A comfortably formulaic woodland epic finds resolution in widespread slaughter and melodramatic flourishes.
The (literally) heartless queen of the Unseelie Court meets her thoroughly deserved fate at last at the hands of some of the forest’s humblest residents in this trilogy closer.
Starting up where the middle volume, Dark Waters of Hagwood (2013), left off, it’s one battle or act of cruelty after another as Rhiannon Rigantona—not a pasta dish but the deathless and utterly evil faerie queen—pursues her violent ends. She not only makes war on Hagwood’s diminutive werlings, doughty if gooey sluglungs, and all forest creatures in general, but brutally slaughters her own Hollow Hill subjects, loyal and otherwise, as prelude to a campaign of worldwide subjugation. As she works her depredations aboveground (“How the gore doth pump and fount,” hoots a minion), Jarvis sends werling Gamaliel Tumpin and sidekicks with equally homely monickers far below for fresh charges of prophecy and purpose in preparation for a climactic showdown atop appropriately named Witch’s Leap. As it turns out, opening the magically sealed casket that preserves Rigantona’s heart and invulnerability requires a final, ultimate sacrifice. The author gets there smartly while adding a “haggish host” of lightning-wielding troll witches mounted on giant boars to a teeming cast already notable for its wild diversity of goblins, spriggans, wyrms, and other species (many of which are depicted in warty detail at the chapter heads).
A comfortably formulaic woodland epic finds resolution in widespread slaughter and melodramatic flourishes. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9922-7
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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