From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6–Thirteen-year-old Hunter Steele, who suffers from severe arachnophobia, is shocked when he accidentally falls through a tunnel to the center of the Earth and finds himself in Arachnia, a world filled with intelligent, 10-foot-long spiders. The humans who reside there live in peace with them and ride on their backs into battle against the sinister Insectors. Hunter's only hope of returning home is to become one of these Spider Riders. He quickly–and unbelievably–conquers his terror when the plot demands it and, again unbelievably, thinks of a clever plan to save the Spider Riders within a few hours of arriving. The spider he rides talks exactly the way one would expect a smart-mouthed cartoon sidekick to speak.
This is a shallow, pedestrian, by-the-numbers adventure, but it is also the novelization of an animated TV series scheduled to launch before the end of this year.
–Walter Minkel, New York Public Library Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Product Description
The basis for an action adventure animé television series to launch in 2005the first of five novels introducing the world of Arachnia, for 9-12-year-oldsthis is the story of a boy and his spider. Only this spider happens to be ten feet tall. When thirteen-year-old Hunter Steele chases a spider into a mysterious cave, he ends up falling straight down to the center of the Earth, into the fantastic subterranean world of Arachnia. Here, he discovers a small band of elite warriors struggling to survive and to save Arachnia from the attack of giant insect mutants. The warriors are kids, just like Hunter, each fighting with the help of their own three-ton, ten-foot battle spiders. They call themselves "Spider Riders."
In Shards of the Oracle, Hunter arrives in Arachnia just as a magical stone tablet known as the Oracle has been stolen and smashed into eight pieces, each hidden in a hostile location. Hunter wants to help, but first he must capture, train, and learn to trust the spider who will be his partner, a colossal Wanderer Spider, he names Shadow. Together, Hunter, Shadow, and the other Spider Riders battle to recover the Oracle and restore its power.
Shards of the Oracle (Spider Riders: Book One) is the basis for the first season of a 30-minute children's action adventure animé television series currently in production and scheduled to launch in 2005. Spider Riders is destined to become as popular for older kids as Yu-Gi-Oh! and its predecessors Pokémon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 8-page color insert.
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