There were a few good things to come out of the pandemic, and this delightful confection is one of them. Anyone nostalgic for Narnia’s warm cosy glow should be suitably charmed by the author’s deft juxtaposition of sentimental childhood touchstones and the cripplingly ridiculous mid-life crisis of a third-rate actor.

A thoroughly unlikeable fellow, protagonist Harry Brodie is losing his grip on a miserably mediocre TV career. Soon even documentary voice-overs and daytime TV will be unattainable achievements. So he signs up for one of those ‘uncover your ancestry’ shows…

…and the next thing you know, bedraggled mythical critters come crawling out of inappropriate items of household furniture. Because it turns out that the books written by his grandma, about a magical fantasyland, might not have been entirely imaginary. And some of the wondrous creations are rather more sinister than they initially appear.

It takes real skill to transform the political ineptitude and the sheer grinding anxiety of 2020 into a genuinely entertaining – even uplifting – experience. It’s easy to be cynically witty, and author Adrian Tchaikovsky certainly doesn’t miss any opportunity for a spot of sly satire or to poke fun at some of the dafter conventions of the fantasy genre.

But Childish Things doesn’t run roughshod over cherished memories. This is a loving tribute to the world created by CS Lewis – not a demolition job. Like The Magicians by Lev Grossman, it’s an adult extrapolation of the tales which so mesmerised us in childhood. Imaginative and unpredictable, it’s also agreeably concise and bewitchingly easy to consume in one greedy sitting.

Despite the title, Childish Things quietly reminds us that the child inside never really went away. Nor is anyone, however objectionable they may seem, entirely irredeemable.

9/10

I have read a lot of Tchaikvosky's work by this point and he has never once let me down. He's clearly having a lot of fun with this wacky spin on the fantasy world just through the cupboard.

The story is about a struggling children's TV presenter who stumbles into a magical realm that he thought was entirely fictional. Harry Bodie is jaded and self-serving, though he may turn out to be exactly the defender this world needs.

It isn't a fully original idea. As I read, an episode of Rick and Morty kept coming to mind (The ABCs of Beth) as something which takes a similarly cynical approach. Here, the writer does more than enough to make this a worthwhile read. It's entertaining, there's a gripping plot and it moves forward at a fair old lick. Unlike a number of Tchaikovsky's recent novellas, the story is complete and satisfying. Maybe the fantastical kingdom you always dreamed of is not a place you want to be.

And Put Away Childish Things
And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This novella was kinda slow to start for me. That's not to say it was bad, but I already knew it was going to turn out to be a "what-if" Narnia knock off that turned out to be real story. I've read others like this, of course, including Narnia itself, so I trusted it to be a little comfort read. Hopefully.

Fortunately, it's an Adrian Tchaikovsky story so it not only knows all the tropes but it successfully navigates them in a cool and interesting way.

That's it, really. Either you like the concept and love the execution, or you're lukewarm (like me) and enjoy the execution anyway. :)

Read courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher.

I really admire Tchaikovsky's prolific output, and while his shorter works tend to seem lesser to me, this was really enjoyable a take on portal fantasy. The technical explanations bogged it down a little, but the narrative flowed well, and the real world stuff definitely resonated. Plus, the moments of terror were effective. Tchaikovsky is always good when in a reading funk (which I'm in, somewhat). Not the most memorable thing, but an interesting, compelling short read with flawed protagonist and creepy worldbuilding. I particularly liked the way existing portal narratives were used.

I haven't read from Tchaikovsky before but this novella made me very intrigued to read other stuff he has written. This was a really interesting story that looks at portal fantasies and what would happen if the children who "belonged" simply never came back. It compares the fictional "real" world with both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis while also cleverly explaining away the main character's unnoticed disappearance with COVID. Harry was an interesting character because he is so distant from the world which is belongs, while also behaving and believing realistically to someone faced with interacting with said world. The beginning is a little difficult to get into, as Harry is confronted with the idea that his grandmother's made up world is real and there is a lot of information presented to readers at once. But once everything starts to click into place, Tchaikovsky has created a really horrid and interesting world that impressed me. Can't wait to read more from him knowing he has such a large backlist.

