Josh Winning
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Jack Corman is failing at life. Jobless, jaded and facing the threat of eviction, he’s also reeling from the 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, but the film flopped on release and Bob was never the same again.

In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying childhood home, where he is confronted with the impossible — the puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive, and they need his help. Tipped into a desperate quest to save the world from the more nefarious of his father’s creations, Jack teams up with an excitable fanboy and a spiky studio exec to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy and ignite a Shadow Glass resurgence that could, finally, do Bob proud.

I should say, first of all, that I love the movie The Labyrinth. Yeah, it’s terribly cheesy, but still, magic. Not sorry. I found The Shadow Glass to be a lot of fun, frankly, even while being totally unbelievable (of course). It was just pure fun! It doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it actually sees character growth and change, too. Spend a fun few hours reading this!

Josh Winning lives in London. The Shadow Glass is his debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 3/24.)

A nostalgic trip through popular culture and geek heaven!

Josh Winning has created a distinct and unique new fantasy adventure that had me captivated from the very first page. Whether it be the strange sense of nostalgia, I say strange as I was born in ‘92… or whether it's the fantasy world building before my eyes, Josh ensured that there is plenty to keep readers satisfied throughout each chapter.

The Shadow Glass is a story of family at its core. The estranged father and son are at the heart of the story and with Jack not wanting to follow his fathers legacy. After his fathers death, Jack returns to his childhood home and during a thunderstorm, the wild fantasy adventure of his youth begins to come alive! Let’s face it, when we were younger, we all had crazy visions of the impossible becoming possible. For me… I wanted to be the green power ranger, For others it was their childhood toys coming alive. That’s exactly what The Shadow Glass is about. It is also about becoming who you are meant to be, accepting your destiny and achieving the greatness you were born to reach.

Josh Winning’s writing is magnificent. From the descriptive prowess of mystical realms and creatures to the heartstring tugging moments involving family and friends, Josh is clearly looking to become one of the fantasy greats and with The Shadow Glass, he is doing just that.

If you enjoy nostalgia. If you are a fantasy fan. If you love incredibly well designed and written stories… then you must read The Shadow Glass. A VHS box stuffed with heart, violence, mystical journeys, heroism and family. For sure to remain one of my favourite fantasy stories of recent times.

The nitty-gritty: An ode to fandoms and the nostalgia of 1980s fantasy films, The Shadow Glass drips with magic, humor, perfect pacing and thrilling adventure.

“Jack, didn’t you hear Brol’s story? The Shadow Glass was stolen from the kettu castle, Nebfet was enchanting it when Zavanna found her…none of that happened in the movie. We’re in new territory. We’re in a real-life sequel to The Shadow Glass! I always wanted to find out what happened next, and now we’re living it!”  - Toby

What happens when fiction and reality collide? Josh Winning’s response to that question is his addictive fantasy The Shadow Glass, a loving homage to the 80s and 90s that harkens back to cult 1980s films like The Dark Crystal, The NeverEnding Story and Labyrinth. I picked up this book primarily because of the cover—I mean, come on, how can you resist the fox figure and those bright colors? Even the title font is a nod to the design of The Dark Crystal’s title. I expected a quest story full of magic, and that’s exactly what I got, but The Shadow Glass is so much more. Winning has tapped into some of my long buried childhood memories and emotions, and the results were magical.

The story revolves around thirty-something Jack Corman, son of the infamous Bob Corman, the man behind the beloved puppet fantasy, The Shadow Glass, a movie that flopped when it was released in 1986 but now has a dedicated fan base. All Jack remembers about his father are the bad things: his declining mental health, his addiction to alcohol, and his embarrassing public displays. As a child, Jack loved The Shadow Glass and the puppets from the movie, but time has taken those good memories away, and now Jack hates his father and everything to do with the movie.

But when Bob dies and Jack inherits his childhood home Kettu House (named after the fox-like creatures in the movie called kettu), he comes face to face with his past. Sitting in a glass cabinet in a place of honor in the attic is Dune, the original movie puppet and the one character from the movie that Jack loved the most as a child. Instead of evoking fond memories, though, the sight of Dune brings back all of the anger that Jack has for his father, and he decides to sell the kettu puppet for the hefty price of $50,000.00.

At the same time, Jack’s estranged cousin Amelia comes to the house, telling Jack about her plans to produce a sequel to The Shadow Glass, and she wants Jack to write the script. Amelia, you see, inherited Bob Co., Bob Corman’s film company, and she believes in Bob’s vision and is eager to give the movie’s legions of fans the sequel they’ve been clamoring for. But Amelia has a problem. The original prop of the Shadow Glass—a magical mirror that plays a pivotal role in the film—has gone missing. Jack wants nothing to do with the new movie or the missing prop, but everything changes when he goes to investigate a strange sound coming from the attic. When a weird flash of lightning seems to strike nearby, Jack is stunned when The Shadow Glass puppets in the attic suddenly come to life. Two kettu named Brol and Zavanna tell Jack that Iri, the magical realm where The Shadow Glass takes place, is dying, and the only way to save it is to find and reassemble the scattered shards of the Shadow Glass. 

But the clock is ticking, and they only have a short time to complete their quest. With the help of Zavanna and Brol, as well as a super-fan named Toby and his friends, Jack reluctantly joins the hunt for the missing prop. But someone else is after the Shadow Glass as well, someone who wants to shut down Amelia’s sequel for good.

The Shadow Glass was such an exciting, feel-good story, and I loved every minute of it. Winning does a great job of combining fantasy and the real world into something unique. At the same time he evokes the optimism of retro 80s fantasy films with his lovable puppets Zavanna and Brol, fierce fighters who will do anything to save their beloved Iri. It was fun to watch Jack go through a range of emotions when confronted with the impossible. At first, he thinks he’s dreaming. After all, kettu and Iri aren’t real! But little by little, events from the past start to add up. Was there some truth to Bob’s mad ramblings about Iri and Dune, and could that explain why his father seemed so crazy? Jack doesn’t know why this is happening, but he can’t deny what’s right in front of him: his father’s creations have come to life and they’re becoming more and more real with each passing moment. 

