Tailor-made for readers who prefer their coming-of-age fantasies thick, straightforward of plot, and unencumbered by...
A preteen with a hidden heritage runs from slavering Ghorhund and into the arms of his destiny when a huge bell that few can hear summons him to a parallel world.
Urged on by mysterious allies and hotly pursued by a giant black dog, Sylas is transported from a modern slum to another realm where the land looks the same but the people have a different history and practice four different kinds of magic. There, he falls in with the nearly exterminated adherents of the Fourth Way, which cooperates with nature rather than forcibly altering it like the other three, and becomes the object of a massive hunt by legions of bestial creatures made by Thoth, last and foulest of the ruling Priests of Souls. Why? Because according to an oblique prophecy, if Sylas can find his Glimmer, his other-world counterpart, he may reunite the two sundered planes. Along with folding in missing parents, coded writings, giant eagles and other comfortably familiar elements, Johnstone rarely breaks from a single storyline in this opener for (inevitably) a planned trilogy. Moreover, with the exception of one character playing a double game, he neatly divides the large supporting cast between warm, loyal, charismatic good guys and malformed, malign baddies. Stay tuned.
Tailor-made for readers who prefer their coming-of-age fantasies thick, straightforward of plot, and unencumbered by complications or moral conundrums. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-00-749122-3
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Harper360
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
If it were a Golden Age comic, this tale of ridiculous science, space dogs and humanoid aliens with flashlights in their hands might not be bad. Alas... Number Four is a fugitive from the planet Lorien, which is sloppily described as both "hundreds of lightyears away" and "billions of miles away." Along with eight other children and their caretakers, Number Four escaped from the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien ten years ago. Now the nine children are scattered on Earth, hiding. Luckily and fairly nonsensically, the planet's Elders cast a charm on them so they could only be killed in numerical order, but children one through three are dead, and Number Four is next. Too bad he's finally gained a friend and a girlfriend and doesn't want to run. At least his newly developing alien powers means there will be screen-ready combat and explosions. Perhaps most idiotic, "author" Pittacus Lore is a character in this fiction—but the first-person narrator is someone else entirely. Maybe this is a natural extension of lightly hidden actual author James Frey's drive to fictionalize his life, but literature it ain't. (Science fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-196955-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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