Though readers may be sad to say goodbye to the world and characters, it’s been a glitch-free runtime, and they’ll be...
The conclusion to the Secret Coders graphic novel series.
Immediately following Potions and Parameters (2018), multiracial trio Hopper, Eni, and Josh code a portal to Professor Bee’s two-dimensional home world, Flatland, to bring back a Turtle of Light so that they can stop the villainous Dr. One-Zero. In Flatland, Eni and Josh appear as polygons (based on their normal features, square and triangular respectively), and as a female, Hopper is reduced to a profile outline. After coding their way out of a tough spot, the three return to their home dimension, where they’re soon to be split up—Hopper’s mother wants to move them someplace safer, and Eni’s mother is transferring him to a sports-focused school. That leaves them precious little time to decipher Dr. One-Zero’s diabolical final scheme and find a way to counter it. Defeating him will take teamwork—Professor Bee teaches them to modularize, and each works on subprograms. The final fight is an entertaining one, with high stakes, plenty of action, ingenuity, and comedic moments. The denouement’s final storyline is resolved through age-appropriate character relations. After the story, a “The Making of Secret Coders” segment reveals early sketches and describes how the author-illustrator team worked together, and there’s information about Yang’s “Reading without Walls” challenge.
Though readers may be sad to say goodbye to the world and characters, it’s been a glitch-free runtime, and they’ll be satisfied at the final bits and bytes . (Graphic science fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62672-610-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Whit and Wisty Allgood, sibling magic-users with amazingly unreliable powers, return to fight with their utterly expendable teen comrades against The One Who Is The One, dread master of the New Order, who hates the young and those with imagination (Witch & Wizard, 2009). Whit and Wisty carry out a mission and are betrayed. They are captured and escape. They run and are captured again. They try to save their parents (for naught), but spooky unknown forces save the teens who (obviously) live to fight again in the upcoming sequel. Fiction brand Patterson returns with a new co-author, Rust, to pick up the story of the Allgoods, and what they offer is more nonsensical, inconsistent blather. There are no characters that even rise to the level of stereotypes and no genuine emotions in this embarrassing attempt at a “fantasy” series that insults both genre and audience at every turn. At best, it reads like a Carol Burnett Sci-Fi sketch with all of the mugging and none of the laughs. A new low in children’s publishing. (Fantasy. 9-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-316-03625-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this sketchy, incoherent, near-future tale, a child named Rain and the lion she has raised are stolen from an inland village for some never-explained Sacrifice by “Tekkies” inhabiting The Island, a former mountaintop surrounded by risen seas. Aside from vague references to “the Wild,” “Drylands” and air-conditioned “chill chambers,” the author does little to set up either the scene or the back story, nor does she ever reveal why Rain or the lion are considered so significant. Instead she focuses almost entirely on Rain’s unhappiness and confusion through disconnected encounters with Island residents, and then she engineers a highly contrived escape for the girl and lion as their former prison is totally destroyed for unknown reasons. The deadly effects of global warming certainly make a cogent theme, but this effort to take it up seems to have been, at best, phoned in by a veteran South African author who usually offers much more careful and sensitive work (Song of Be, 1993, etc.). Goodness knows, there's a raft of other eco-disaster tales out there for readers so inclined. (Science fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84780-114-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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