The Ghost Drum
core novel 1987 Ghost World
Record
| First published | 1987 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.08 (227 ratings, collected 2026-10-21) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780571146130 |
| Internal chronology | 1 |
Synopsis
In the darkest hour of a freezing Midwinter, a night-walking witch adopts the newborn baby of a slave woman and carries her off in her house on chicken legs. She names her Chingis and teaches her the Three Magics, and the girl grows into such a powerful witch, a shaman who can follow the dead to their world, that she rouses the jealousy of Kuzma, the bear-shaman. The Czar of this cold realm fears that his newborn son, Safa, will outdo him, and imprisons the baby at the top of a tall tower, to live and die there without ever glimpsing the real world, until loneliness drives the boy to rage and despair and Chingis hears the crying of his trapped spirit and frees him. Now their enemies unite against them with steel and deadly magic, and Chingis and Safa's quest for freedom will take them through the Ghost World into the Land of the Dead.
Where it sits
- Universe: Ghost World
- Series: Ghost World core; position 1 of 4 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Susan Price
Awards (verified)
- Carnegie Medal, 1987: won
Notes
- From the series record (Ghost World): Susan Price's fairy tales of a frozen Czardom of witches and shamans.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series Ghost World: position 1 of 4: next Ghost Song (1992)
- Internal chronology, within Ghost World: position 1 of 3: next Ghost Song (1992)
Sources
- Risingshadow (series listing)
- Wikipedia (Susan Price)
- Books for Keeps (1987 Carnegie winners, edition details)
- Faber (publisher description, via Toppsta)
- Susan Price (official site, with contemporary reviews)
← Ghost World dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.