Every plot contrivance is a reason to put the book down, but there are just as many reasons to keep reading late into the...
The Randoms series rides plot contrivances along to its conclusion.
Back on Earth, Zeke and his friends are confident they’ll be able to save it from an alien invasion, but pretty quickly things get complicated. In the earlier volumes in this series, Liss gave the characters superhuman abilities that made them nearly invulnerable, but this third book is filled with pages and pages of technobabble to take those abilities away and put the characters convincingly back in danger. Many of the plot twists are clever. In the most ironic scene, Zeke needs to help his friends escape an enemy, but he can’t because he himself is trapped in an escape pod. And the alien species are always very alien; some of them literally play dice with the universe. The author clearly loves the Vulcan philosophy of “Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations” (and he clearly loves Star Trek, Marvel comics, and other nerd icons). Even the characters from Earth come from every country and every race. The team’s final battle, to save Earth from its enemies, is very satisfying. Unfortunately, before the battle, for large sections of the novel, Zeke and his friends keep important secrets from one another because—well, as they say on the internet, reasons.
Every plot contrivance is a reason to put the book down, but there are just as many reasons to keep reading late into the night. (Science fiction. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1785-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel.
Sure signs that the creative wells are running dry at last, the Captain’s ninth, overstuffed outing both recycles a villain (see Book 4) and offers trendy anti-bullying wish fulfillment.
Not that there aren’t pranks and envelope-pushing quips aplenty. To start, in an alternate ending to the previous episode, Principal Krupp ends up in prison (“…a lot like being a student at Jerome Horwitz Elementary School, except that the prison had better funding”). There, he witnesses fellow inmate Tippy Tinkletrousers (aka Professor Poopypants) escape in a giant Robo-Suit (later reduced to time-traveling trousers). The villain sets off after George and Harold, who are in juvie (“not much different from our old school…except that they have library books here.”). Cut to five years previous, in a prequel to the whole series. George and Harold link up in kindergarten to reduce a quartet of vicious bullies to giggling insanity with a relentless series of pranks involving shaving cream, spiders, effeminate spoof text messages and friendship bracelets. Pilkey tucks both topical jokes and bathroom humor into the cartoon art, and ups the narrative’s lexical ante with terms like “pharmaceuticals” and “theatrical flair.” Unfortunately, the bullies’ sad fates force Krupp to resign, so he’s not around to save the Earth from being destroyed later on by Talking Toilets and other invaders…
Is this the end? Well, no…the series will stagger on through at least one more scheduled sequel. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-17534-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 19, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic.
Chainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.
Every four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively. Gradually—too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic—it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school. This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish).
Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. (Fantasy. 11-13)Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-210489-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
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