This truly is a love letter to fantasy fans everywhere. I would bet than anyone who reads, watches or plays games in the genres of fantasy and science fiction is a fan of some sort, and if so you’ll probably recognize yourself in Toby and his Guild friends. I absolutely loved Toby’s character. He’s a teenage boy obsessed with The Shadow Glass franchise, and he wants nothing more than to see a sequel. When he first comes face to face with Bob’s puppets come to life, he isn’t fazed in the least. After all, his love of The Shadow Glass is so fierce, how could it not be real? He and fellow fans Sumi, Anya, Nell and Huw can’t believe their luck, not only in meeting the son of Bob Corman, but going on a quest with him to save their favorite fantasy world. Their enthusiasm and delight were infectious, and the story wouldn’t have been the same without them.

But my very favorite parts of the book were Winning’s themes of childhood memories and the power and magic of belief. At one time in his life, Jack believed in Iri and its inhabitants. He even wrote fan fiction after the film came out, imagining “what happened next” in his father’s intricate fantasy world. What if Iri really does exist because of that belief? It’s a fascinating concept, and it brought back memories of my own childhood love of magical worlds and the absolute certainty I had that magic was real. I loved seeing Jack go from a skeptical adult to a man who realizes there’s still an important piece of his childhood buried inside him.

As for action, there are plenty of thrilling fight scenes between the bad guys—the deadly skalions and their evil queen Kunin Yillda—and Jack and his friends who are trying to locate the missing Shadow Glass shards and save the world. The evil characters were a bit two dimensional and overdone, but I fell in love with everyone else, from the smallest puppet, a cat-like ball of fluff called a lub, to loyal and fierce Zavanna, Toby and his friends, Amelia and Jack (whose tense relationship has time to heal during the story) and even Bob, who isn’t in the story but whose presence infuses everything. There’s a very cool twist later on involving Dune and Jack, and I loved the emotional scenes where Jack comes to terms with his father and their fraught relationship.

I can’t end this review without mentioning Josh Winning’s writing, which is so good. His dialog is pitch perfect and hysterically funny at times, and appropriately enough, the entire story has a colorful, cinematic feel to it. Each chapter is interspersed with interesting excerpts from The Shadow Glass screenplay, interviews with Bob Corman, fan website blog posts and movie reviews and the like, and all these bits added a wonderful layer to the story. Winning ends his tale on an upbeat, emotional note that seriously gave me all the feels and left me wishing I could visit Iri myself. Highly recommended!


Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

Rated 4.5 really.

First off...DISCLAIMER: I beta-read this book. Also, Titan Books provided me with an evaluation ecopy via NetGalley (thank you!). Neither facts influenced my review in any way.

NEVER TOO LATE

The Shadow Glass reads like a love letter to movies like Labyrinth and The NeverEnding Story (not to mention The Dark Crystal, to which its title pays homage - like that movie, the book centers around a quest for the pieces of the titular object), with a notable difference: its main character isn't a teen adventurer, but an embittered loser in his late thirties with (legitimate) daddy issues, who's grown to hate the fantasy world his father Bob created, the same world he idolised and whose magic he used to strongly believe in as a child. Fear not, though, because this story isn't a self-pity party - it is, for all purposes, a sometimes epic, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny coming-of-age tale with an adult at its center (which is the freshest thing about it), one who has to rediscover the power of magic and the hero within, while learning to process his anger and grief and, ultimately, to understand and forgive (plus to forge unexpected relationships, both with humans and puppets become alive 😂).

POWER OF CREATION

Truth be told, albeit borrowing from a plethora of '80s movies, The Shadow Glass is unique in a lot of ways, not only when it comes to its protagonist's journey. The way the puppets (with such creative names as kettu - the fox-like creatures that Jack befriends - skalions and lub) become more and more real over the course of the story; their personalities and interactions with humans; the film studio and fan convention as locations for the kettu/skalions wars; the tribute to fandom - with the acknowledgment that fans (like heroes) transcend age barriers - and in that respect, the discourse about purity/canon vs. fanlore/transformative work, and how any piece of media/entertainment (or in this case, a whole fantasy world) takes substance from the people who love it, and is at risk of withering and dying if you cease to breath life into it, at the cost of "warping" its creator's original purpose. For this reason, Wesley Cutter - the man behind Jack's father's demise - is as much the villain of the story as the bloodthirsty skalions are: his fanatical drive for purity when it comes to Iri (the fantasy world Bob created) has been suffocating it and leaving only rubble in its wake the same way the skalions' fight for domination has.

A LOT TO LUB

Structurally, The Shadow Glass is a strong book. The quest moves at an insane pace, but with the right amount of pause for introspection where it's needed. Horror and fun go hand in hand beautifully - there's a fine comical thread woven into the story that creates a nice balance with the most gruesome moments and Jack's battle with his own demons. Also, there are reveals along the way that I genuinely didn't see coming but that, in retrospect, don't come out of left field, and "side" creatures who steal the scene (like the lub, whose name makes for some funny puns on top of that). Pretty much the only quibble I have is that the Shadow Glass Guild members - that is, the fans of the namesake movie who aid Jack, Toby, Amelia and kettu Zavanna and Brol in their quest - could have used more development and/or agency. I understand that there wasn't enough page-time for them all to become more substantial without turning the book into a tome, but some events would have been more significant and/or hit me in the feels more if I had spent more (quality) time with Anya, Sumi, Huw and Nell. I can't complain about Zavanna and Brol though, nor about the main skalion antagonists, queen Kunin Yilda and seer Nebfet. Every one of them is genuinely impressive in their own way, which means that, indeed, in the right hands, even puppets can be...fleshed out 😂.

