The Edge Chronicles

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The Edge Chronicles
Books from the Edge Chronicles Series
Author Paul Stewart
Illustrator Chris Riddell
Language English
Genre High fantasy,
Adventure novel,
Steampunk
Publisher Doubleday
Publication date
 1998 - present
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)

The Edge Chronicles is a children's fantasy novel series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell. It consists of four trilogies, plus four additional books, and other books related to the universe (The Edge). Originally published in the United Kingdom, this series has since been published in the United States, Canada and Australia. To date, more than three million copies of the novels have been sold.

The stories of The Edge Chronicles take place in the fictional world of The Edge, a vast cliff with no apparent bottom. The majority of books are grouped into trilogies, with each trilogy focusing on one character. The series covers a 600-year period, divided into three "Ages of Flight". The power of flight is a major theme of the books, with each age defined by the current technology used for air travel. The series is notable for its detailed flora and fauna, along with the maps of various locations in the edge.

The first three trilogies were released over the course of 1998 to 2006, with a final standalone book serving as a conclusion to the trilogies released in 2009. The series was planned to end after the tenth book, with the authors blog, Weird New Worlds serving as the continuous adventures of minor characters within the universe. After the completion of the 66 chapters of the blog, the authors decided to revisit the series with the fourth trilogy which would adapt the characters and stories from the blog, with the first and second books released in 2014 and 2015 respectively. The series also includes a number of short stories, along with a companion book.

Books

The Quint Trilogy

The Twig Trilogy

The Rook Trilogy

The Cade Trilogy

Standalone Books

Other

The following titles are not available in book form.

Chronology

The Edge Chronicles books are not always released in chronological order. The following table summarizes the stories to date:

Order Chronologically Story Title Main Protagonist Order Released Year Released Book Number
1 Cloud Wolf* Quint Verginix 4 2001 Side Story
2 Curse of the Gloamglozer Quint Verginix 5 2001 4
3 The Winter Knights Quint Verginix 9 2005 8
4 The Stone Pilot* Maugin 10 2006 Side Story
5 Clash of the Sky Galleons Quint Verginix 11 2006 9
6 The Sky Chart: A Book of Quint Quint Verginix 15 2014 Maps
7 Beyond the Deepwoods Arbornius Verginix (Twig) 1 1998 1
8 Stormchaser Arbornius Verginix (Twig) 2 1999 2
9 Midnight Over Sanctaphrax Arbornius Verginix (Twig) 3 2000 3
10 The Slaughterer's Quest* Keris Barkwater 12 2006 Side Story
11 The Last of the Sky Pirates Rook Barkwater 6 2002 5
12 Vox Rook Barkwater 7 2003 6
13 Freeglader Rook Barkwater 8 2004 7
14 The Blooding of Rufus Filatine* Rufus Filatine 13 2006 Side Story
15 The Immortals Nate Quarter 14 2009 10
16 The Nameless One Cade Quarter 16 2014 11
17 Doombringer Cade Quarter 17 2015 12
18 The Descenders Cade Quarter 18 2017 13

* Part of The Lost Barkscrolls (Also marked by "Side Story" in book number column). Cloud Wolf and The Stone Pilot were also released separately as individual novellas previously.

The Stone Pilot is told from the narrative of Maugin reminiscing on her past. Content of this story falls chronologically fourth while the story is told by Maugin at a later point in time, likely around the end of The Last of the Sky Pirates.

The Edge Chronicles Maps Detail 'The Edge' during the first and second age of flight covering a time period from before Cloud Wolf until some point in time between The Blooding of Rufus Filatine and The Immortals.

The Edge

The Edge itself is described as a vast outcropping into the sky, with a river pouring over the tip. The world is made up of a number of locations, which change over the course of the series. Notable locations include the twin cities of Undertown and Sanctaphrax, The Deepwoods, The Twilight Woods, The Mire, The Nightwoods, Riverrise, Great Glade, The Free Glades, Hive, The Edgelands and the Stone Gardens. It was thought that the Edge was endless but that was false in the recent books.

List of Characters

Generation I

Wind Jackal (Orlis Verginix)

Wind Jackal is the father of Quintinius Verginix and captain of the Galerider, a sky pirate ship, who is well known for his successful raids of league ships and his close friendship with Linius Pallitax, a Most High Academe of Old Sanctaphrax. His wife, Hermina Lintrax, and children Lucius, Centrix, Murix, Pellius and Martilius died in a fire that razed their palace in the Western Quays, which the youngest son, Quint, survived. After a long hunt for the arsonist, his old traitorous quartermaster Turbot Smeal, Wind Jackal is murdered by Thaw Daggerslash in "Clash of the Sky Galleons".

