Paraworld Zero

Matthew Peterson | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 26, 2009)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Parallel Worlds LLC
• ASIN: 0981922732
• Also Available in: Paperback  |  Audible Audio Edition  |  DVD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,391,437 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Harry Potter meets Star Wars" --WormsScifi.com

"...a must read for anyone who loves fantasy and for anyone who loves a good adventure/coming-of-age novel." --Flamingnet TOP CHOICE Award

"...a cross between Harry Potter's adventures and those of Artemis Fowl. Colorful characters, fast-paced adventure, and clever humor." --TeensReadToo.com

"Flame throwing pigeons and demonic dumpsters. Funny and imaginative." --Maria V. Snyder, NYT bestselling author of Fire Study

"The exciting action of Star Wars with the humor of Napoleon Dynamite" --Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of the Path and Crosspointe series

"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... 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 --Review

Product Description

Twelve-year-old earthling, Simon Kent, stumbles upon a secret that thrusts him into a bizarre adventure filled with magic, technology and deadly out-of-this-world creatures. He discovers a true friend, confronts his inner demons and becomes the savior to a peculiar race of people, when all he truly wants is to find his way back home.

Parallel to Simon's adventures is a mystery involving a catlike spy and a magical swordsman who both struggle to maintain peace among the paraworlds. But evil lurks in unexpected places, and few people can be trusted. Their paths ultimately lead them to Simon: the one boy who might be able to prevent the biggest assassination attempt in the known paraverse.

Paraworld Zero placed in five book/audiobook contests. This 10-disc Audio CD edition runs 12 hours and 28 minutes and includes over 100 unique character voices from the author and his wife.

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...