"A book filled with adventure and action—a must-read for the young fantasy lover."
—Realms of Fantasy
"The best young adult SF [of 1996] was Groogleman by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald..."
—Science Fiction Chronicle
[Groogleman]

In the First Year came the Plague, and in the Tenth Year the Burning, and afterward came the Grooglemen out of the Dead Lands....

So said all the preachers and the books, and Dan Henchard knew this was true.

But when the grooglemen took Leezie, the weller who was teaching Dan about caring for the sick, and then the strange hunter, Joshua, said he was going after her, Dan volunteered to go along.

He didn't know why. He was as scared as anyone was of the grooglemen.

But he went.

His life would never be the same.
Groogleman
by
Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald

Dan Henchard may be a weller — a healer — but he won't know for sure until he goes off with Leezie on a trip to a possible plague town. There he will either die of the plague or learn from Leezie all there is to know about healing.

But what he finds out in the plague town is that the hideous grooglemen have been there first. They have tampered with corpses, killed animals and, — worst of all — they have taken Leezie back to their foul castles in the Dead Lands. Only Dan and the mysterious hunter, Joshua, have a chance to rescue her, though it will probably mean their deaths as well.

Popular authors Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald have crafted a beautiful, suspense-filled, and creepy story of a boy whose adventure leads to a startling discovery about the world and his place in it.

Dan dropped to the ground and froze, with his face pressed against the dirt. He lay there without moving for what seemed like all of time and forever, but the glare and the roaring never stopped.

When at last Dan ventured to lift up his head, a groogleman stood before him.

The groogleman had a wrinkled skin all dirty white like fungus, just like the stories said, and huge glistening eyes over a round and wrinkled mouth. It shuffled when it walked, and its breath made a loud hissing like a teakettle on the hearth. It lifted Dan up and turned him around, almost gently, and Dan was too frightened to do anything but what the groogleman made him do.

Jane Yolen Books
Harcourt Brace & Company
525 B Street, San Diego, CA 92101
15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
Jacket illustration by Cliff Nielsen
September 1996
Young Adult fantasy and science fiction
Ages 10 and up
128 pages
5½x8¼
LC 96-2022
ISBN 0-15-200235-9
$15.00
Territory: World
British/Translation: Harcourt
The first chapter from Groogleman
 Uncle Joshua and the Grooglemen  Based on the short story "Uncle Joshua and the Grooglemen" by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
The Doyle and Macdonald Home Page.

Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald are the coauthors of numerous short stories and novels, including the best-selling science fiction Mageworlds series for adults, the six-volume Circle of Magic series for young adults, and the young adult novel Knight's Wyrd (Jane Yolen Books/Harcourt Brace, 1992). Groogleman is developed from the story "Uncle Joshua and the Grooglemen," which appeared in Bruce Coville's Book of Monsters (Scholastic, 1992), and is their second novel for Jane Yolen Books.

The Doyle and Macdonald wife-and-husband writing team live in Colebrook, New Hampshire.

URL http://www.sff.net/people/DoyleMacdonald/groohead.htm
01Jul96[Golden Key][Blue Ribbon]