Harry Brodie is a not terribly successful TV presenter. His grandmother though wrote very successful children’s books about fairyland. And that fairyland might be more real than Harry ever thought, when someone not quite human comes to visit.

Very British contemporary beginning. Nice world building for this novella-sized story. Noticed the wardrobe on the book cover? Put away the childish parts of <i>that story</i> and what do you get? Something less cute and darker.

Sarcastic, amusing, with a pretty clueless MC. Enjoyable for me, pretty depressing for the story‘s characters. They were all very believable, even those of the non-human persuation. The plot was fast and well paced. The less you know going into this, the better.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Rebellion Publishing through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

the start is a bit slow, but once the "fantasy" aspects off the story come full front, it turns into an awesome book. feels like a deconstruction of narnia, and also reminded me of a few seasons of the magicians.

Not sure what I was expecting having just finished the Children of Time trilogy, but this was weird. A cynical pandemic fantasy. Took a while to get past the unlikable protagonist and the nightmare cartoon characters. Hey, I have my own nightmares about children's cartoon characters. Seems like Tchaikovsky dashed this one off while being holed up during the pandemic. Not bad, but not one for the ages.

Tchaikovsky's books have, so far, been extremely hit and miss for me. This one is sadly once again almost entirely a miss, despite the interesting concept - I tend to like books putting a fresh spin on portal fantasy tropes (see: The Light Between Worlds), but And Put Away Childish things was an overall miserable experience I only forced myself to finish because it was short.

The premise is simple: A man finds out that the portal fantasy world his grandmother wrote about is real. And not, exactly, as nice of a place as everyone thinks.

Unfortunately, it went wrong almost from the start. The protagonist, a disgraced BBC children's presenter who hates kids, is a twat. Which would be fine with me if he was an interesting twat, but he commits the cardinal sin of being both unlikable and boring. He's the poster child for overconfident, entitled, mediocre white men, and I'd rather be in the head of just about anyone else. In addition to that, the book is also British in that hard to define way that instantly gets on my nerves.

And it takes ages for the story to get anywhere. Admittedly I have started to like it a little more once it finally reached the "portal" part of portal fantasy, the decaying horror angle was pretty interesting, but it was not quite enough to offset the rest. And it's hard to explain why I generally like (mostly gothic) horror and deconstructions of portal fantasy, but dislike this one in particular otherwise than "the vibes were off." The sheer downplayed grimness of it all was incredibly exhausting. Too much cynicism and irony for me, too much subversion, too much "wink wink nudge nudge" meta about the genre. It felt a lot like those 2010s fantasy books that tried to be adult by making everything as grim as possible and...look, I'm tired. Just bleak, bleak, bleak isn't going to cut it for me anymore. Add some sincerity. Make me feel something.

And have I mentioned that it also takes place during the pandemic?

I'll give it that, the concept was interesting and it was not too badly done, if you're the kind of reader who likes that. As it turns out, I just found it tiresome and unpleasant.

This was my first go at reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s shorter works, and I think this was not the place to start. I need to preface this by saying I adored Children of Time, so this is no slant to the author.

And Put Away Childish Things is a novella in the Terrible Worlds series. Tchaikovsky’s attempt at writing a portal fantasy story, like C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia series (which in fact is funnily referenced as being the imitation in this world, to the real wardrobe that is later used). Our main character, Harry, is a failing children’s TV presenter with a famous grandmother who wrote the acclaimed fantasy-portal book series in this world, Underhill. The reader meets Harry trying to separate himself from this lineage and attempt to establish himself (rather pathetically) into a more serious television career. However, people just won't let Underhill go and some fanatics start posing the question to Harry, what if Underhill was real? Spoilers ahead: it is.

