Paraworld Zero (Parallel Worlds) [Paperback]

Matthew Peterson (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: Parallel Worlds

Simon Kent is just an ordinary 12 year old trying to cope with the loss of his parents and the bullies at school . . . or so he thinks. After meeting an outspoken girl with strange hair that changes colors with her mood, he is swept into a futuristic world filled with dragonlike creatures, vast technology, and enslaved giants. But Simon also stumbles upon a secret: He can perform magic in this parallel world! While fighting mystical creatures, unraveling an ancient mystery, and even experiencing his first kiss, Simon discovers that he, an outsider from Earth, is the only person who can save the high-tech planet from an impending doom.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5–7—The best thing that can be said about this book is that the painfully bad cover art should dissuade anyone from attempting to read it. The prose is ungainly and includes grammatical errors at regular intervals. The plot begins with a dark and stormy night straight out of the Bulwer-Lytton contest: "Rumbling sounds resonated from the darkness above, accompanied by a faint groan of atmospheric indigestion echoing in the distance." It doesn't improve. The story follows young Simon Kent, an orphan and a victim of bullies, as he is suddenly catapulted into a series of adventures by an encounter with a young student of magic. Tonya transports Simon to another "paraworld," one of many parallel universes. They have various adventures with Puds, ancient secrets, magic, space travel, etc., but the narrative is nearly impossible to read, let alone enjoy. If readers are looking for something involving parallel worlds, hand them Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves's wonderful Interworld (Eos, 2007).—Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
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Review

It's always a pleasure to find a new writer who is comfortable in that marvelous borderland between fantasy and science fiction. Even more of a pleasure to find one with flair and humour and a truly original imagination.

What do you get when the effect that produces parallel worlds also creates the phenomenon that we loosely call magic power? You get a lot of really weird beings with slightly faulty technology bursting into the lives of... well... some really weird people. You also get murderous villains, mighty warriors, goddess-like women, impossible problems and some of the wildest chases since the Keystone Kops. More fun than a barrel of computer games.

Read it. Trust me, you'll have a terrific time on that borderland. Especially in the company of Matthew Peterson. -- - Douglas Hill, bestselling author of nearly 70 books

Flame throwing pigeons and demonic dumpsters. Funny and imaginative.- Maria V. Snyder, award-winning author of Poison Study

The exciting action of Star Wars with the humor of Napoleon Dynamite... Paraworld Zero has strong potential to be popular among readers. --- Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Path and Crosspointe series

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 251 pages
• Publisher: Blue Works; 1st edition (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590924916
• ISBN-13: 978-1590924914
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,076,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Matthew Peterson is an award-winning and best-selling author, radio show host, second degree black belt in karate, Eagle scout, computer programmer and former missionary. He lives in Arizona with his wife, five boys and their giant African tortoise.

Matthew is the host of The Author Hour: Your Guide to Fantastic Fiction, where he interviews the top fiction authors of our day like Anne Rice, Terry Pratchett, Eoin Colfer, Diana Gabaldon, Meg Cabot, Terry Brooks, Ursula K. Le Guin, and dozens more. Listen to the online show at www.TheAuthorHour.com

Matthew's debut young adult fantasy novel and audiobook, Paraworld Zero, hit two bestseller lists and won, placed or honored in about 15 contests, including the ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards, Moonbeam Children's Book Awards, Indie Excellence Book Awards, and the Next Generation Book Awards. Reviewers are calling it a "Harry Potter meets Star Wars." Matthew and his wife created over 100 unique character voices for the audiobook.

In 2008, Matthew spearheaded a $100,000+ marketing campaign for Paraworld Zero, which included tours to eight states and two countries; dozens of interviews on radio, TV, and newspapers (over 6 million people read, saw, or heard the interviews); numerous school, library, and bookstore presentations; and ads in dozens of magazines and newspapers (i.e. The New York Times, The Bloomsbury Review, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, etc.). Go to www.ParaWorlds.com to learn more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Rubbish, January 27, 2011

By 

TheRealBMcD - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paraworld Zero (Parallel Worlds) (Paperback)

Imagine if a mentally retarded monkey was given a keyboard. The keyboard is covered in honey and ants and he starts to bang at it. What would come out of that is pretty much this book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cliched from One End to the Other..., February 10, 2010

By 

Jeff Walther - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paraworld Zero (Parallel Worlds) (Paperback)

The editorial review from "The School Library Journal" is the one to pay attention to, not the gushing endorsements which are strangely all shown twice. Also, in my opinion, many of the earlier reader reviews look more like requested endorsements than honest reader opinions, but maybe I believe that because I can't believe that anyone sincerely thought this book should be compared to any excellent work.

The writing is okay but only okay. It can't redeem the stiflingly cliched story line. This book starts with cliches and marshals them like soldiers in review. Then marches them through the pages, sometimes in column and sometimes in line abreast. This story smothers the reader in cliches. If you've ever read any coming of age story, you won't find anything new here.

This book might be entertaining to someone eight or younger. But really, why not read something with more flair, like "Time Warp Trio"? Or Kipling's "Kim" or "Jungle Book"? This is certainly not a book for young adults.

I would not be quite so harsh, given this is a first book, and authors should enjoy some encouragement, but the line of gushing reviews just rings so false to me, I feel someone needs to balance them. So this review is not harsher than I feel about this book, but it is harsher than I might otherwise voice.

Edit: I did a bit more research, because I'm just not used to reading something this bad in actual print. The author drew the cover himself, and it appears that the author fell in with a poor publisher (whom he is not longer with). In my opinion, a better quality publisher would have A) Not let the author do his own cover and B) either rejected this book or asked the author to improve it before publishing it.

Obey your first impulse when you see the cover, and avoid. There's nothing to see here. Move along...

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars One of the worst fantasy/sci-fi book of my life, January 3, 2010

By 

Water Pastelz (Ottawa, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paraworld Zero (Parallel Worlds) (Paperback)

This is one of the worst novels that I have ever read in my life. The writing was so poor, I honestly cannot begin to describe the pain this prose caused me. The descriptions are extremely immature, and resemble the ravings some mentally handicapped man narrating the story to hushed four year olds. The dialog is cheesy, cheap and EXTREMELY artificial. In the "Paraworld" no such thing as a plot exists, though despite that I gulped the entire book. It was an utter waste of my money, and my time.
The only reason it didn't get a single star, is because this is the work of a new author. Maybe, MAYBE, he'll get better as he writes more.
And as far as the cover art goes, I really don't want to comment on it. Really...