A grim, gruesome, overly ambitious jumble.
A blacksmith’s apprentice and a sword-wielding princess unite to defend their conquered people against periodic plagues of murderous monsters.
Having endured a reign of terror for centuries, thanks to hordes of murderous monsters released at unpredictable intervals by high-tech conquerors the Elduari, the people of Varen have split into cowed appeasers and surreptitious rebels. Among the latter is young Argo, who’s fretting at signs that another Release is imminent, and his chance-met ally, Ana, who’s bent on revenge against those who killed her little sister. The rebels have not only the super-powered Elduari and their vicious creations to battle but also their own people, many of whom are too frightened to resist or are actually secret spies bearing futuristic surveillance gear. Bachmann must therefore resort to unlikely contortions to keep his protagonists alive, first through multiple battles with overwhelmingly powerful foes, and then, in a ham-fisted effort to complicate the moral landscape, a climactic confrontation with the Elduari king, who offers a thoroughly unconvincing justification for the centuries of slaughter before making way for a tidily simplistic resolution. Still, from the eldritch masked Elduari and their terrifying minions to his depictions of hideous transformations and gory murder sprees, the author does show a knack for creating gut-wrenching horrors. Readers with properly strong stomachs may be inclined to forgive the contrivances. The cast reads white.
A grim, gruesome, overly ambitious jumble. (map) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780063210394
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2024
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
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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