Into the Labyrinth [Hardcover]

Roderick Townley (Author)

Book Description

What a relief when the old story-book is republished and the characters who live inside it suddenly discover they have Readers again -- "lots" of Readers!

Princess Sylvie finds herself rushing to get to her place whenever a new Reader -- whether in Boston or Bangkok -- opens the book. Her mother, the queen, is especially frazzled when the popular story is loaded onto the Web, a weightless, "virtual" world of unforeseen challenges.

To cope with the stress, Sylvie convinces the Writer to add a new character, who gives yoga instruction to the storybook's cast in those moments when they have time off. But stress proves the least of their problems as strange things start happening -- words get changed around, scenes disappear -- and Sylvie and her friends must launch themselves into the labyrinth of cyberspace to confront a twenty-first-century evil that threatens to destroy their world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Princess Sylvie and her family, characters in the out-of-print storybook introduced in The Great Good Thing, are overjoyed when their tale is republished. This sequel, Into the Labyrinth by Roderick Townley, explores the special challenges and unimaginable threats faced by the characters when they are uploaded onto the World Wide Web. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-8-The premise of this novel is that readers don't read a story, they hear a story as it is acted out by its characters, and "if the characters aren't there, living and suffering on the page before you, nothing makes sense." In this sequel to The Great Good Thing (Atheneum, 2001), Princess Sylvie's adventure story has been republished, and she and the other characters have to adjust to their new popularity as Sylvie's quest to do one "great good thing" before her marriage is repeated to reader after reader. After their story is uploaded to the Internet, the characters have to adjust to their new digital existence, and they start experiencing "wordpools," holes and changes in their story that endanger their existence. The protagonist ventures into the World Wide Web, visiting a variety of sites where she is offered real but tasteless cookies, to find and confront the force responsible for the wordpools. While minor characters remain flat, Sylvie is an appealing, thoughtful, and involving heroine, pulling the fast-paced plot to its satisfying conclusion. Like William J. Brooke's Teller of Tales (HarperTrophy, 1995), this story looks at the possible stories behind what we read, offering a picture of a world where seeing a screen saver or a scroll bar from the inside seems logical. Townley provides enough background to help readers unfamiliar with the first book while not distracting from his story.
Beth L. Meister, Queens Borough Public Library, Flushing, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689846150
• ISBN-13: 978-0689846151
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,825,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not nearly as good as the first one, November 22, 2002

By 

Laura O. Brokaw (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Into the Labyrinth (Hardcover)

After reading and loving "A Great Good Thing," I was hoping for this sequel to be as well-written and charming. I was disappointed. It features the same wonderful characters, princess Sylvie and the "girl with the dark blue eyes," as well as the king and queen and all the other characters, but the plot doesn't hold together nearly as well. The author inserts a new character -- a yoga instructor named Rosetta-- into "the story" as an assistant shepherdess, and all the talk of energy projection lines and finding one's center is way above the heads of its 9-12 audience.

Instead of books and their readers, it tackles the problem of the Internet and its viewers -- that is, "the story" is published online. Instead of a little brother who is a pyromaniac and destroys the book in "A Great Good Thing," it seems to deal with a boy who spreads computer viruses -- but this part isn't very clear.

The story borders more on the zany type of puns and Alice-in Wonderland type plot, -- than than the clever, funny and fantastic but logical and believeable plot devices of the original. Characters from other stories wander into the text. Internet "cookies" look like lemon cookies, but are tasteless. Someone steals the "d's" in one paragraph. Entire lines of dialouge disappear, arrows become roses. Persumably all these thing happen due to a computer virus -- but there is no clear character behind or logical reason for the problems. The book suggests a little boy is to blame, but unlike the clear difficulties in the first book -- escaping a burning book and not being forgotten upon the death of the reader -- the villian is murky and there is not a logical direction to the problems. The mysterious villian is defeated eventually -- but you never do learn how or why the virus happened. And by the end of the book, you don't particulary care.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite Good!, May 11, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Into the Labyrinth (Sylvie Cycle) (Paperback)

Although the first book, The Great Good Thing, may have been better in some ways, this was still quite a good book! All the same characters from the first book are here plus new people. The usual characters continue in their roles in this book and do more and more. In Into the Labyrinth, the Writer puts Sylvie's story on the Internet. That's when their story gets a virus.
Just as they start getting used to climbing down the page, instead of across as in a book, they find that for some strange reason letters go missing, and words get mixed up. When Sylvie learns what a virus is from a friend and finds a way outside of the story, she becomes determined to solve the problem.
Into the Labyrinth is a creative, imaginative book!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but don't expect it to be as good as the first, March 22, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Into the Labyrinth (Sylvie Cycle) (Paperback)

First I must say Roderick Townley is a writing genius. However this is not his best work. In the first one he still doesn't make it completly understandable. In this one I think he isn't quite staying in the same place first one. I think he lose's topic a bit too much and tries to make it better than the first one. He fails in the attempt. I would recommend the book just don't expect a movie anytime soon.