Author: Rab Swannock Fulton
Genre(s) / Subgenre(s): speculative fiction / a love/ghost story
Here is what I wrote when I first reviewed Rab Fulton's book, Transformation, back in 2006.
"When I started to read Transformation, I only knew that it's a ghost story. I did not know what to expect, as there are so many types of ghost stories. Later, I realized this story is very different from those I've read before.
The main character is a young man called Donnacha who moves to Galway after leaving school, and starts to work as a dishwasher. Transformation by Scottish writer Rab Swannock Fulton is the story of a young man's coming of age, getting to know love and perfection then gradually realizing his life is turning into a nightmare.
The story is set in today's Ireland, which is still not entirely different from the Ireland of the legends, the one with beautiful landscapes, and where one can bump into a ghost any time. The story is well-written and the characters are easy to identify with.
Transformation starts as a tale of romance and hope and turns into a tale of grief and monstrosity. Poetic, mysterious and moving."At that time Transformation only existed as a web novel, published by the Arts Office of the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI, G). Since then Rab Fulton has gained a significant readership, partly due to his serialized young adult fantasy novel, the awards he was given, and also due to his popular story telling performances.
This year the novel Transformation also appeared in paperback, so it was high time for me to post this review again.
Links:
About the novel
Rab Fulton on Myspace