PUPPET LOVE

...Which bring me to my last point, in case you're not sure if The Shadow Glass may be a good fit for you. On paper, I shouldn't have been the right demographic for this book for two reasons: 1) I've never been into puppets; 2) despite being a teen in the '80s, I've never seen a single fantasy movie from that era (because well, you know me and movies 🤷‍♀️). So, I'll be honest: when Josh asked me to beta-read his '80s-movies-inspired retro fantasy with puppets, at first I was a little scared that the premise wouldn't work for me - would I be able to buy into that kind of scenario? or would I find the puppets-become-real a tad cheesy? would I miss on something for not being able to catch the movies references? I decided to trust him - also because, let's be honest again, I was curious - and I'm so glad I did. I think it's a testament to Josh's writing skills and his ability to create sympathetic characters if his puppets-manifesting-in-the-real-world epic ended up being the kind of story I didn't know I needed. Also, even without '80s movies nostalgia being a factor for yours truly, I never felt like the new kid left out of all the inside jokes. Bottom line: The Shadow Glass is pretty much a book for everyone who believes in the power of stories, regardless of their age and nerdiness level. Read it now, thank me later 😉.

The moment I read that this was perfect for fans of Henson Company classics including the Labyrinth I knew I had to read it. I was overjoyed when Titan Books and Netgalley kindly approved me for an e-ARC of the title and want to add I’ve already pre-ordered a physical version!

The Shadow Glass is an action-packed and tense race against time to save the world and of course there is the reluctant hero in the middle of it all! So here’s the basics of the novel.

Jack Corman feels like he is failing at life.

Jobless, jaded and on the ‘wrong’ side of thirty, he’s facing threats of eviction from his flat while still left reeling from the sudden death of his father, the one-time film director Bob Corman. In the eighties Bob had poured his heart and soul into the 1986 puppet fantasy The Shadow Glass, a film Jack had idolized in his youth, finding the fox-like hero Dune someone to look up to.

But like so many greats The Shadow Glass flopped on release, deemed too scary for kids and too weird for adults. Bob Corman became a laughing stock, losing himself to booze and self-pity. Now, the film represents everything Jack Hated about his father and he lives in fear he’ll end up just like him.

In the wake of Bob’s death Jack returns to his decaying home, a place creaking with moving memorabilia and painful memories. It’s only when a freak thunderstorm hits London something strange happens, puppets in the attic start talking. Thrown headfirst into a desperate real-world quest to save London and the world from more nefarious creations from the Shadow Glass, Jacks teams up with excitable fanboy Toby and spiky studio ex Amelia to navigate the labyrinth of his father’s legacy while conjuring the hero within. And just igniting a Shadow Glass resurgence that could finally make his father proud.

I want to say, again, I had high hopes for this. I grew up with the classic Henson company films, the Labyrinth will always remain one of my favourite movies, and despite the emotional turmoil of it so will The Never-Ending Story. I will start this section by saying Josh Winning has created almost a love letter to not only that genre of film but the wider eighties in general and more importantly to the fans who keep the spirit of such classics alive.

The story is perfectly weaved together and despite the idea of crossing the realms of fantasy and real life it is completely believable. As you read you become invested in the ups and downs of the group. The characters are all likeable in their own way, even the villains are likable for being so – well- villainous. I will admit at the start I disliked Jack – I think we are meant to, at least if we hold that spark of belief and faith from our childhood days. Being in my thirties I could see and understand Jack’s frustrations at life and after my initial dislike I felt a bit sorry for him. To see him become so jaded and lose any bit of belief he might have had left. Again Winning does this in such a believable way it is amazing. As we travel with Jack and the rag-tag group he collects on the way we see him begin to face his inner demons and finally come full circle – a true fantasy story of the reluctant hero.

This is the first book in a long time that I actually cried at points – I was so invested it was like it was real. The same message that Winning laces throughout. Fans and fandom really can give life to what they love with the right belief. The cross-section of fans and characters shows the true power of fandom, bringing people together with what they love. The diversity – although I would rather just call it a natural reflection of our society – is amazing. Winning beautifully adds loving and powerful relationships to his narrative, that while not the focus of the book are so lovely to read and see. But the best bit? It’s done naturally. It’s part of life and that to me is really how it should be. I am so happy that in today’s world things like this appear in media so naturally. Also, Huw and Toby are sort of a new OTP.

I could rave about this book for hours but I will keep it short. This is definitely one for fans of the eighties puppet movies, but I believe anyone who is or has ever been a fan of something so passionately, loved a created world so much will find something in this book for them. It helps reignite the belief that if you truly love something, even if it is fictional, then that is all that matters. So long as you don’t let it turn into a corrupted obsession – again as we see in the book. Like I said it really is a love letter, not just to the puppet movies of the eighties but to fans everywhere. A reminder to keep believing.

Sometimes the right book finds you at exactly the right time, and as you read ' The Shadow Glass', that feeling completely subsumes you as you enter the world of the kettu, a world where despite the nuances the problems are the same as the ones in the world we know only too well.

The quest for power. The acknowledgment of your culture, identity and history. The items or totems of being able to control the world and narrative around you.

Whether covered in fur or dripping with slime, puppet natured or flesh encased, all of these characters make you want to immediately leap onto IMDB and check the Mandela Effect of  the movie that never was-but boy you wish that you did.

As a child of the 80's, who grew up in a cocoon of Henson productions, I clearly remember so fondly the movies where the children, the looked down upon, bullied and disenfranchised were the heroes. Those on the margins of society without a voice, they were given a platform, made to feel included and most importantly, seen. There was an awareness of death, it was not glossed over (Atreyu anybody? Still scarred....) The image of the puppets attending Jim Henson's funeral and singing the Rainbow Connection never fails to raise a tear to my eye and when you think that his death meant an end to all the great visuals, that carried from Sesame Street to The Dark Crystal, from Labyrinth to Fraggle Rock, absolutely felt like there was not going to be any more of the films and television which allowed that escape, that dream-and nightmare-fuel which marked my childhood so vividly.

