'It is a fact, an absolute fact, that there are creatures on the surface of this earth that have never been observed by man. We may think that we have seen all that there is to be seen on this tiny planet of ours. We most certainly have not.'

The Various is a novel for older children - and is a 2003 Nestle Smarties prizewinner. It's published by David Fickling Books.
David is a highly respected name in children's publishing - probably best known for his discovery and championship of Philip Pullman, and the subsequent publication of his 'Dark Materials' books. David Fickling Books is a Random House imprint.

Set among the mysterious Somerset Levels, The Various might be described as a fantasy and concerns the secrets of the 'little people' - piskies, fairies, 'Jack O' Lanterns, call them what you will. Their existence has only ever amounted to local rumour and whispered hearsay, until a twelve-year-old child discovers the truth, hidden away among the briars and brambles high above the wetlands. The truth is strange and wild - and sometimes deadly.

* * *

The Various began as a single image, a picture if you like, and a certain smell. An atmosphere.The picture is of a pig barn - a dirty concrete building with a rusty tin roof, down through which stray chinks of light shine, partially illuminating the gloomy interior. Inside the barn a girl is kneeling, beside a creature that lies trapped and dying beneath a heavy piece of farm machinery. The smell is of musty hay and ancient tractor oil, mixed with dung - and blood. The creature is a winged horse.

The smell of animal blood does not form any real part of childhood memory - although I worked on enough farms, some of which had their own abbatoirs, to have been familiar with it. But the atmosphere of a barn interior, on a hot summer day, is something I can conjure up at will. That wonderful smell of oily machinery and warm hay - if it could be bottled I'd buy it. As for the picture - the girl and the winged horse - I've no idea where it sprang from. It seemed like a good starting point, a 'what if? idea. I followed the child to the barn - looking over her shoulder as it were, as she made her discovery - and took it from there. I had no real preconceptions as to what might happen, no plan other than trying to capture an atmosphere. I remembered how books used to make me feel when I was a child, and I tried to write a book like that.

The Various is quite old fashioned as a consequence, I think. There's no point in pretending that I have the whole saga completely mapped out - I don't. But I prefer it that way, and I'm not worried. Stories, like characters, have a way of growing and developing of their own accord, it seems, and I'm enjoying the journey. I hope that readers will be as intrigued as I am to find out what happens next.