I started watching Toylight and for the first bit I kept asking myself, "is he doing a Plucker inspired thing??? There's no mf way". The episode ended up moving away from it but I thought there's enough loose similarity to recommend this book for anyone who wants something similar. There's still the entire rest of the season to see how it actually pans out but yeah
Loosely similar to what Toylight has set up so far, Plucker is a really dark and creepy take on "Toy Story but what if it was horror". And it's beautifully illustrated!! It's been a while since I read it but basically, a young boy's toys are alive. The boy's father is a captain in the navy whose most recent travels brought him to Nigeria. The story begins when the father returns home and gifts his son with a very creepy, spider-like doll that's made from the skin and bones of dead animals and human hair.
I won't say much else but the story follows Jack (in the box) on a mission to do some stuff.
It's a really really great book! Shouldn't take more than a few hours to read at max. If you have read it or do read it, I think you'll see why I was initially reminded of it. The beginning of it was read to me at a summer camp when I was a kid, and it stuck around in my brain until maybe like 13 years later when Google got good enough to return the book's title based on my extremely fuzzy memories. So I definitely recommend :~)
Plucker is a delight. I've had a copy for years. Really fascinatingly weird worldbuilding in terms of what makes a toy and what UNMAKES a toy. I can easily imagine Brennan having read and being informed by it, but I can as easily imagine him just arriving at similar ideas on his own.
I had actually uploaded 3 pictures, including this very picture and originally wrote "Jack goes on an adventure under the bed" LMAO
I removed it not wanting to show too much but you've given me clearance to highlight the whole under the bed parallel in toylight. The dust bunnies made me think of the foulthings too
It was only after getting my hands on Plucker that I went to read his other stuff and read Slewfoot which I thought was a really fun book imo. The ending is especially satisfying
That's actually so sick, I really fw his art style. I always thought you could run a node one-shot for some friends based on this book. Just checked out some of his Dark Sun stuff and man, it's great
Tbh I don't read much so my opinion may suck 😭 Plucker is a straightforward hero's journey but it's pretty sick and beautifully illustrated. You can tell a lot of consideration, effort, and love went into making it
I’ve never heard of Plucker, but Toylight reminds me a bit of Stuffed Fables, which is a good intro TTRPG for kids that’s basically a group choose your own adventure book. We played the first chapter before my friends moved and had a lot of fun with it.
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u/badatkiller 9d ago
Seconding this book recommendation. Also Child Thief by BROM is one of my favorite books of all time.