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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantasy goes Horror, October 9, 2006
Alexa and her friends are back in this somewhat creepy sequel, and although this one has more action, the imagery is kinda gross in places. Returning to her favorite chair in the library approximately one year after the death of Warvold, Alexa reunites with an old friend and receives a letter that sends her back out into the lands beyond the wall, and into more danger.
Again, she faces up to a long and perilous trek, living on dried meat, fruit and nuts, until she meets a stranger who is to guide her on her quest. Trouble is, he's got a big "C" branded on his forehead, meaning that he's been judged to be a criminal in the past.
Armed with a magical stone that gives her the power to talk to the animals, the little group of unwashed and decidedly stinky humans, and the much cleaner animals and other friends travel beyond the Valley of Thorns, which is made up of deadly poisoned spikes, cross the City of Dogs with its packs of rabid canines, and sneak into the town of Castalia where stands the dreaded Dark Tower.
There they face the latest in a line of evil rulers, who uses swarms of infectious bats and gross oozing ogres to do his foul bidding, but does not realize that Alexa and her friends have a plan to bring down his cruel empire. As the group of good guys gets bigger, the action steps up, and the book runs along to its "to be continued" conclusion.
The religious undertones get much stronger in this one, but I liked it more than the first because of the gross-out content and constant action.
Not for children who get creeped out by death and pestilence.
Amanda Richards, October 9, 2006
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read it before letting your kids at it., October 20, 2005
Great new story trilogy. Excellent character descriptions and charming character interaction. The only thing I suggest is reading it yourself before letting your kids read it, and certainly not for kids under 10. I'm claustrophobic and had some squirmy moments while reading some of the antics the characters get up to (yes I know it's fiction, that doesn't make any difference!) and there are gruesome and scary bits and sad moments too. Otherwise I highly recommend this as it is not at all patronizing or condescending in its tone. In particular, girls of 10+ will love it. I'm 39 and I loved it too!
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Rule Number One: There Are No Rules, April 14, 2006
When writing a fantasy series, it's important to figure out what exactly kind of series you are writing. Are you doing a jovial "Wizard of Oz" deal with ragamuffin characters against a big cruel world? Is it more in line with "The Lord of the Ring" and stresses how even the smallest of heroes are important? Or are you more along the lines of "The Prydain Chronicles" where a hero has a kind of personal growth through his/her adventures? Ruling out number three entirely, author Patrick Carman has instead decided to do something along the lines of a small ragtag group facing down a greater evil. You wouldn't actually know this from Book One in "The Land of Elyon" series since the first book was more concerned with a tiny battle in a town, rather than a big swooping worldwide battle of vast proportions. Now, with Book numero dos, Carman seeks to skew off in another direction entirely. By page 18 Alexa has ditched her humdrum life and is off for adventures far more dangerous than she's ever had to deal with before. The result is interesting if not always coherent.
Alexa and friends picked a heckuva time to tear down the walls protecting their cities. Once again she's traveling with her father to spend some time in the great city of Bridewell. Alexa well remembers the year before when she briefly had the ability to talk to animals and was able to save the city of Bridewell from large hoards of escaped convicts. This year she's certain that things will be much calmer. That is, until the secret entrance in the library is breached and Alexa receives a letter from the now year-long dead Warvold telling her to prepare for yet another adventure. In doing so Alexa is given the last existing Jocasta, the magical stone that holds great powers and the ability to speak with animals. Now Alexa and her little band must learn the truth behind the evil that lurks in the Land of Elyon and find a way to defeat it at last.
Okay. So remember when "Book 1: The Dark Hills Divide" ended with a little Afterword by Alexa saying something along the lines of "I never heard another animal speak again"? Yeah, that was a lie. By page 34 she's chatting it up with squirrels and wolves once again. So Carman likes the grand sweeping statements, even if he doesn't particularly care for following through on them. A better example comes when you compare the rules of Book One with Book Two. Remember how Alexa learned that if she ever entered a civilized city she'd lose the ability to talk to animals? Well apparently Castalia, which is most certainly a city, doesn't count. After all, she walks in and out without any detriment to her ability to decipher wolf-speak. Obviously Carman has lost track of his own rules. In this book I also noticed a new writing quirk of the author's that hadn't caught my eye before. Any time someone is telling a story or reading a tale from a letter and they pause for breath, you inevitably have Alexa saying, "I got the feeling things were about to get even scarier". This happens over and over again. And trust me, there is nothing to make a scene LESS scary than someone telling you that it's going to get worse. There are plot gaps as well. At one point the BFG Armon gives a town of weaponless peasants a big bag of armory items. We never learn where this bag came from or how the last remaining giant in the world would go about gathering such items. Details weigh narratives of this nature down, I suppose. On to the bloody battles!
Actually, I was pleased with the action in this book. "The Dark Hills Divide" was slow on the danger. Now we have swarms of vicious bite-you-till-you're-evil bats and one of the good guys definitely dies. In the first book the danger didn't feel real and none of the good guys got more than a blow to the ribs. Carman does cheat a bit by having a dead character reappear once again, but it doesn't feel forced or rose-from-the-deadish so it works within the context of the story. If Elyon raised this person from the grave that would be another matter. Ah, yes. Elyon. That's where these books start to get odd.
Let's talk religion now. When I read "The Dark Hills Divide", I had an inkling of a sense that Carman was trying to make his books bear far greater weight than their sparse worlds could contain. Which is to say, I could see he was trying to pull a "Narnia" on us. Throughout this series we hear about the beneficent creator Elyon who brought everything good into the world. In this second novel we find that Elyon once created angel-like followers (or Seraphs). The best of these, Abaddon, turned against Elyon and tricked all the Seraphs into leaving Elyons' Tenth City. Obviously Elyon should've seen this coming when he put the word "bad" in the guy's name. Now instead of killing Abaddon off for his duplicity (and thereby rendering this series far shorter) Elyon the all-powerful creator simply trapped him in a pit where he waits to be destroyed by a thirteen-year-old girl. Now I'm not one to read too much Christian allegory into something of this nature, but it seems to me that Carman wants to have his spiritual cake and eat it too. Mixing religion with fantasy usually only works if, like "The Sign of the Qin" by L.G. Bass, it ties directly into an already existing series of fables or beliefs. Here the whole Elyon thing is still left too unclear. If Elyon is like God then why doesn't he just destroy all the bad guys in one fell swoop? Even a basic explanation of this would be better than none at all.
As always, Carman is an amusing writer who definitely knows how to move a story along with a deft hand. He just loses track of his own details and rules a bit too often. A good editing and this book would certainly have passed muster. Just plug in some explanations, follow the already established rules, and poof! Instant fantasy classic. It's still certainly readable but it blends in a little too well with the millions of other mediocre fantasy classics available today. Fine but nothing to crow about.
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