Linius Pallitax

Linius Pallitax was the Most High Academe of Old Sanctaphrax and Maris Pallitax's father. He is introduced to us in the first book of the Edge Chronicles, "The Curse of the Gloamglozer". His desire to reunite the studies of Earth and Sky in Sanctaphrax was ultimately squandered by his attempts, performed in an ancient laboratory deep in the centre of the rock on which Old Sanctaphrax was located, to recreate previous experiments concerning the creation of life. His experiments are successful, but he ended up creating the most feared creature in all of The Edge: the Gloamglozer. The monster caused his death, although it was driven from Sanctaphrax by his apprentice, Quintius Verginix

Generation II

Quintinius Verginix

Quintinius Verginix is the youngest son of the great sky pirate Wind Jackal, and, after a brief period studying as an apprentice under Linius Pallitax, succeeds his father as captain of the skyship Galerider. After the Galerider's destruction, Quint devotes his life to becoming a knight academic. Just as he is about to be knighted, an old enemy Vilnix Pompolnius stages a coup to become most High Academe, leaving Quint with nothing. Quint then sets out to become a sky pirate captain, taking his great sky ship the Stormchaser, and reassuming his sky pirate name of Cloud Wolf. However, he suffers a terrible personal tragedy when he is forced to abandon his son at birth, and eventually abandons his wife Maris, when he becomes unable to face her over his failures to find the boy. Nonetheless, Cloud Wolf becomes well known as one of the greatest sky pirate captains ever, flying and trading across the vast expanse of the Deepwoods (above) for many years. He later finds and reunites with his son Twig, and they enjoy a few years together aboard the ship. This happiness comes to an end when Cloud Wolf is persuaded to embark on a stormchasing voyage for Stormphrax to end Pompolnius's stranglehold over Sanctaphrax and Undertown. Mutiny in the crew results in the Stormchaser being whirled away over the Edge, with Cloud Wolf at the helm, into the heart of a Great Storm. He gives his sword and miniature painting to Twig, who later hands it down to his daughter Keris. Eventually, the painting makes its way into the hands of Quint's great-grandson, Rook Barkwater. Although Twig finds him after setting out into Open Sky, Cloud Wolf perishes as he becomes one with The Mother Storm. In The Immortals, he reunites with Twig and his great-grandson, Rook Barkwater in defeating the Gloamglozers once and for all, before dying and returning to Open Sky as a glister, along with Twig and Rook.

Maris Verginix (Maris Pallitax)

Raised by her woodtroll nanny, Welma Thornwood, Maris is said to closely resemble her mother, Yena Vespius, who died in childbirth. The neglected only daughter of the Most High Academe, she very much admires her father, and is thus at first jealous of the attention Linius bestows on Quint, his new apprentice. A bond soon develops between Quint and Maris, however, as they brave the mysteries and horrors of the Sanctaphrax stonecomb to discover the terrible secret that Linius has been harboring. When Quint takes his place on the Galerider, she follows him, and contributes to the well-being of the ship by setting up an infirmary. She falls in love with Quint during these adventures and kisses him near the end of Clash of the Sky Galleons. She later becomes the mother of Twig, who she and Quint abandon during a ship wreck. Maris is the founder of the Free Glades, where she later dies of old age.

Generation III

Arborinus Verginix (Twig)

Twig is the son of Maris Pallitax and the sky pirate captain Cloud Wolf. He remains unaware of this for many years, his only link to his heritage being a comfort blanket embroidered with a lullabee tree. As a baby, he is left in the Deepwoods to be raised by a family of woodtrolls, but his sense of adventure leads him to stray from the path, thereby beginning a series of adventures which eventually reunite him with his father. He later joins his father's crew and, following a disastrous final voyage that sees all but two of the crew lost, becomes captain of the Edgedancer and the Skyraider. Although he is a natural captain of sky ships, Twig's only voyage with the Edgedancer sees his crew scattered across the Edge, and Twig travels across the Edgeworld from Sanctaphrax to Riverrise to rescue them, but then has to travel back to Undertown by sky-firing to set Sanctaphrax adrift, so that the Mother Storm can renew Riverrise and all life on the Edge. He leaves behind his apprentice Cowlquape to rebuild Sanctaphrax, while he sets off to rescue his remaining crew again, but, after his own crew perishes and Stone Sickness prevents him from replacing them, is forced to give up. Twig wanders in the Deep Woods for a time, fathering a daughter, before reaching the Convocation of Banderbears. Many years later, he is found by a young Rook Barkwater, who joins him in a suicide attack against the Tower of Night to rescue Cowlquape. There, Twig is mortally wounded, and the Caterbird that swore to watch over him carries him to Riverrise, home of the life-giving waters that can save him. In The Immortals, he is revealed to have seen his old friend and crew member Maugin die just as he reached Riverrise, and was subsequently trapped there, unable to die. After the Mother Storm returns to Riverrise, Twig assists Rook Barkwater and his father, Quintinius Verginix, in defeating the Gloamglozers once and for all, before dying and returning to Open Sky as a glister, along with Rook and his father.

