Apocalypse [Hardcover]

Tim Bowler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 2004

After a dramatic accident, Kit and his parents find themselves washed up on a small island. But there is no sanctuary here. The local community is hostile and menacing. Soon Kit's life is in danger and he is forced to face not just the inhabitants but a disturbing new arrival whose presence on the island terrifies the community. In his struggle to stay alive and make sense of what is happening Kit is forced to confront good and evil in unexpected forms, even within himself, and face trials and dangers beyond anything he could have imagined. Tim Bowler's most recent novel, "Starseeker", has sold over 50,000 copies to date.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–This creepy, allegorical thriller by a Carnegie Medal-winning author grabs readers from the very first page. Kit, 15, and his parents are sailing in unfamiliar, fog-shrouded waters when their boat rams into jagged rocks. His parents don't believe Kit when he admits that he lost control of the helm after he saw an older man's face, identical to his own, beneath the waves. They manage to get to a nearby island that appears to be deserted until Kit spots a lone girl nimbly jumping from cliff to cliff. When he and his parents set off after her, they discover a small group of religious fanatics living there. Their request for help is met with hostility, particularly toward Kit, and the islanders threaten them with clubs and stones. Soon after, the teen returns to camp to find his parents gone and their tent torn to pieces. In his search for them, Kit repeatedly encounters his mysterious doppelganger. The islanders believe that this man is the Devil and his return will herald the start of the Apocalypse and the end of the world. Is he really the Devil and Kit his spawn, as the islanders believe? Or is he God? Bowler has written a timely and thought-provoking cautionary tale of good versus evil. The unsettling climax may disappoint some readers who prefer rational endings but the concept of belief versus reality rings true. The story is beautifully written and its themes are intriguing.–Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 10-12. While sailing on open waters, an accident forces Kit and his parents ashore on a forbidding island. Its community of religious fanatics wants Kit dead (his distinctive birthmark marks him as the devil's spawn), and when Kit's parents disappear, the panicked teen plummets into "a hell that seemed to have been created specially for him." His unsettling sense of kinship with "the naked man," an enigmatic island figure whom the villagers regard as the devil incarnate, suggests that Kit has been summoned by ambiguous and cataclysmic forces. Bowler's novels are often compared with those of fellow Carnegie Medal winner David Almond, but Bowler's writing is less controlled, and this novel's religious symbolism overwhelms rather than extends Kit's personal story. Still, the precisely imagined setting and dramatic writing will be sufficient to impel many readers forward, and the scene in which Kit is crucified and nearly dies is surely among the most harrowing depictions of physical agony in YA literature. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Oxford Childrens (October 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192719262
• ISBN-13: 978-0192719263
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,003,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best novels I have ever read, January 2, 2012

By 

Ian Wardell "Ian Wardell" (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apocalypse (Hardcover)

I'm hard pressed to think of many other novels that I've read in my life which I enjoyed more than this one. I read a total of 50 novels in 2011 giving a score out of 100 for each one according to how much I enjoyed it. The highest score went to a novel called "The Map of Time" by Felix J.Palma to which I gave a score of 89. But I would give Apocalypse a score of 95. I would also say that it is better than the other books that Tim Bowler has written and which I've read -- even Starseeker and River Boy which were also both excellent.

The novel is aimed at the teenage market but adults will certainly not find it too simplistic! It is an extremely profound novel.

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy-going stuff with a totally disappointing ending!, March 5, 2006

By 

Inspector Gadget "Go Go Gadget Reviews" (On the trail of Doctor Claw) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apocalypse (Paperback)

I have only read one other book by Tim Bowler and that was Starseeker. I loved it and regarded it as the best book of that particular year. I don't know why it took me so long to get around to reading one of his other novels but I grabbed Apocalypse from the store shelf almost randomly. It was a good read, until the end came!

Kit and his parents are sailing around near what one assumes to be the Northwest Coast of Scotland in their boat the Windflower. Kit has been suffering from vivid nightmares and a fog unlike no other engulfs the boat. While steering, Kit sees a model boat floating in the sea, he reaches over to inspect it and sees what appears to be a man with his own (admittedly ugly-he has a large black birthmark down his face and neck) face clutching the boat from beneath the waves. His momentary lapse in concentration causes the Windflower to crash into a huge rock and they end up run aground on a nearby island.

The island isn't so big so they go off in look for help. Kit sees the strange man (who is constantly naked for some reason), bruised and beaten, trying to pull himself out of the water down on the beach. His parents don't believe him and continue their search for inhabitants.

They find them. But they are less than welcoming. And a lynch mob almost chases them off the island before a wise elder gives them the chance to heave-ho by themselves. That night Kit's parents disappear and he is left to scour the island on his own looking for them.

He meets a 15-year-old girl called Ula who is an outcast among the islanders. She's is suspicious of him at first but they end up sticking together as the islanders become increasingly murderous, the strange naked man builds a huge cairn, a sea monster circles the island while moaning long and terrifying cries and massive tidal waves bomabard them repeatedly. Kit, Ula and the strange naked man are constantly put through unreal amounts of agonising pain over and over and you think there's no escape and no answer to any of this madness.

And you'd be right to think that. Dozens of questions go unanswered in the last pages. Who is this strange naked man with superhuman powers? Why does he have Kit's face? What is the deal with the Sea Monster? What is the deal with the waves? Why is the sea on fire? Why does Kit have nightmares? Why does he have intense connections to all of this madness that Ula doesn't? Why the time travel? What is the world building up to at the end? You'll be asking all of these and many, many more.

It's almost like Tim Bowler had some half-baked idea and wrote it down without finishing it. But his agent demanded a book right away and he just popped the unfinished Apocalypse in the mail to him. To stick with so much heavy-going reading all the way to a practically truncated ending is well out of order. His subtext of religious futility is at once underdeveloped, inconcruous and perhaps even hypocritical. He uses fantasy when he needs it to work and ignores it when the story speaks for itself.

I stand by my theory that this book is a work in progress that was printed before he got the chance to finish it and wrap up the zillions of loose ends. To tease us with so much mystery and leave without paying the bill is criminal.

If it made sense this would get 4, possibly more, out of five. As it is I can only give it a 3.