The reader follows Harry on an adventure into this fantasy land that his grandmother pined for, but it turns out that the grass isn’t greener on the other side, and something very sinister is happening to Underhill, making it seem like an eroded, almost post-nuclear world. And the characters within might not be too happy to see the heir of Underhill return.

Sounds fun, right? A strong premise that I felt Tchaikkovsky had too much ground to cover to do any aspect of the story any good. Our MC Harry, is a miserable sod with quippy one liners that is the most passive character in our story, the supposed heir and hero of Underhill. Which I guess reflects his life situation both in the real world and in Underhill. However, this does make some of our secondary characters shine through more as they progress the story and offer explanations to both Harry and the reader of just what is happening in the story. I particularly, and thinking back on it, only liked Timon the faun. His character in the books is the typical rascal company who’s always getting himself into trouble for our heroes to save. Yet, in reality, due to the lack of heroes in Underhill, Timon naturally goes into a life crisis about what his purpose in life is but ends up being a driving force in our story to go out and fetch Harry from the real world, including gruesomely saving our MC from being kidnapped and being sacrificed in a blood ritual from fanatics. And that’s where my appreciation for the characters ends really. Seitchman is our real heroine, because she’s a scholar and asks the important questions so that plot exposition can happen and then we can all move along whilst Harry drags behind like a leaf in the wind. Don’t even get me started that the one female fantasy character is a healer and, even in her deteriorating state, OH NO, SHE’S HOT. Rolling of the eyes.

An aspect that is essential in a portal-fantasy is that the reader is invested in the magic world, a place where we want to escape into, which I don’t think we got. It would always be a difficult task to make the reader enamored with a fantastical world that you’ve created, and even more difficult in a novella where one has much less space to write about it. I didn’t care for Underhill at all. The snippets of the Underhill books at the end of each chapter was a nice touch, and could have been exploited better. My criticism is that the focus is too much on fictitious characters James and Jemima, and not of the world itself! And then it turns out that James and Jemima aren’t even real! They’re the only things to not exist because they were the characters made by Harry’s grandmother to sell the books! And again, Harry is such a useless main character because not only is he a shocking storyteller (giving the reader barely any information besides describing generic fantasy book character archetypes when a minor character appears), he also repeatedly confuses the books together. No wonder he’s a terrible children’s television presenter. You had one job Harry! All of this leads me to have no connection with Underhill and most of its characters, leaving me with no tension of what was to happen to it.

The story is described as a ‘dark’ and ‘twisted’ take on these types of fantasy books, but it was really just depressing and lack-luster. The Underhill characters weren’t inherently evil nor were they malicious in their actions, really everyone just seemed fed up and tired of existence because of a neglected world. Except of course for our villain of the story, Carolus, who was underdeveloped and needed more page-time to inflict a sense of fear and danger into the reader. Instead, he offers a generic “I am evil because I’m seeking immortality” spiel, with not much explanation behind his future plans or techniques, it was all so vague.

Tchaikovsky also attempts to answer the question of how portals like these would exist, but again, we’re reading a fantasy book so I don’t think most readers care or want to know the science behind it. And without going into possible spoilers, the possible answer we get just poses more questions than answers, so why bother mentioning it if you’re not going to solve it?

One of my biggest gripes with this story, which actively made me reduce the star rating, was the mentioning and handling of the 2020 pandemic in this story. It added no value to the plot and it came off as insensitive from Harry’s perspective (not the author). I am reading a fantasy book which literally uses portals to escape everyday life. A fantasy reader doesn’t want to be reminded of the pandemic. I don’t mind reading about the pandemic as long as it serves a purpose and it is done respectfully. Here, I think it is used as a plot point for Harry to go missing for long periods of time and no one notices because “hey, we’re all trapped indoors so who would notice him gone for weeks at a time?”. There was commentary on how the pandemic was dealt with in the UK, but Harry didn’t really seem to give a hoot. He’d comment on people being weird to social distance (because he didn’t know the rules) and the use of masks, but literally he goes out into the world constantly with no restrictions and no mention of using a mask. There is no empathy for what is going on, no correlation between people dying from a virus to the disintegration of Underhill. It just seemed like it was a real big bother for Harry, boohoo. I can understand the theme that many people in real life felt like they were wasting time being quarantined and therefore relating it with the loss of time between travelling through worlds in portals. I believe there were other ways to handle this time-travelling problem without even having the real world even experience a pandemic.