Cowlquape Pentephraxis

Cowlquape Pentephraxis is the son of an incredibly wealthy and brutish leaguesman, Ulbus Pentephraxis, and grandson of Ruptus Pentephraxis, who is featured in 'Clash of the Sky Galleons'. He was sent to be an under-apprentice in the great floating city of Sanctaphrax, but when his father dies, he is left with no money to pay for his tuition. Cowlquape meets Twig just as the young sky pirate captain regains his memory, and saves his life. Because of this, Twig, under the protection of the Professor of Darkness, makes Cowlquape his apprentice, saving him from poverty and homelessness. Cowlquape joins Twig on his quest to rescue his missing crew, and in doing so, discovers Riverrise, the source of all life on the Edge. After he and Twig save the Edgeworld, Cowlquape becomes the Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax, after the Professor of Darkness floats away with Sanctaphrax itself, and founds New Sanctaphrax. But his power and position are not to last, as he is ousted by Vox Verlix, who names himself the new Most High Academe. After the ascension to power of the Guardians of Night, Cowplquape is taken prisoner by Orbix Xaxis, where he befriends Xanth Filatine, his jailer. Cowlquape later regains his position as Most High Academe after Vox Verlix's demise, and joins the librarians in the Free Glades.

Vox Verlix

Vox Verlix became Most High Academe of Sanctaphrax after seizing power from Cowlquape Pentephraxis, and began huge architectural projects including the Tower of Night and the Great Mire Road, to combat the problems caused by stone sickness. The fanatical Guardians of Night later took over the Tower of Night on the New Sanctaphrax rock, while the shrykes gained control of the Great Mire Road. After this, Vox retreated to Undertown, and recruited the Hammerhead Goblin mercenary, General Tytugg, to enslave the people for his next project, the Sanctaphrax Forest, designed to stop the New Rock touching the ground, something that the Guardians of Night believed would mean the rock could never be cured with lightning. However, TyTugg cuts Vox out of the loop, and becomes determined to kill his old client to become Most High Academe. Fat, desperate, and angry, Vox locked himself up in his new home, the Palace of Statues, where he worked on his ultimate tool for revenge. He created a flying bomb made of bloodoak acorn powder and phraxdust to destroy Undertown and his enemies forever, and launched it while both the goblin and shryke armies were lured underground to kill the Librarians, and they perished, whilst the Guardians of Night were eradicated whilst trying to unsuccessfully revive the Sanctaphrax rock. After defeating his enemies, he sent for a ride to the Free Glades with the librarians, but it never came, for his Waif assistant, Amberfuce, took it in his stead, behind his back. Vox Verlix died in his Palace of Statues with Hestera Spikesap, his servant, as the Storm he created closed in.

Generation IV

Keris Barkwater

Keris is the daughter of sky pirate captain, Twig, and a slaughterer, Sinew Tatum. She married Shem Barkwater, son of Cal Barkwater, brother of Tem Barkwater, who was featured in both the Quint and Twig books. She is featured in the stand-alone, The Lost Barkscrolls, where she journeyed with a tribe of web-foot goblins to speak to their Great Clam, which she hoped could tell help her find her father. It sent her to the Free Glades, where she seeded one of its lakes with clamdust, and journeyed to Waif Glen for information. There, she met Maris, her grandmother, who tells her that she will see her father Twig in her dreams. Although she never sees her father again, her son Rook encounters Twig during the events of The Last of the Sky Pirates. Keris was killed by slavers along with her husband Shem, but Rook is rescued by Varis Lodd.

Shem Barkwater

Shem is Tem Barkwater's nephew and father of Rook Barkwater. He marries Keris Verginix (Twig's daughter), and they live in the Free Glades together with his uncle. Shem was killed by slavers along with Keris, but their son is rescued by Varis Lodd.

