The Sterkarm Handshake (Older fiction) - Hardcover

Price, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590543016 ISBN 13: 9780590543019

Publisher: Scholastic Press, 1998

Synopsis

The Sterkarms have plundered the borders of England and Scotland for generations. Now, in the 16th century, their way of life is threatened by the Elves, intruders from a polluted 21st century. The needs and values of the two centuries cannot be reconciled and a bloody battle follows.

About this title

Review:

The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price is an extraordinarily detailed historical-modern science fiction novel in which members of a team of researchers from the 21st century travel through a time tube into the lives of the Sterkarm clan in 16th-century England. At first the narrative concerns itself with the creation of a realistic and believable portrayal of the living conditions and the relationships of a tough, violent group of people whose feelings for each other are not that dissimilar from those of human being living 500 years later. As the novel progresses the relations between the 20th-century individuals and the Sterkarms simultaneously deteriorate and deepen. Incidents pile one upon the other, the sense of conflict increases and the action becomes both increasingly violent and increasingly complicated. External action is balanced by the development of internal feelings and one of the modern team, a young girl named Andrea, falls deeply in love with a young Sterkarmer. This is a novel for Sci-Fi bookworms with a love of history, a touch of romance and masses of action. --Tamsin Palmer (Ages 10 and over)

About the Author:

Susan Price is the author of the Sterkarm series. Born in Dudley, West Midlands, in England, she went on to write the Guardian Fiction Prize–winning The Sterkarm Handshake (1998) after visiting reiver country on the borders of Scotland. To help her imagine the Sterkarm’s world, she drew on lifelong interests in history, folklore, and old ballads, as well as her hobbies of shooting with a longbow and traveling to the Scottish hills with her partner. Price continued the series with A Sterkarm Kiss (2004) and A Sterkarm Tryst (2017). Her other works include the novel The Ghost Drum, which won the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Price lives in the Black Country, in West Midlands, England.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0590543016
• ISBN 13: 9780590543019
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 386