Changing the cast, but taking up his larger tale where Wormwood (2004) left off, Taylor pits a teenaged would-be highwayman and several ragged confederates against a cruel, cursed lord and a ruthless preacher poised to release a swarm of flesh-eating insects. After the mastema, an anything-but-Subtle knife with both bloody proclivities and the ability to unlock paradise, falls into his grimy hands, Jonah becomes the target of its all-powerful former owner, Lord Malpas. Meanwhile, a blind lad named Tersias has appeared on London’s nearly depopulated streets, telling true futures whispered into his ear by the Wretchkin, an invisible half-angel, and the preacher Solomon is gaining flocks of new adherents thanks to the previous episode’s terrifying comet. Moving away from the bombastic prose and awkwardly concealed Christian symbolism that weighed down his earlier outings, the author crafts a richly atmospheric story, played out by a set of tried and true Dickensian character types and laced both with supernatural elements and higher themes. Despite the double miracle he shoehorns in for a sudden, forced happy ending, this is his best yet. Will the next volume feature something like . . . a Spyglass? Stay tuned. (Fantasy. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-24258-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
The sardonic tone of the narrator’s voice lends a refreshing air of realism to this riotously paced quest tale of heroism...
Edgar Award–winning Riordan leaves the adult world of mystery to begin a fantasy series for younger readers.
Twelve-year-old Percy (full name, Perseus) Jackson has attended six schools in six years. Officially diagnosed with ADHD, his lack of self-control gets him in trouble again and again. What if it isn’t his fault? What if all the outrageous incidents that get him kicked out of school are the result of his being a “half-blood,” the product of a relationship between a human and a Greek god? Could it be true that his math teacher Mrs. Dodds transformed into a shriveled hag with bat wings, a Fury, and was trying to kill him? Did he really vanquish her with a pen that turned into a sword? One need not be an expert in Greek mythology to enjoy Percy’s journey to retrieve Zeus’s master bolt from the Underworld, but those who are familiar with the deities and demi-gods will have many an ah-ha moment. Along the way, Percy and his cohort run into Medusa, Cerberus and Pan, among others.
The sardonic tone of the narrator’s voice lends a refreshing air of realism to this riotously paced quest tale of heroism that questions the realities of our world, family, friendship and loyalty. (Fantasy. 12-15)Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7868-5629-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
In this riveting futuristic novel, Spaz, a teenage boy with epilepsy, makes a dangerous journey in the company of an old man and a young boy. The old man, Ryter, one of the few people remaining who can read and write, has dedicated his life to recording stories. Ryter feels a kinship with Spaz, who unlike his contemporaries has a strong memory; because of his epilepsy, Spaz cannot use the mind probes that deliver entertainment straight to the brain and rot it in the process. Nearly everyone around him uses probes to escape their life of ruin and poverty, the result of an earthquake that devastated the world decades earlier. Only the “proovs,” genetically improved people, have grass, trees, and blue skies in their aptly named Eden, inaccessible to the “normals” in the Urb. When Spaz sets out to reach his dying younger sister, he and his companions must cross three treacherous zones ruled by powerful bosses. Moving from one peril to the next, they survive only with help from a proov woman. Enriched by Ryter’s allusions to nearly lost literature and full of intriguing, invented slang, the skillful writing paints two pictures of what the world could look like in the future—the burned-out Urb and the pristine Eden—then shows the limits and strengths of each. Philbrick, author of Freak the Mighty (1993) has again created a compelling set of characters that engage the reader with their courage and kindness in a painful world that offers hope, if no happy endings. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-439-08758-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Blue Sky/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2000
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