I found the ending to the book very unsatisfying. It seems like not even the author knew what to do with Underhill and its characters in the end. We actually didn’t need Harry this whole time and if the inhabitants of Underhill had all had a meeting beforehand many years ago when things started going poorly they could have started their evacuation plan years ago, because Harry doesn’t actually do anything. It’s like Tchaikovsky wanted to write about a darker version of a Narnia type world but then realised he needed an ending.

Ultimately, I feel like there were a lot of plot points that could have been expanded on but there was not enough space to do it on. The themes in this book focus on lineage, responsibilities as a creator, the inherited empathy to those creations, the ethics of a fantasy world, and mainly listlessness (looking at you, Harry).

I wouldn’t strongly recommended this to anyone, but I would if:
- You’re looking for a short and funny read.
- Interested in an alternative retelling of portal-fantasy stories
- … That’s it.

If the title of this book sounds familiar, it’s because it’s from the New Testament quote from Chapter 13 of I Corinthians below. But as much as the first line is directly referenced in the title, the second line is every single bit as applicable to this story and the way that it all works out.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

The first question the story raises is “who decides?” Who decides what a childish thing is and when we should put it away. The second revolves around what it takes to truly be known, by oneself as well as by others.

Because as the story opens, Felix “call me Harry” Bodie doesn’t know himself or where he came from very much at all. And honestly doesn’t seem to want to. What he wants is to hide himself behind the mask of a working – if barely – actor and bury his past as the grandson of a famous juvenile fantasy author.

His grandmother, Mary Bodie, was the author of the Underhill books, a story and a world not all that different from Narnia. Or at least a Narnia without Aslan and the overt Christian allegory that seemed to exude from the lion’s mane.

Underhill was a place with quirky, intelligent animals and not too perilous dangers just perfect for a pair of young human scamps to slip into for adventures. Harry is more than happy to cash the decreasing royalty checks that still drop into his accounts and forget the rest. Or so he believes.

It’s only when he takes a rather desperate chance on a spot in the British equivalent of the Finding Your Roots program that he learns that Grandma Mary was born in an insane asylum to a woman who claimed to come from fairyland, and that she told her daughter all about it. It’s those stories that became the roots of the Underhill series.

The revelation of his great grandmother’s insanity draws the most rabid side of the still-active Underhill fandom out into the light of day – just as the real-world pandemic is about to drive everyone, everywhere under quarantine.

The world is going insane, and Harry is all too afraid he’s going with it. Especially when he starts seeing a diseased, desiccated version of Underhill’s resident trickster faun in the alleys behind his apartment – while a woman who claims to be a private investigator stalks him on the street.

Together they drive Harry straight out of this world and down into Underhill, which is rather more real than he ever imagined. And considerably more dangerous than his grandmother’s books EVER led him to expect.

Escape Rating B+: The thing about this book, at least for the first half of it, is Harry. And it’s not exactly a good thing, because Harry himself isn’t exactly a good thing. Nor does he have a good thing. Nor does he believe he has or is a good thing. Harry’s a bit ‘meh’ at best, pretty much all the way down to the bone. He doesn’t like himself, he doesn’t like his life, he isn’t going anywhere and he thinks nobody likes him because he honestly works at not being likable. He’s no fun to be with, not as a character and not even for himself.

So the beginning of the story is a bit rough because we don’t care about Harry – because he doesn’t even care about himself. At least not until he goes through a wardrobe, even though that’s the other fantasy series, and finds himself in Underhill. Or what’s left of it.

The place is dying and diseased and scabrous and NOTHING like the books. But for once in his life Harry is not being paranoid – everything left in Underhill really is out to get him. Or at least to find him.