And this is what is so wonderful about The Shadow Glass, it takes the public persona of the director, Bob Corman, his one movie which became a cult fixture but was never really critically admired and places it in a very human context, seen through the eyes of his son, Jack. He arrives at his childhood home, two weeks after the death of his father, estranged from him by years of distance as alcohol and fantasy replaced his son in Bob's version of reality. Jack is full of anger, disappointment and  a tinge of regret-he has been forced to literally face selling his childhood, a symbolic act in that a stranger's purchase of movie hero, the fox like puppet, Dune, will in a sense free him-the 50,000 pounds will clear all his debts and give him a fresh start. But also, he has to face a living mausoleum to his father's creative failure, his living tomb of regret in order to pick up Dune.

In the act of having to acknowledge his father's legacy to secure his future, he has to on this dark and rainy night, face way more than resurfaced memories...

From being door stopped by Toby (a nod to the baby with the power), a queer fan of the world of kettu, who becomes a vital part of the action , to the realisation that the contents of the attic might not be as lifeless as they should be, the storm which whips up around Kettu house fulfils the role of the  tornado from Wizard of Oz, in that it propels the real and fantastical worlds together. Zavanna and Brol, 2 of the puppets who are the main characters of The Shadow Glass come to life and in front of Toby and Jack's eyes, a battle between them and the villainous skalions. When the dust settles, it becomes quickly apparent that not only do they have to undertake a quest, but the clock is ticking very quickly as they have a narrow window in which to find the missing Shadow Glass, without which the world will be destroyed.

The transition from puppets bleeding fluff and wool to blood and limbs is shocking and deeply affecting-because they ooze filler does that mean the creatures are any less real or worthy than those of us who , when a finger is bitten off, cannot merely attach another one ?

The stakes are suddenly real and very high, they have to stop the skalions from finding their horrendous leader Yunin Kilda, a true grotesquerie, find the 4 parts of the Shadow Glass, and also rescue Dune from the mysterious Alden Smithee ( a neat nod to the filmic concept of Alan Smithee). By the next full moon. Which is in 24 hours.

We are on the quest with the lubs and Zavanna and Toby, Jack and Brol, we are there with them, urging them on, knee deep in the wonderful nostalgia invoked by the nods to movies, creators and fantasy worlds alike, which is done with such warmth and fondness that it feels like being enveloped in a hug by a close friend. The stakes are high, the peril is very real, and whilst you can read this as a straight forward quest novel, there is so much more to enjoy from the notion of fans 'gatekeeping' their favourite worlds, the ownership which certain fans (I use that term loosely) bring to bear on what they feel is owed to them. It shows the world beyond the film, the tv show, which was created by people, real and living people who are flawed, not perfect and it speaks to forgiveness not only of people who might prefer to live in a fantasy world-let's face it , how great is the world we are living in right now?-but also forgiving yourself. Identity and acceptance, inclusivity and fighting together for the causes of good are universal themes which ally themselves to a fantasy world viewpoint and are brilliantly extrapolated here.

The novel itself is interspersed with clips from interviews with Bob, bits of screenplays, critical reactions to his movie and so much more which interject such a feeling of reality that it paradoxically reinforces the fantasy elements.

It is nostalgic, whimsical, reverential but never derivative, warm hearted and perilous all at the same time.

And, as an aside, I read this in the week approaching the second anniversary of my much loved dad's sudden death, the week of the first lockdown. Grief and regret for a loved one are such complex and continuous processes to work through, and when you add in the particulars of dealing with a death as a pandemic is biting at your heels, you are working as a nurse and you cannot give your most loved parent a proper goodbye, whilst simultaneously being the last goodbye for patients who are in effect, strangers, whilst being so much more than that, well it's going to-excuse my language- fuck with your head. The last 2 years have been an epic mindfuck for so many of us for so many reasons and I would honestly love to take the opportunity to thank Josh, for his honest, beautiful, wonderful book which was cathartic in so many ways and fell into my lap at exactly when I needed it to.

It truly is an astonishing, funny, wonderful book and I am so there for whatever Josh does next.

The Shadow Glass is a (fictional) fantasy movie from the 1980s – think The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, or Neverending Story – created by Bob Corman (I had to look that up, but no, he’s fictional too!). Bob’s obsession with his movie, the land of Iri (‘eerie’), and the characters that populate it, saw him branded as a bit of a nut, especially after the movie failed at the box office. His young son, Jack, grows to hate the movie and the world that once fascinated him, even as the film grows in cult status.

Almost 30 years later, Jack arrives back home to deal with his father’s death. The house seems a shrine to the film’s memorabilia, especially the attic still full of puppets. As a thunderstorm breaks above the house, it even seems like they start to move – I mean, it has to be an illusion, right? Jack isn’t losing his mind – or talking to puppets…

Author Josh Winning has spent decades writing about movies, and his love for the medium shines through brightly in the pages of The Shadow Glass. Showing my age, but yes, I have a lot of fondness for those cult 80s classics, and the inspirations are clear here. Mind you, I haven’t seen mention yet of the one that I was most reminded of, in many ways, which oddly enough was Masters of the Universe. It’s something about characters finding themselves in the ‘real world’, on a mission, somewhat oblivious to the spectacle they present. It’s perhaps a little disappointing that the whole thing takes place in ‘our’ world, keeping Iri always feeling like it’s at a distance – or through a glass, sure.

As a bit of an anti-hero, Jack is joined on his new quest by a bunch of Shadow Glass fans, which is all the more appropriate when one antagonist is a toxic super-fan. There’s something joyful about watching the former group see their beloved characters come to life, even as Jack continues to struggle with it all. His character arc through the whole story is a joy, too, even as the book breaks from its PG inspiration and gives us trauma, death, and real consequences.

I particularly enjoyed the between-chapter excerpts from books, magazines, and such, discussing the fictional work. They were very well done, lending a real sense of veritas. Slightly alas, I didn’t quite envisage the whole world of Iri as much as I would have liked – perhaps I am just too old and jaded, not the wide-eyed child who loved those movies so much back in the day. But this book is still for everyone who did, and everyone who’d like to recapture a little of those feelings.