Generation V

Rook Barkwater

Rook Barkwater is the son of Keris, Twig's daughter; and Shem Barkwater, Tem Barkwater's nephew. He too is at first tragically unaware of his family, as his parents were both murdered by slavers when he was a baby. Raised by banderbears during his early childhood, he becomes one of the few characters in the Edgeworld able to communicate with them. Found in the Deepwoods by Varis Lodd when he was very young, he had no knowledge of his life with the banderbears. Varis brought him back to the librarians' city in the sewers of Undertown, where he served as an under-librarian. He later joins an expedition to the Free Glades along with Stob Lummus and Magda Burlix (who takes the role as his potential love interest), where he studies to become a librarian knight. His destiny, however, takes him on a mission over Screetown, where a terrible crash leads him into slavery. There, he serves under Most High Academe, Vox Verlix, and figures out his plans to destroy Undertown with a bomb made of bloodoak powder and phraxdust. However, Rook's attempt to stop the weapon being launched accidentally sets it off, and Undertown's destruction begins. Due to the destruction, Rook and the rest of the librarians, Ghosts of Screetown, and Undertowners go to the Mire, where they meet up with Deadbolt Vulpoon, and the rest of the sky pirates in the Armada of the Dead. Together they reach the Free Glades, where Rook joins the Free Glade Lancers, bonding with a prowlgrin named Chinquix, and helps defeat the hordes of attacking goblins and glade-eaters attacking the Free Glades. By the end of Freeglader, Rook is becomes a veteran of the Lancers, with Captain Welt and almost all of his other comrades slain. It is established in The Blooding of Rufus Filatine that he is now Commander of the Third Roost and leads the attack on the Phrax Glade. It is then revealed that he marries Magda and has several children who also have children. After the death of Magda, he takes Cancaresse to Riverrise and never returns.

Xanth Filatine

Xanth Filatine was apprentice to Orbix Xaxis, sinister High Guardian of the Guardians of Night. When Xaxis received news of an expedition to the Free Glades (The same one Rook Barkwater went on), Xanth was sent as a spy to go there with the soon-to-be-librarian knights and act as one of their own. Xanth befriends Rook Barkwater and Magda Burlix during his stay, but is found out, and escapes back to the Tower of Night, headquarters of the Guardians of Night. When Xanth returns, the Skyraider attacks the tower with Captain Twig, Rook, and their Banderbear crew on board. During this, Cowlquape Pentephraxis, friend of Xanth and Twig and rightful Most High Academe, escapes from his prison cell in the tower, and goes to the sewers to join the librarians. Eventually Xanth makes a break for freedom with the captive Magda. Before leaving, he sabotages Midnight's Spike, leading to the destruction of the Tower of Night. Xanth later joins the librarians as well, after seeing the error of his, and Orbix Xaxis' ways. He is put to trial for his mistakes, during an event called "Reckoning", and is finally accepted as a Freeglader, and librarian. During the war of the Free Glades, he becomes recognized as a hero due to his leading the rescue from Lake Landing. He later becomes High Master of Lake Landing and has a son, Rufus, who later joins the Freeglade Lancers.

Magda Burlix

Magda Burlix was, along with Stob Lummus, one of Rook's fellow Librarian Knight Elects. Due to her having three younger brothers, she was quick to take the younger, naive Rook under her wing, and guided him through the tougher stages of their perilous journey. While at the Free Glades, she became great friends with her fellow librarian knights and served as Rook's potential love interest. Later, she gets captured by the Guardians of Night while searching Screetown for Rook, who was reported as having crashed there. She escaped with Xanth Filatine, and met up with Rook and the librarians in the Mire after the destruction of Undertown. There, she left on her skycraft, the Woodmoth, and was shot down. Surviving the crash, however, she found her way to the Free Glades, where she saved Xanth by standing up for him at his Reckoning. During the war for the Free Glades, she acted as flight leader of the Grey Flight, a section of the librarian knights' air forces. As revealed in The Immortals, she later married Rook. Upon her death, Rook made a voyage to Riverrise, never to return.

Stob Lummus

Stob, Magda and Rook were selected to leave the Great Library Sewer and become librarian knights at Lake Landing Academy. He finds he doesn't really fit in with the other librarian knights, so he decides to work at Lake Landing Academy. When the Battle of the Free Glades begins and the Lake Landing Academy starts to burn Stob, the apprentices and the academics are rescued when Varis Lodd and her librarian knights sacrifice themselves to save them.