Because he’s the heir to the entire blighted mess. Whether he wants to be or not. It’s the first time he’s been important in his whole, entire life. So he decides to seize the day – or at least the creepy twilight that is all that’s left in Underhill.

Only to discover that being the heir to the place isn’t remotely what he thought it might be. But then again, nothing and no one in this adventure has turned out to be anything like he expected. Not even, in the end, himself.

And that’s where things get interesting. At last. One way or another.

While it’s the off-kilter resemblance to Narnia that initially hooks the reader, it’s the subversions of any and all expectations – about Harry, about Underhill, about pretty much everyone and everything he’s met along the way – that give the story its, well, everything.

Initially, I thought this was going to be a bit like Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, which is also a play on Narnia. But The Magicians plays it more or less straight, turning Fillory into a version of Narnia that, while still fantastic, doesn’t mess with religious allegory and simply turns into an adult version of Narnia with a heaping helping of dark academia on top.

Instead, And Put Away Childish Things mixes the central theme of Never Too Old to Save the World with Carrie Vaughn’s Questland, and Tchaikovsky’s own Ogres to create a story about being called to save a portal fantasy world in midlife only to learn that the whole setup is SFnal and not fantasy after all, and that the person who can really save the place – or at least its heart – is the folklorist who everyone believed was just hanging on to prove her weird theories about literature that so-called “true academics” have discounted as either childish or merely unimportant and uninteresting to “real scholars”.

At the end, the seemingly childish things turn out to be not so childish after all, and Harry is known, to himself and to others, in a way that he never would have let himself be or even feel in the so-called real world. And it’s the making of him and the making of the story – even though – or perhaps especially because – he turns out not to be the true hero of after all. Although a hero he certainly becomes.

A compelling and dark book based on middle grade stories, a gripping story where nothing is what is seems and the drem of childhood maybe darker than we think.
I don't think Adrian Tchaikovsky can write a bad story, this one is excellent and loved every moment.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

"And Put Away Childish Things" by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a haunting and thought-provoking novella that explores the dark side of childhood imagination. The story follows a group of adults who return to their childhood home, only to find that the imaginary friends they once played with are still there, and still just as dangerous.

Tchaikovsky's writing is both lyrical and disturbing, with a remarkable sense of atmosphere and character. The themes of memory, trauma, and the power of the imagination are explored with nuance and complexity, creating a story that is both chilling and poignant.

The characters in "And Put Away Childish Things" are well-developed and multifaceted, with each one bringing their own unique perspective and motivation to the story. The imaginary friends are equally compelling, with a sense of menace and unpredictability that adds to the overall sense of unease.

**Please see content/trigger warnings at the end of this review**

This book was so much fun, it is my catnip tropes. A portal fantasy into another land with horror/dark fairy tale vibes? Yes, please.

The protagonist (Harry) is an adult, who's not really likeable. He is trying to break out of his children's television acting gig into something "better" and agrees to do a family genealogy TV show. Trying to increase his clout he tells them that his grandmother was the one who wrote the very famous and beloved childrens' books about a fantasy world where they have adventures. But it turns out that world might be real? What follows is a lot of denial, more than one party who's interested in finding out (and making Harry participate-whether he wants to or not), and the discovery of a magical land that is not AT ALL what the books described. The story was a fun twist on a dark fairy tale that had horror elements and an interesting turn with the world building. I had a great time reading it.

Content/trigger warnings: set during COVID and lockdown, abduction, some violence, some horror elements, mention of a (female) ancestor being locked up in an asylum for being mentally unwell

This is one of Tchaikovsky's fun / done-in-one novellas where he teases a few ideas and sees where it goes. The idea is portal fiction, in particular, Narnia and some vague ideas about what happens when the kids stop going, and how much of the reality of magical lands is contingent on their visitors. This is all very inside baseball however, and unlike say Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series, Tchaikovsky does sort of get bogged down in inventing a mythos for himself, then a bunch of contingent rules that only really work for the world he is creating. Its not a huge problem but does leave it feeling like a particularly inconsequential bit of fluff.

