Happy and (more or less) logical resolution aside, thin Soup.
A once-entertaining tale about a widowed inventor who goes on the lam with his three above-average children (until he can finish building a time machine to dispel an ancient family curse and prevent his wife’s murder) drags its way to a conclusion.
Having taken care of the curse in the middle episode, Another Whole Nother Story (2010), "Soup" evidently finds that even with extensive padding—including an irrelevant flashback chapter and bit parts for the uncommonly intrusive author/narrator himself and his deaf mother—the culminating rescue makes only half a book. Accordingly, the author fills out the page count with a long and aimless stopover for the time-traveling Cheeseman family. This takes place in Some Times, an interdimensional mashup of eras, places and seasons where the Cheeseman children get glimpses of their futures from a worshipful descendent. Meanwhile, their father, convinced he’s Gioachino Rossini after a knock to the head, furiously (re)composes the William Tell Overture. The Dave Barry–like flurries of sententious tangents that previously added refreshing interludes of silliness to the storyline come across here as dull and labored, as do the heavy-handed caricatures of various corporate and government pursuers who are the tale’s villains.
Happy and (more or less) logical resolution aside, thin Soup. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-59990-824-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The 10th and final full-length episode in an alternate-Earth series that's just about reached its sell-by date unites the five members of the central cast in yet another rescue mission to a distant land. This time its a thinly disguised medieval Japan, where bluff young warrior Horace has been swept up in the entourage accompanying a kindly emperor who is on the run from a vicious usurper. Thanks to a sequence of massive coincidences, he is soon joined in a remote mountain fortress by Rangers Will (who graduated from "apprentice" about five volumes ago) and his crusty mentor Halt, plus temperamental Princess Evanlyn and her spunky frenemy Alyss. While the usurper and his forces obligingly winter nearby, the menfolk train a peasant army for the true emperor while Evanlyn and Alyss set out to recruit more allies and have an air-clearing heart-to-heart about who really loves whom. By the end battles are won, bad guys slain, feasts held and everyone heads home for weddings and further adventures. The "keep it simple" approach has served Flanagan—and readers who prefer predictable plots and easily recognizable settings and character types—well, but the formula has staled. "The Final Battle" blazoned on the cover indicates a recognition of this fact, though loose ends leave open the possibility of further, as-yet-unplanned developments. Here's hoping a break will restore zing to future adventures. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25500-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This sequel to Malice (2009) draws the rival casts of evil monsters and teenage rebels into climactic battles both in this world and the parallel one behind the pages of a comic. As Seth makes his way back into Malice with the talismanic Shard and joins the effort to mount an attack on the dread Deadhouse, a new ally, Alicia, nervously tracks the House’s sinister master Tall Jake to the decrepit English psychiatric hospital where Grendel—the mad, disturbed, misshapen graphic artist (and maybe god?) who has created both the comic and the world it depicts—is imprisoned. Like the opener, this features expertly meshed multiple plotlines, colorful supporting characters (notably a clockwork sabertooth and a Malice resident afflicted with “regenerative leprosy,” meaning that he keeps losing body parts that then grow back), frequent eerie skitterings and sudden feelings of dread plus nonstop action that breaks, occasionally, from prose into graphic-novel–style panels festooned with noisy sound effects. A real crowd pleaser, with further episodes possible but not necessary. (Graphic hybrid/fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-16045-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
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