Varis Lodd

Varis is the daughter of Fenbrus Lodd, High Librarian, and sister of Felix Lodd. She is an instructor at Lake Landing Academy and is also head of the librarian knights. She dies in a fire at Lake Landing when she sacrifices herself for the academics and apprentices trapped inside. She rescues Rook Barkwater from the Deepwoods on her treatise voyage to write about banderbears.

Felix Lodd

Felix is Varis's brother but his sister always overshadows his achievements, even when he becomes the leader of the Screetown Ghosts and saves the Undertowners. He was Rook Barkwater's best friend in the sewers and was thought to be sure to be selected to train to be a librarian knight but Rook, who was younger, was chosen instead. He gave up academic learning and ran away to Screetown, after leaving Rook his sword. When his sister dies he helps his father rebuild the Great Library.

Sky Pirate Crews

The Galerider

The Galerider is an old and durable sky pirate ship - at least sixty years old in Clash of the Sky Galleons. She is also one of the finest of all sky pirate ships. By the time she is lost to Open Sky, she has seen at least four captains- Hurricane Razorflit, Rain Quarm, Wind Jackal and finally Cloud Wolf.

Stormchaser

The Stormchaser was originally built for Quint when he became a Knight Academic and was assigned to chase the next Great Storm. However, thanks to Vilnix Pompolnius's policy of banning stormchasing, he was unable to fulfill his true purpose for twenty years. During this time she was captained by Quint, now Cloud Wolf. Her first Stormchasing voyage was to be her last, as the storm was more powerful than any other since the arrival of the last Mother Storm. Cloud Wolf ordered his crew to abandon ship but stayed on board, and was carried out into Open Sky and the Mother Storm itself. There, she and her master were slowly absorbed by the storm.

Edgedancer

Paid for by Mother Horsefeather and built to Twig's own specifications, the Edgedancer made only one ill-fated voyage. Twig flew it over the edge and into Open Sky in search of his father. But shortly after he discovered Cloud Wolf, the Mother Storm destroyed the ship. The wreckage bombarded Undertown and the crew were scattered across the Edgeworld. Twig later became captain of the Skyraider.

Other famous Sky Pirate Ships include the Cloudbreaker, captained by the mighty Ice Fox, the fast sailing Maelstrom Seeker, the Windspinner, known for its uniquely powerful catapult, the Fogscythe which was equipped with several curved blades, the Thundercrusher, which boasted a huge wrecking ball, the Driftcleaver, a sleek white vessel with a plough-shaped battering ram at its prow- which had been known to cut other ships in half and had an all female crew, and the Skyraider, the second ship captained by Twig that he used to try to get back to Riverrise to get Maugin, Woodfish, and Goom. It was later used by Twig and Rook to rescue Cowlquape Pentephraxis from the Tower of Night.

Some league ships are the Bane of Mighty, the Forger of Triumph and the Smelter of Woes, both belonging to the League of Furnace Tenders, and the giant Bringer of Doom, complete with six masts, huge sails, and a crew of bloodthirsty black shrykes, the flight rock, the largest and most perfect flight rock ever, contained a shard of stormphrax wrapped in glow worm skin was what eventually brought the ship to its doom, when the glow worm skin faded the weight of the stormphrax in darkness sent the sky ship crashing to the ground.

Villains

Quint Trilogy Villains (in order of appearance)

Twig Trilogy Villains (in order of appearance)

Rook Trilogy Villains (in order of appearance)

The Immortals Villains

Allies

Animals and Plants of the Edge

One of the elements the series is known for is its interesting array of plant and animal life, described in detail and accompanied by line drawings by Chris Riddell.

The Farrow Ridges

Since writing The Immortals, Stewart and Riddell have written series of blogs about a small settlement mentioned in The Immortals called The Farrow Ridges. It follows two characters, Forden Drew and Hedgethorn Lammergyre, a Fourthling and a Grey Goblin. Hedgethorn has lived in the Farrow Ridges for twelve years since the battle of the Midwood Marshes where he lost all his friends. Friendon has moved to the area after sorting out his father's financial problems in Hive.

The two become friends and the series follows their epic adventure to build the Farrow Ridges. It ended with 66 chapters on Feb.03, 2011. The blogs were located at www.weirdnewworlds.com but this now seems to be deleted.

Adaptations

There are audiobooks available for most of the Edge Chronicles series. Stewart and Riddell have expressed interest in a film adaptation.

See also

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