Its a fun bit of fluff though, and any pandemic book that is a bit of fun can be considered a win. Much like John Scalzi's Kaiju Preservation Society, a quite natural impulse is to escape from it all. Here his kids TV presenter and general misanthrope Harry Bodie revisits his family history, in particular a grandmother who wrote a Narnia-like fantasy series. Somewherw along the line he ends up on the other side of a wardrobe (explained because CS Lewis ripped off the original real story) and ends up in a very sorry version of the land in his grandma's books. That wasn't grand fantasy and nor is this, and its a pretty quick join the dots to work out what is really going on and a solid underpinning of horror for all of it. Its all in and out very quickly, and he gets to make a few jabs at British kids fantasy and play with the archetype of the rubbish British mysanthrope who has to act up to be a hero (a surprisingly common figure).

And Put Away Childish Things is Adrian Tchaikovsky’s take on portal fantasy, with a dark twist. The story centers on Harry Bodie, a cynical children’s television presenter who happens to be the grandson of one of Britain’s favorite children’s authors. His grandmother crafted the world of Underhill, a Narnia-like portal fantasy full of mischievous fauns, loyal giant dogs, and talking spiders. Bodie is nearing rock-bottom in his career when the pandemic hits, taking a bad situation to worse, when odd things start happening around him relating to Underhill. He quickly learns that it is more than just a fictional wonderland dreamed up by his grandmother, and begins some adventures of his own.

As seems to be the norm with Tchaikovsky, And Put Away Childish Things is very well-written. The book centers on Harry’s perspectives throughout and well, if I can borrow a briticism for a moment: he’s a right prick. Harry Bodie is enormously self-centered with delusions of grandeur, entitled, whiny, and all around not a very lovable fellow. Tchaikovsky captures him well, and I found his attitude and tone throughout the book to be a constant source of background hilarity. The humor may miss for others, and readers who require a likable protagonist should stay away, but I found the cantankerous mumblings of Harry to be a high point of the book.

And Put Away Childish Things embraces a dark, cynical tone. Harry is unlikable, yes, but the worlds Tchaikovsky creates here lack everyday victories and flowers to smell along the way. It’s bleak and mostly hopeless, and a whole lot of things go wrong for a long time in the book. I thought Tchaikovsky did a good job of balancing the tone out with snark, and I felt like the entire thing was deeply interlaced with moments of dark humor. I’ve seen other readers mention that the tone was a bit too much for them, which I understand. I found that the self-awareness of the downtrodden did a lot for me to not be bothered by it, your mileage may vary.

Unfortunately, what I felt was missing from the book was a connection to Underhill itself. The plot unfolds as Harry realizes that Underhill is a real place with real characters, but as a reader my main emotion was sort of a second-hand wanderlust. I can understand that it’s all very surprising and that Harry is connecting all of these stories and characters to their “real-world” counterparts with equal parts awe and terror, but I don’t have a good understanding of the “fake-world” versions of them so the whole thing sometimes came off as a bit underwhelming. There’s epigraphs in front of every chapter that gives you snippets of the text from the children’s books, so you can see how they were portrayed and get some perspective there, which I thought were very important in providing context. Those are great and all, but there really just isn’t enough.

To pose a crude analogy: imagine if your friend excitedly revealed to you that Narnia was real, but because you’d never touched any of the books and you only have some vague memory that a lion is involved somehow, all you could do was sort of nod excitedly as they talked about antique furniture. It’s all very exciting but I kept feeling like I was missing out somehow because all I had to go on about Underhill were a few epigraphs and what Harry told me about Underhill. It just wasn’t enough to make me invested in either the characters or the plot at a deeper level. Maybe if Tchaikovsky had lengthened the book a bit, and done a few chapters throughout entirely in the style of the children’s books, it might have strengthened the connection between the narrative and the meta-narrative. Let me stretch my legs in fictional Underhill a bit before we tumble through the wardrobe and see the ugly truth.

