During a trip to the Natural History Museum in London, twelve-year-old George Chapman breaks off the head of a dragon statue in an act of rebellion. This tiny act will have massive consequences, as George will soon find out. Almost immediately after desecrating the statue, a large stone pterodactyl peels itself off of the museum and launches himself at George. George does the one thing he can, he runs. As he runs for his life, more statues animate and chase him. At the Royal Artillery Memorial, as George attempts to hide from his pursuers, yet another statue animates. This one destroys the others, saving George's life. This statue, known only as The Gunner, explains that George has been transported to an alternate version of London that no one can see, called un-London. In un-London the inhabitants are all statues of two very different types. First, there are the Spits who were created with a piece of their sculptor's essence (the spitting image). The other, more dangerous, type are known as Taints, statues without essence, without a soul. Flung into a warring world of stone and metal, George must right his wrong before an ancient evil is released and the world itself is crushed.
I loved Stoneheart, the first of Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart Trilogy. In truth, I loved the whole series. Fletcher has created wonderfully crafted characters who are turned from inanimate sculptures into living believable breathing people, and an amazingly complex world I still remember vividly.
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