Mowll, Joshua
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1970- ) UK graphic artist and author of the Young Adult Guild of Specialists sequence, comprising Operation Red Jericho (2005), Operation Typhoon Shore (2006) and Operation Storm City (2008); set in the 1920s, the tales combine Lost Race and Steampunk conventions in a Ripping Yarns fashion that evokes comparisons to writers like Michael Moorcock and Alan Moore, to the A Series of Unfortunate Events sequence by Lemony Snicket, and to the various Indiana Jones films directed by Steven Spielberg. The overall story is conspicuously full of fantasticated happenstance and adventure, as the young protagonists search for their lost parents along the inner Asian frontiers of China, where they discover several ancient hidden societies, and a previously unknown Element here called Zoridium. In the South Pacific, in the meanwhile, on a further Archipelago of unknown Islands, Zoridium has inspired the Invention of various Weapons. The sequence comes to a complicated climax in Russia, where the world is saved for now. A later singleton, The Great Space Race (2010), seemingly for younger readers, is a relatively tame spoof of Space Opera conventions. [JC]
Joshua Mowll
born Kent, 17 Sept 1970
works
series
Guild of Specialists
- Operation Red Jericho (London: Walker Books, 2005) [Guild of Specialists: illus/hb/Joshua Mowll]
- Operation Typhoon Shore (London: Walker Books, 2006) [Guild of Specialists: illus/hb/Joshua Mowll]
- Operation Storm City (London: Walker Books, 2008) [Guild of Specialists: illus/hb/Joshua Mowll]
individual titles
- The Great Space Race (London: Walker Books, 2010) [illus/hb/Joshua Mowll]
links
previous versions of this entry