In standard Tchaikovsky fashion, genre-blending happens here a bit at the end and some science-fiction explanations are provided to explain the existence of Underhill. I don’t think this added much here—I would have preferred more of the Underhill mythos instead of answers, but the whole book manages to wrap up nicely by the end due to these answers.

I did ultimately enjoy this book, and would recommend it to those who enjoy twists on standard portal fantasy plots. But it just wasn’t as strong to me as Elder Race or Ogres was; it didn’t manage to hook me in as easily and it didn’t really play with form in the ways those novellas did. Overall, this felt like a solid book that doesn’t reach the heights of some of Tchaikovsky’s other works, which is bound to happen when one is as prolific as he is.

3 / 5 stars.

You should read And Put Away Childish Things if:
-You can handle unlikable main characters.
-You’re interested in a twist on the standard portal fantasy story.
-You’re alright with a cynical tone that’s infused with dry, dark humor.

And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a delightfully clever and creepy read, and is Tchaikovsky’s take on an adult revisiting childhood magical adventures. In the same vein as Josh Winning’s The Shadow Glass and Dan Hank’s Swashbucklers, his male protagonist is taken back to the tales of his childhood and finds out that what he thought was fiction is actually very very real. In true Tchaikovsky style that reality is a science fiction, horror and fairytale mish-mash masterpiece that only he can pull off.

Harry Bodie is a failed children’s presenter whose attempt to announce a family secret on a genealogy TV show goes seriously wrong. Instead of finding fame by hinting that he’s related to long-lost royalty, he ends up catching the attention of people who believe his story in a way he could never see coming. Harry’s grandmother wrote a series of children’s books set in a world called Underhill. Beloved by many, Harry didn’t realise just how beloved until he’s kidnapped by a group who are convinced that he’s royalty – Underhill royalty. They don’t just believe that Underhill is a real place, but Harry’s the heir, and he’s the key to them getting to the place of their dreams.

Ever the cynic, Harry doesn’t believe a word of it. He escapes the clutches of his kidnappers only to find himself facing even more bizarre experiences that lead him to the very conclusion he laughed off. Underhill is real and it’s in trouble.

With characters that feel as though they’ve just been plucked off the street, And Put Away Childish Things is more than just a portal adventure about childhood nostalgia and responsibility. It’s set during the pandemic and Harry has mental health conditions, which he struggles with even more when the new reality of lockdown sets in. I was particularly impressed with how Tchaikovsky described Harry’s zoom session with his therapist and how difficult it was for him to connect with her over a video call.

There are elements of traditional storytelling and fairytales interwoven with science fiction, and a healthy dose of horror. While being about children’s stories this novella is most definitely not for children and the wickedly imaginative descriptions will lurk in your nightmares for a long time after you’ve finished reading. Serious scientific theories are discussed side by side with children’s literary discourse as the main characters uncover the shocking true nature of Underhill. The juxtaposition of the real world of science and the real world of the stories proposes certain questions of realism. However, the question at the heart of And Put Away Childish Things isn’t ‘what is real?’, rather it’s ‘what is possible?’ and with that Tchaikovsky bridges the gap between fiction and science. This is science fiction at its best, pushing at the boundaries of fiction and once again it is a superb tale that showcases Tchaikovsky’s award-winning talent brilliantly.

My first non-space-opera Tchaikovsky. I liked it! It's a little lightweight, but a fun twist on Narnia-ish portal fantasy. It's probably just the right length for what it is; it could probably stand to be built out a little more, if he wanted to do some Fables/American Gods/Anansi Boys stuff and have vignettes showing the magical-world characters trying to survive either in the falling-apart portal world or between the cracks in mundane society (wherever a giant goat-man or spider-woman [not Gwen Stacy] might be overlooked), but your mileage would vary greatly in the execution so it's not bad to kind of get in and get out of the story here. The cover art is weirdly bad though, considering Tchaikovsky's other books that I've seen tend to have great art.

