This action-packed adventure shrewdly subverts the epic-hero genre even while reaffirming it. Cocky second son Halli Sveinsson runs wild, playing pranks on servants, his older brother and other members of Svein’s House. Svein’s House is the greatest House in the valley because, as the story goes, Svein was the most renowned of the heroes from founding days. When Halli spikes a guest’s ale with noxious tannery fluid, it reawakens a feud and spurs a deadly chain of vengeance. Stroud peppers the prose with wit, sometimes with ironically elevated language (sheep exhibit “ovine caprice,” a frowning face “corrugates sensually”), sometimes with the idioms of a tall tale (warriors “had the satisfaction of hearing several heads go bouncing down upon the rock”). Chapter upon chapter ends with high peril—and each time, a Svein tale interrupts before Halli’s thread picks back up. This hinders the flow but emphasizes the profound cultural permeation of these tales; when Halli confronts not just enemies and monsters but a dead legendary hero, readers will find a provocative examination of religion buried underneath the excitement. (Fantasy. 10-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4231-0966-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula.
In honor of its 25th anniversary, a Disney Halloween horror/comedy film gets a sequel to go with its original novelization.
Three Salem witches hanged in 1693 for stealing a child’s life force are revived in 1993 when 16-year-old new kid Max completes a spell by lighting a magical candle (which has to be kindled by a virgin to work). Max and dazzling, popular classmate Allison have to keep said witches at bay until dawn to save all of the local children from a similar fate. Fast-forward to 2018: Poppy, daughter of Max and Allison, inadvertently works a spell that sends her parents and an aunt to hell in exchange for the gleeful witches. With help from her best friend, Travis, and classmate Isabella, on whom she has a major crush, Poppy has only hours to keep the weird sisters from working more evil. The witches, each daffier than the last, supply most of the comedy as well as plenty of menace but end up back in the infernal regions. There’s also a talking cat, a talking dog, a gaggle of costumed heroines, and an oblique reference to a certain beloved Halloween movie. Traditional Disney wholesomeness is spiced, not soured, by occasional innuendo and a big twist in the sequel. Poppy and her family are white, while Travis and Isabella are both African-American.
A bit of envelope-pushing freshens up the formula. (Fantasy. 10-15)Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-368-02003-9
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Freeform/Disney
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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