Thank you to Titan Book for the opportunity to read The Shadow Glass as an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
***
This book can be described in one word: ROMP.

The Shadow Glass has everything: 1980s nostalgia, fandom, PUPPETS/MAGIC/MAGIC PUPPETS, a quest, nerd found family, and a top notch villain - one toxic fanboy to rule them all.

This book is a wild marriage between Labyrinth and Toy Story. John Corman is the son of filmmaker Bob Corman, creator of 1980s box-office-flop-turned-cult-classic The Shadow Glass. The relationship between father and son was strained due to Bob’s alcoholism and total obsession with Iri, the fantasy world he created. After Bob’s death, John visits the house he inherited from the filmmaker (a veritable Shadow Glass museum) and receives the shock of a lifetime when Bob’s fantasy world comes to life. John must embark on a quest to set Iri, the world he has long disdained, back to rights with the help of a part puppet, part human ragtag crew.

There’s a lot to love about this book. Our MC and his band of misfits — including animated puppets and a group of Shadow Glass superfans who (at first) can’t believe their luck at getting to be a part of a QUEST — have top notch banter. We plunge into the story head first. The instant-squad of it all makes it feel a bit like a double episode of Doctor Who.

Another aspect I really appreciated was the exploration of toxic fandom and how it does it’s best to poison our enthusiasm from the inside out. We love an absolutely cartoonish villain who reminds us of reddit bros who just never let things go!

This story is relentless - it doesn’t stop or breathe or rest - which is why it’s a categorical romp. I would have liked some more time with our MC at the outset to really get to care about him and root for him before the quest begins in earnest.

The Shadow Glass captures the feeling of Labyrinth, in that it’s pretty bonkers, often dark and disturbing, but at the end of the day a whole lot of fun.
***
CWs for this book: alcoholism, gore, blood, violence, death, body horror, mentions of death of loved ones, childhood illness, mentions of child death, cursing

“True belief, no matter if it falters or fades, is the most powerful force in this universe. After love, of course.”

As a child, Jack loved the world of Iri that his father created in his cult classic film, The Shadow Glass. As an adult, he’s jobless and bitter over his father’s obsession, and he wants nothing to do with Bob Co., the film company Bob left behind after his death. Jack is in no way prepared for a storm to bring the discarded puppets from The Shadow Glass to life, and he’s suddenly surrounded by brave kettu warriors and evil skalions in the search for an artifact that will save their world. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Titan Books. Trigger warnings: character death (on-page), parent/child death, gore, body horror, dismemberment, poison, violence, cancer, grief.

I had a chance to beta read this, so getting the opportunity to buddy read it again with Roberta from Offbeat YA was so wonderful. This book has a special place for both of us (and the rest of #TheShadowGlassGuild), and I’m so happy to see it find its way into the hearts of fans everywhere. The Shadow Glass is a love letter to 80s fantasy films like Labyrinth (1986) and The NeverEnding Story (1984), with its own original twists. The world and characters are new but feel familiar, and it’s a sort of sequel-in-spirit to those films. We fought monsters and saved worlds with Atreyu and Sarah when we were younger, but what happens when we grow up and no longer believe in magic?

The book is well-paced, and the quest starts off strong in the early chapters without too much set-up, allowing us to pick up on the world-building as we go. The action/battle scenes are exciting and tense, with an almost cinematic quality to them that pays homage to the films of childhood. However, there’s also plenty of downtime in between fight scenes while the characters follow clues to hunt for the missing pieces of the Glass (in true quest fashion). It gives the novel breathing room to get to know the characters and the worlds.

Jack’s character arc is strong, and it’s satisfying to watch him transition from a bitter non-believer to the hero the story needs. Learning to accept our parents as humans with their own flaws and private battles is a tough lesson, especially after they’re gone, and that grief buried under Jack’s anger makes for an emotional read. My favorite character, hands down, is Zavanna, one of the foxlike kettu warriors who loves as fiercely as she protects. She’s brave, sassy, and as real as the human characters, alongside her warmer partner, Brol. My second favorite, of course, is Toby’s cute and fluffy lub. (Where can one acquire his t-shirt that says “I LUB YOU”? Asking for a friend.)

The villains of the novel are equally well-drawn, and the ravenous queen Kunin Yillda is downright terrifying, helped by her manipulative soothsayer, Nebfet. The puppets grow more lifelike the longer they’re on Earth, synthetic fur becoming real, stuffing turning to flesh and blood, and it’s a cool detail to track throughout the novel. If there’s a shortcoming in the characters, I think it’s that we never get to see more of the Guild members who help Jack on his quest. There’s little page-time with them, and while I liked them all in theory, they never felt as real as the non-human characters, with the exception of Jack and Toby.

I sometimes struggle to get into fantasy worlds, but Winning makes it easy to pick up on the various intricacies of Iri, using Jack’s memories and the bits of media such as scripts, book excerpts, and blog articles in between the chapters. These are brief and well-timed, and I really felt like they added to my experience of the novel, helping to flesh out both the world of Iri and the cultural impact of Bob’s film. The book examines both the light and dark sides of fandom, from the way fandom love can be a powerful creative force and a bonding experience, to the toxic sides of fandom in gatekeeping and purism. It’s clear Winning truly understands what it means to be fan of something in a way that shapes our lives and brings brightness to dark times, and that love is at the heart of The Shadow Glass.

Books don’t always live up to their comparisons–and 80s nostalgia fantasy is a high bar–but this one does in creativity, but most of all in heart. The ending is an emotional homage to a lot of these films, and just like I needed to give the Childlike Empress a new name and visit the friends I made in the labyrinth in the bedroom mirror when I was a child, I need to remember why magic and fantasy worlds are just as important as an adult as they are when we’re younger, and The Shadow Glass gives me that. Revisiting this book in the future will be like checking in with an old, much-loved friend. Thanks so much to Josh for sharing this beautiful story with us. 💛

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

Wow! What an amazing read! This is going to be one of my 2022 favorites...easily. I rarely, if EVER, wish something was a part of or the start to a series. I WISH this had more coming. Epic Fantasy Read. I need this to be turned into a movie like yesterday 😂😂

I read this one in less than a day as I quickly got lost in this battle of fantasy meets reality while good vs. evil hash it all out. The characters are great and I love the cast that is eventually thrown together on the quest to find The Shadow Glass.

