Rafael Ábalos is a Spanish author of the bestseller book Grimpow: The Invisible Road (ISBN 0385733747) published in 2007, he was born on the 12th of October 1956.
Grimpow is a children’s fantasy novel was about a boy finding a mysterious amulet in France who becomes a focus of a “centuries-old mission” to enlighten humanity. The book was published by Random House.
Ábalos was a lawyer who loved reading adventure stories as a child. When he discovered that he both enjoyed law and literature and had a knack for writing, Ábalos began his second career writing fantasy adventures for children. He is best known for his novel Grimpow: El camino invisible, a story that has been published in twenty-seven countries and released in an English-language version under the title Grimpow: The Invisible Road.
Grimpow is a peasant boy living during the middle ages. Discovering the body of a fallen knight and taking the knight’s talisman, Grimpow realises he has actually found the philosopher’s stone, and he takes up the knight’s secret quest. The Inquisitors are also seeking the stone, however, and Grimpow must keep two steps ahead of these emissaries from the Catholic Church in order to complete the knight’s mission.
Describing the novel as a cross between J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic “Lord of the Rings” fantasy saga and Dan Brown’s hit thriller The Da Vinci Code, a Publishers Weekly critic wrote that Ábalos “proves himself adept at moving the multiple story lines of the labyrinthine plot at a fast pace.” The critic added that Grimpow should appeal to both teens and adults, although some reviewers cautioned that the multi-faceted tale might be too complex for younger readers. A Kirkus Reviews contributor referred to the novel as “exposition-laden,” and Sharon Grover wrote in School Library Journal that Ábalos’s “plodding story line … weaves in too many threads.”
His other notable work which were not translated into English are; Bufo Soñador en la galaxia de la tristeza, Editorial Debate (Madrid, Spain), 2000. Mago del mundo, illustrated by Patricia Losada, Universidad de Málaga (Málaga, Spain), 2001. And El visitante del laberinto, Debate (Madrid, Spain), 2001.