A pre-fab grab at pre-Pern preteens.
The unsuspecting world is threatened by deadly dragons and dragon riders from a parallel world in this series opener.
Leading off a projected multiauthor series attached to a game with online and table-top versions, Sage phones in an initial episode that reads like Anne McCaffrey fanfic interwoven with a sketchy subplot. Sad and lonely 11-year-old Londoner Sirin Sharma recalls old tales learned from her dying mother of how the peaceable dragons who once flew Earth’s skies turned to evil Raptors and were exiled. Meanwhile, the fire-breathing descendants of said exiles and their telepathically Locked riders, all of whom have been at war for so long that their world is devastated, discover that a silver dragon—the only hue that can travel between universes—has been hatched for the first time in ages. Said hatchling, Lysander, and orphaned shepherd lad Joss Moran, who finds and Locks with him, are captured, discover unexpected allies winged and otherwise, have an extended (and nonfatal) aerial battle, then escape to this world just in time to save Sirin from bullying girls. The human cast, all except possibly Central Asian Sirin evidently white, has no agency in the tale or the entire scenario aside from providing the dragons with easy food (one way or another), and with no evident sign that the larger story has a direction, the author leaves everything, and everyone, up in the air.
A pre-fab grab at pre-Pern preteens. (game rules, URL, and detachable trading cards not seen) (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-86496-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2018
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride.
Zipping back and forth in time atop outsized robo–bell bottoms, mad inventor Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) legs his way to center stage in this slightly less-labored continuation of episode 9.
The action commences after a rambling recap and a warning not to laugh or smile on pain of being forced to read Sarah Plain and Tall. Pilkey first sends his peevish protagonist back a short while to save the Earth (destroyed in the previous episode), then on to various prehistoric eras in pursuit of George, Harold and the Captain. It’s all pretty much an excuse for many butt jokes, dashes of off-color humor (“Tippy pressed the button on his Freezy-Beam 4000, causing it to rise from the depths of his Robo-Pants”), a lengthy wordless comic and two tussles in “Flip-o-rama.” Still, the chase kicks off an ice age, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the Big Bang (here the Big “Ka-Bloosh!”). It ends with a harrowing glimpse of what George and Harold would become if they decided to go straight. The author also chucks in a poopy-doo-doo song with musical notation (credited to Albert P. Einstein) and plenty of ink-and-wash cartoon illustrations to crank up the ongoing frenzy.
Series fans, at least, will take this outing (and clear evidence of more to come) in stride. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-17536-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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