This is a must read for fantasy fans! What an absolutely captivating and creative read. I sincerely appreciate the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy. All opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone.

‘In a forgotten time, in a forgotten world, deep within a forgotten chamber few have ever seen, the Shadow Glass sees all.’

Bob Corman’s 1986 feature debut, The Shadow Glass, was a flop at the box office. The “puppet-animated fantasy adventure” has since gained a cult following but Bob’s son, who was one of The Shadow Glass’ first super-fans, wants nothing to do with it.

Jack’s childhood, once a magical place brimming with imagination and joy, darkened when his father morphed from his hero to someone he barely recognised as his obsession with Iri (pronounced eerie) and its inhabitants consumed him.

Returning to his childhood home after his father’s death, Jack discovers the characters, born in his father’s imagination, are very much alive. And they need Jack’s help.

Now erplings Bobson, a Melia, fanboy Toby and the Guild must join forces with kettu Zavanna and Brol if they have any hope of saving Iri from imminent destruction.

‘Are you friend or food?’

The Shadow Glass is a love letter to the 80’s films that infused themselves into my very core and it’s about fandom: the obsessive, possessive fans that make it creepy (‘why else do you think they call us fanatics?’) and those whose love and dedication keep franchises alive. It’s about family, the ones we’re born into and the ones we form along the way. Above all, this is a hero’s journey.

‘What is a hero but a normal person overcoming their own failings to defeat the demons of their soul?’

I primarily identify as a book nerd so it’s a rare week that passes without me needing to book evangelise the most recent treasure I’ve discovered. This book, though… I haven’t had this much fun reading since Dan Hanks’ Swashbucklers.

Both books major in 80’s nostalgia. Swashbucklers was the Ghostbusters/Goonies mashup I didn’t know I needed. The Shadow Glass had me reminiscing about borrowing and reborrowing The Dark Crystal and The NeverEnding Story from my local video store.

There’s no shortage of action in this book and the characters became so real to me it felt like I was fighting alongside them. I don’t know how it’s possible to feel nostalgia for a movie I’ve never seen and doesn’t exist (yet) but here we are. What’s going to stay with me the most, though, is this book’s heart.

I related to Bobson as he navigated his complicated family legacy, while figuring out who he is and what he stands for. I was fangirling alongside Toby as his passion for Iri made him practically glow from within. Occasionally I empathised with Cutter, as his pain distorted something that was once pure.

There’s so much to lub about this book. I lub the erplings. I lub kettu. I lub lubs. I even lub Kunin Yillda.

It’s fairly common for me to finish a book and immediately want to see the movie adaptation of it, whether it currently exists or not. I need a movie of this book but I also need Bob Corman’s original 1986 movie in my life.

‘It’s real and scary and it’s not safe.’

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to fall in lub with Iri.

IN the same way that Ready Player One bought the reader back to the geek culture of the 1980's, The Shadow Glass hones into a very specific sub-culture - the puppet fantasy films of Jim Henson. The author must hold the record for amount of viewings of the Dark Crystal, and his love of the movie show on every page. Jack Coleman is the son of the director and writer of The Shadow Glass, a 80's film that originally bombed but now has a cult following. The trouble is that Jack felted abandoned by his Dad, and wants nothing to do with the legacy of the movie, which is a major problem when the puppets comes to life and demand Jack help find the Shadow Glass or see both realities get consumed by evil. The Shadow Glass is an action packed and occasionally gore filled romp, of a love letter to Jim Henson's darker creations.

Note: this hasn't been posted on Goodreads or Storygraph yet as I want to wait for the official publication day to post it!
First, I want to start off saying that I really, really liked this book. The description of this book was amazing and that's why I wanted to read it, but I have to say the cover really threw me for a loop as it was much more...cartoony? than I was expecting. I think that the idea to open each chapter with excerpts of things pertaining to the Shadow Glass was a really good idea. It was such an interesting and fun way to be introduced to, and gather information about, the world. I also think that the 80s references were done well. I find so often that books trying to really hammer home that 80s feel often overdo it or are really, really heavy handed with the references and slang. But, I really think that the way the references are incorporated served the story really well. I loved the characterization of pretty much all of the characters; each character felt so unique and quirky in a fleshed out way. This book was also a lot funnier and more relatable than I thought it would be: the banter the characters have and the tone of the book were just really well done. I loved the fandom aspect of this book, too, and thought that it was shown in such an accurate way! I just felt so immersed and sucked into this book, and I had such a good time. Even if it wasn't overly thought-provoking or serious, it was such a good break from reality and such a fun book. I definitely recommend!

The Shadow Glass is a standalone contemporary crossworlds fantasy by Josh Winning. Due out 22nd March 2022 from Titan, it's 400 pages and will be available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. The thematic tie-in cover art as DVD case is well done and adds a nice little fillip to the overall vibe.

This is for all the lovers of The Neverending Story, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. The plot revolves around the inner lives of the puppets from an 80s cult film by an eccentric genius director/creator who has passed away, his son who is grown up now and still working through issues, a dorky fanboy, and a prickly all-business producer for the current day production company who is representing the creative properties, and, of course, the puppets. It turns out the puppets were alive all along and now the hapless unwilling protagonists have to help them save the world.

This is full of pop-culture references and throwbacks to the original genre material and fans of the movies and ITC/Henson projects will get a lot more out of it than newer fans. It certainly does work well as a straight contemporary fantasy, but the nostalgia aspects were a lot of the appeal for me personally. The entire book has a very offbeat creepy vibe (especially the house!) and the author does a great job of writing creeping dread and atmospheric eeriness. There aren't so many jump scares, but there is some body horror.