The portal fantasy is always an attractive idea - that the right lace will take you from our reality to a magical world of adventure. Find the right doorway and you’re off. Like many children I’ve tried the back of the wardrobe and always searched for a police box. But eventually you have to move on and perhaps magical lands do too? In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s darkly entertaining novella And Put Away Childish Things a middle aged man very reluctantly finds himself required to arrive at a childhood world of adventure which is not safe in the slightest.

Harry Brodie is a forty year old who wants the world to take him seriously. However being a on screen Children’s TV presenter and a constant desire to get drunk and disorderly tends to get in his way. His bigger claim to fame is a distant relationship to the author of a famous set of post WW2 children’s fantasies The Books of Underhill. In early 2020 Harry is trying to find the leap into the stage and more fake when he finds himself pursued by a man who may be a faun; a PI who knows too much and a possible group of Uber-fans who may be very dangerous. Harry is about to find Underhill is real; has been waiting a long time and is in no way now a safe adventure.

I really enjoyed this intelligent novel that asks what is these fantasy worlds are real; where would they come from and what happens if no one used them. It could easily have gone for more cynical and funny fantasy world becomes adult but Tchaikovsky goes for something darker and creepier- a fantasy world that isn’t used that decays not just the land but the people in it. Our faun is not jolly but gaunt and losing hair with botched skin; a giant dog known for bravery is not one you’d like to meet on a dark night and comic relief clowns…well that’s never going to end well. When we meet Underhill it’s a scary ominous place that we find holds many family secrets.

Linking this is Harry who initially we will hate. Greedy; brittle and snobbish they are out after their own fame and fortune and that’s it. They’re also not that bright so initially when fauns and cults enter the mix he’s more unwittingly bundled from one mini adventure to another than taking a stance. He’s a great contrast from the ever so practical kids in portal fantasies that can lead armies and solve problems at a pinch. But to be honest wouldn’t most people? Tchaikovsky neatly shows sone contradictions in Harry the children’s entertainment presenter and the adult who wants to be taken seriously - you can’t initially be one or the other. But then as he finds Underhill is real he goes through understandable shock and denial to grudging acceptance. Neatly Tchaikovsky also placed the book in 2020 and there is a parallel to finding out your own wood has changed to a weirder and more dangerous place - as Harry returns from Underhill he is surprised how his simple London life is no longer there anymore and a new reality gets accepted. It can be both funny and a reminder reality can change in a moment for anyone.

Now if this sounds a dark story it is but it’s not cynical. Ultimately Harry although initially wants fake when pushed he does the right thing. While this book takes potshots at various mid-century fantasy books it’s all done with love. There is mention of Lewis; there is a wardrobe but not that one and we get a lot more characterisation of Underhill’s residents that you care about their fate. Can you do the right thing when you’re not the chosen one? When you’re not sure of victory or have a magical all powerful lion on your side? I found this a tale with affection for the writers of the past but evolving the stories for an adult 21st century audience and delivers it very successfully.

And Put Away Childish Things is funny, exciting, creepy and most of all humane. Things get dark but you can do your best even then. It’s a smart novel exploring our own world and reactions using fantasy which for me is a hallmark of good wrong and it’s throughly entertaining in the process. Well worth a look and highly recommended!

Harrie Bodie's grandmother wrote children's books set in the fantasy world of Underhill. What if Underhill is real? What if it isn’t delightful at all?

I had such a great time with this book! Adrian Tchaikovsky takes the tropes we know well in children's, portal fantasy and turned them on their heads. We see characters such as a faun, a clown, a spider, and a loyal dog. However, the part they play in this story isn't quite what you expect. What is set up as a land full of adventure and fun is now a dying place, a place of fantasy and also horror. While we get a chance to see where fantasy stories can be bleak and go wrong, Tchaikovsky also manages to weave through some humor and hope. This was such an intriguing book and I loved every second of it!