A talky ending leaves a forgiveable blemish on this semisatirical debut tale of a young foundling learning to harness a real superpower while setting out to uncover his obscure past. Years of poring over a stash of tattered comics left at the door of his New Jersey orphanage at least partially ease Jack’s adjustment when he’s suddenly attacked by a heavily armed warrior robot and then hustled off to the Imagine Nation—a floating island entirely populated by superheroes and reachable only by Those Who Believe. Though the Nation is rapidly turning into a police state thanks to a (pointedly familiar) climate of media-fostered fear in the wake of an attempted invasion by the alien race of robo-zombie Rüstov, Jack does gather enough support both to survive the public revelation that his own bloodstream is crawling with Rüstov nanobots and, thanks to his burgeoning ability to understand and make friends with machines, to steel himself for a second battle with the aforementioned metal warrior. Though Myklusch prefers diatribes and explanations to exploring the ins and outs of this comic-book world, he creates a beguiling, sequel-worthy scenario. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4169-9561-6
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
The author of Bran Hambric: The Fairfield Curse (2009) dishes up an equally maladroit sequel featuring the same sort of nonsensical plot, clumsy satirical elements and ham-fisted writing. Tucking in lines like, “It knew his name, which was enough to send terror through his skin,” and, “the creature leapt forward, striking his finger with her teeth,” Nation sends his young wizard-in-training on a rescue mission after a mysterious Key left him by his dead mother explodes with magic one random night and sucks the soul of his best friend/main squeeze Astara into a trap (her corpse conveniently disappears from its buried coffin some time later). Joined along the way by his previously unknown father and a Tinkerbell-style vampire fairy with obscure loyalties and motives, Bran eventually finds and destroys the trap (and the Key—supposedly, that is) in the sort of running battle with the mage who killed his mother that pauses while he dives into a lake to rescue the miraculously alive Astara and ends with everyone pretty much back where they started, poised for the next episode. Not a stand-alone, or, for that matter, a stand-at-all. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4022-4059-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
Stewart and Riddell cap their Edge Chronicles with a large-scale grand tour and cast reunion. Several generations after the events in Freeglader (2004), young orphan Nate Quarter is forced to flee for his life from a murderous mine supervisor—which becomes more or less a theme as, acquiring such doughty companions as the mine owner’s intrepid daughter Eudoxia and Librarian Knight Zelphyius Dax along the way, he comes and goes from Great Glade and several other cities or settlements that have grown up in the vast Deep Woods that border the overhanging Edge of the world. The long journey takes him through multiple battles, chases, rescues and political upheavals to mystical encounters with figures from the past in the ever-dark Night Woods and then on to a climax in the restored airborne city of Sanctaphrax. A huge cast teeming with multiple races of uneasily coexistent goblins, trolls and more, plus Dementor-ish gloamglozers and other deadly predators are all depicted in lovingly minute (and occasionally gruesome) detail in Riddell’s many pen-and-ink portraits and add plenty of color to this vigorous sendoff. (Fantasy. 11-13)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-375-83743-2
Page Count: 688
Publisher: David Fickling/Random
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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