The unabridged ebook has a run time of 10 hours and 16 minutes and the final release narration is capably rendered by Colin Mace. He has a gravelly and expressive voice which suits the story very well. He narrates the disparate characters distinctly and it's never a problem to keep them straight. Sound and production quality are high throughout.

Four stars. I enjoyed this one very much, both print and audiobook formats.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

The Shadow Glass by Josh Winning is the perfect combination of wonderful and magical nostalgia of things that I grew up with. In 1986, Bob Corman created the film flop The Shadow Glass - the culmination of Bob’s lifelong dream and passion. It’s failure left Bob a broken father until he became a cult hero amongst the fans. His son Jack feels the betray of this relationship once his father passes. He is failing at life and returns to his childhood home where is confronted with a strange scenario. The puppet heroes from The Shadow Glass are alive and they need Jack’s help. Dragged into a dangerous quest to save the world from his father’s creations, Jack teams up with unlikely heroes to navigate his father’s legacy and confront his own past.

This story was an immediately relatable connection in so many way. Winning has crafted a beautiful narrative that sings with 80s pop culture and made for an excellent Easter egg hunt throughout the novel. Scenes were reminiscent of movies such as The NeverEnding Story and Labyrinth and throwbacks to the Jim Henson Company creations. Winning knows the audience he has targeted here and anyone who grow up watching worlds filled with puppets on a perilous adventure will really enjoy this journey. This was the triggering memory of times where we believed in magic, when good always vanquished evil and these worlds felt like home. The characters were valuable and relatable. Jake, a man in his mid thirties, jobless and in debt, is overwhelmed and reluctant to begin with. It isn’t until he meets the rest of the cast that Jack branches out and embraces the fandom his father has created.

Winning hasn’t just written a great fantasy novel, he has created a complex pedestal for family relationships during childhood and how these can be rooted in grief. Bob has left behind information and popular merchandise for not only the in-book nerds to pine over but ourselves. This is an interaction that was perfectly executed. Winning has shown us that things are to be shared and loved by a community. This isn’t just the work of Bob Corman but of his fans and now Winnings fans that are left to interpret this whole story.

The Shadow Glass is a generational piece that held a fondness to the adventure and magic of growing up. This was a reminder of how proud we were to be different in childhood. This is a roaring playlist to 80s fantasy fans who want to be taken back to a time where life was magical.

If you ever wished for the goblins to take you away "right now..."
If you know that some critters should never be fed after midnight...
If you are forever haunted by the image of a white horse sinking lower into the mud...
Then do I have the perfect book for you!

The Shadow Glass tells the story of Jack Corman who gets pulled back into his father's creative world after Bob Corman's death. Bob's movie The Shadow Glass was one of the great creative forces of the 80s and established a flourishing fan culture--but it was also a box office flop. Bob's erratic behavior over the years led to the fracturing of the relationship with his son, which was also naturally strained by the pressures of the family being involved with beloved cultural work.
Jack returns home expecting to collect an inheritance of some fairly valuable movie props and perhaps relive some bad memories of an alcoholic father who was trapped by his own mythology. Instead, he is dropped face first into a rising battle of good and evil, courtesy of armies of puppets who have come to life. Jack is soon racing to save the world his father created and his new found friends (both magical, heroic puppets and diehard fans of The Shadow Glass).
This is a grandly cinematic novel, not only in that it echoes some of the most beloved fantasy films of the 80s in theme and tone, but also in its sweeping action and brisk pace which never allows the more serious elements to bog down the momentum. This book manages to reflect meaningfully on family responsibilities, forgiveness, and the nature of toxic fandom while never losing sight of the bloody puppet battles and magical quests that likely drew the reader to pick up the book in the first place! There were several points in the book where I was honestly shouting, "YES!" at some perfect reveal or just some outrageously magnificent scene. While several images and interactions in the story harken back to famous movies, it also managed to make me ache for this​ movie. Like everyone who ever hunted for the book Sarah reads at the beginning of Labyrinth, this tale makes me dearly want to see these characters on screen and gasp in delight as Zavanna, Brol and the lub all come to life.
It is a story about the power of story, and the power of people who all love a tale so much that it becomes a part of the narration of their own life. I know that this book will resonate with anyone who has ever spent time in a fandom, who has argued over the finer points of lightsaber lore or felt a lingering attachment to their Hogwarts House. It captures the sense of belonging that can come from loving the same tale that other people love and the creativity that can come from a desire to bring more of that story into the world through fanfiction, critical analysis, and cosplay. But the book also explores some of the negative parts of fandom. How do we cope with being disappointed by a creator? How do we deal with fans who have diametrically opposed views of the meaning and value of a story that resonates so much to us that it has become part of our own identity? The Shadow Glass highlights the fact that the true power of a story should be used to connect people and bring them joy. And in doing so I think that this novel will indeed do just that--remind readers of the joy they have found in movies they loved long ago and hopefully bring together fans of Jack, Zavanna, Brol, and Toby as they explore the magical world of Iri.

Thanks to Titan Books and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you, Titan Books, for allowing me to read The Shadow Glass early!

Josh Winning's adult debut is such a perfect book for anyone feeling nostalgic of the 80s. Thrilling, reference-heavy and a joy to read. I savoured each and every single word, from beginning to the end. A reading experience I'd redo in an instant!

The first couple of chapters are creepy in the best way. It’s a fantastic horror premise, complete with a haunted house and sinister dolls. The writing is very cinematic, and the action moves along at a brisk pace. It quickly transitions into a fantasy novel, however, with meta nods to the Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and other 80’s puppet-heavy touchstones. Sadly, I’ve never seen those films, and I’m more of a horror reader than fantasy fan…so I maybe wasn’t the target audience for this one. I’ll be there opening night when it’s made into a film, though!

Some movies we saw in our formative years can be extremely influential For me, it was The Neverending Story; for others, it was The Dark Crystal (although I found it much too dark and distressing to watch more than once). I’m not sure that 80s movies are actually all that different from other movies that other generations imprinted on, but they are the movies that I imprinted on, and they are the movies that Josh Winning imprinted on, and wrote about in The Shadow Glass. But, to be honest, remembering the movies themselves is more rewarding than this book was. It didn’t have to be that way: The Shadow Glass certainly had the potential to be a celebration of a piece of popular culture, an invitation to a specific generation of readers to go on a journey that would be especially meaningful to them because of their shared experience. And it did do that. But the entire journey was so saturated with tiresome Daddy Issues that I got bored and restless and in the end found I just didn’t care about any of it.

The plot goes something like this: Jack Corman’s dad Bob made one of those 80s puppet movies, called The Shadow Glass, which—judging from my very limited memory—seems to be an in-world equivalent of The Dark Crystal. It flopped, and although it developed a popular cult following, that took a while to emerge, because the children of the 80s who imprinted on it needed to grow up first. By that time, Bob Corman had become a bitter, miserable alcoholic, estranged from his son, and, although obsessed with this world he created in his movie, nevertheless unable to connect effectively with his fan community. Then he dies and Jack returns home to settle some things, at which point he discovers that the world from the The Shadow Glass is real (which, to be fair, rather explains Dad’s obsession), the characters and creatures and struggles of good vs. evil are entering our world, and Jack must band together with the universe-crossing puppet-heroes of The Shadow Glass and the superfans who imprinted on the movie in their youth to stop the evil and save the world.

That last sentence of this summary sounds great, right? I love the trope where superfans turn out to be able to use their fan-knowledge effectively. Galaxy Quest, of course, is the gold standard of this trope—perfect movie, no notes—but there are others: The Last Starfighter, Last Action Hero (for more, see the extensive TV Tropes entry on the Ascended Fanboy). The discovery that one’s useless knowledge is in fact vitally important is validating, in a way.

Of course, one should not have to save the world in order to justify loving something. People should be able to love things for no other reason than that those things bring them pleasure, comfort, community, escapism. And this, actually, is the conversation that Winning is inviting us to have in his book. Jack Corman doesn’t need the fans’ extensive subject knowledge to help him save the world. He grew up as steeped in Shadow Glass lore as any fan, and indeed more so. (For example, he knows about the secret musical number that exists in rumors on fan forums but which no one has ever actually seen.) Rather, the contrast between Jack and the fan is about soured disillusionment vs. pure love. Jack’s estrangement from his father also broke his love for The Shadow Glass, and since that was such a core part of his childhood, it also severed his connection with his own formative years: His mother’s dead, his father’s gone, The Shadow Glass is tainted, and his cousin (who was his best friend in childhood) took over the production company while he got nothing. It’s only by interacting with these fans, whose love for the movie remains true and pure, that he can recover his own sense of self, and in the process come to terms with his relationship with his father.

The problem, though, is that this structural contrast is built upon an emotional foundation of Jack coming to terms with his Daddy Issues, and as a plot motivator Daddy Issues are so boring. Maybe not in general (although I’ve never seen them done effectively), but certainly here. I don’t care about Jack’s slow realization that his father loved him and was simply incapable of showing it except through The Shadow Glass. I don’t care that the creative genesis of the whole world portrayed in the movie was kick-started by Jack’s birth. I don’t care that Jack needs to learn to forgive his father, or if not forgive the shitty parenting and alcoholism, at least recognize the complications in the man that made him more than just a shitty father, and not let that poison his love for the movie that meant so much to him as a child. These are character arcs that I find profoundly dull. And you know why I find them dull? First, because they’re not actually that complex: You can be a shitty parent and still love your kid. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

But I wouldn’t mind that particular character arc were it not for the second problem: Winning is ride-or-die for this emotional arc, and it badly slows down the plot. And it badly slows down the plot because, it’s not that complex a revelation, but we still need to read about it everywhere. Every single advance, every discovery, every step forward is accompanied by some realization on Jack’s part about the kind of man his father was or the feelings his father had. Structurally it’s reasonable, I guess: the personal story mirrors the adventure in lock step. But it also means that everything takes twice as long to happen, and I already know half of what’s going to happen already: We’re going to move forward on the action, and then Jack’s going to have some Feelings. Aaragh! Get on with it!

Now, I want to be clear about something: Just because I find this sort of character arc profoundly dull does not mean that other people will. I’m sure there will be readers who have their own Daddy Issues to work through, who will enjoy going on this journey with Jack. I’m sure there will be readers who have kids of their own, and are riven with anxieties about being a good parent, and will find this journey profoundly moving. Hell, maybe people who are just more empathetic than I am will find this journey profoundly moving even if it doesn’t directly connect to their own concerns. But I am not that person and I was bored. Indeed, the reason I'm giving it 3 stars rather than 2 is because I don't want to pull down the average rating of this book so much that it might dissuade them from picking it up.

(Also, the bit at the end about having to choose between the fantasy world and Dad was forced and arbitrary: There was no set-up to explain why such a choice was necessary to solve the Big Problem, and the decision that Jack finally makes is completely baffling in light of the entire (excruciatingly boring) emotional journey through his Daddy Issues we’ve just trudged through. Nice call-back to the climax of The Neverending Story, though.)

NB: I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. Inasmuch as I can be sure of such things, I believe that this has not affected the content of my review.

The Shadow Glass is a love letter to 80s children entertainment. It was a decade that brought us several children's classics, most notably darker than contemporary kids media-- Labrynth, The Dark Crystal, The Neverending Story, Flight of the Navigator, and others. Winning clearly loves these properties, and has given us am endlessly fun, and surprisingly moving, story that celebrates fantasy, fandom, and film. In addition to a rollicking fantasy adventure, The Shadow Glass is also a poignant story about fathers and sons, generational trauma, and the dialectical relationship that exists between the artist and the art they produce. I'd recommend this book enthusiastically to anyone who is nostalgic for puppets, practical effects, and VHS tapes.