Emmy Laybourne is the author of Monument 14, a new YA post-apocalyptic tale about a world gone mad. Natural disasters and toxic chemical spills make life very difficult for the young protagonists scrambling to stay alive. Emmy dropped by the virtual offices to chat about her book.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] Describe yourself in 140 characters or less.
[Emmy Layton] I’m a YA novelist, musical theater writer, and recovered character actress who is also a mom to two kids and a lizard (adopted)!
[Manga Maniac Cafe] Can you tell us a little about Monument 14?
[Emmy Layton] Monument 14 is the story of fourteen kids who get trapped in a superstore (think Target) during a series of environmental catastrophies that leaves the world outside the store hostile and dangerous. It’s the story of how the kids come together and try to survive and take care of each other, despite their differences.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] How did you come up with the concept and the characters for the story?
[Emmy Layton] The idea for M14 actually began as a musical! I wanted to write a musical about a small colony of people living in a Wal-Mart. But then I decided to write it as a YA novel and everything changed. The only character who remains from my original notes and ideas for the musical is Astrid! In the musical idea I had a wild girl living up above the ceiling tiles. Astrid is that wild girl!
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What was the most challenging aspect of writing the book?
[Emmy Layton] It was hard to take characters that I created (and really ended up loving) and put them through so much anguish. Especially the young ones. As an author, I knew that the story needed to really move fast, the characters needed to be in danger and the tension needed to stay high until the very end. As a mother, well, I just wanted to make everything okay. The mommy part of me wanted to make NORAD find a way to quell the airborne chemicals and have Mrs. Wooly show up in a new bus to take all the kids home to their loving parents!
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What three words best describe Dean?
[Emmy Layton] Observant. Kind. Honest.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What are three things Jake would never have in his pocket?
[Emmy Layton] Great question! A calculator. A pack of raisins. A condom.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What is Alex’s single most prized possession?
[Emmy Layton] The analog alarm clock he took apart and put back together when he was five.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What are your greatest creative influences?
[Emmy Layton] Authors Anne Lamott, Kent Haruf, and Lynda Barry; UCLA professors Howard Suber, TIm Albaugh and Richard Walter; and the ten years I spent as comedy improviser.
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What three things do you need in order to write?
[Emmy Layton] At least 4 straight, uninterrupted hours; a good breakfast with plenty of protein; and my Classical Radiohead playlist on Pandora!
[Manga Maniac Cafe] What is the last book that you read that knocked your socks off?
[Emmy Layton] Hold Me Closer Necromancer, by Lish McBride. I loved the characters, the tone, the setting AND the story! It was such a cool world – it made me want to move to Seattle and work in a fast food joint and you really can’t say that about every book you read!
[Manga Maniac Cafe] If you had to pick one book that turned you on to reading, which would it be?
| Title: Monument 14 Author: Emmy Laybourne Publisher: Feiwel and Friends |
May Contain Spoilers
From Amazon:
| Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner. Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.
But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran. Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong. In Emmy Laybourne’s action-packed debut novel, six high school kids (some popular, some not), two eighth graders (one a tech genius), and six little kids trapped together in a chain superstore build a refuge for themselves inside. While outside, a series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a chemical weapons spill, seems to be tearing the world—as they know it—apart. |
Review:
I am fascinated by post-apocalyptic stories. I enjoy books where the disaster is unraveling without warning, forcing the protagonists to find hidden strengths and somehow survive the ensuing chaos. In Monument 14, Dean, a high school student, is running late for the bus. In his America, set a short-time in the future, there is a gas shortage, so everyone takes the bus to school. His mom is yelling at him to hurry up and get outside, or he’ll miss his ride to school. Racing out the door, he doesn’t even have time to tell her good-bye. As one disaster after another plays out, he begins to regret that he didn’t take that extra time. It is starting to look as though he won’t ever see her again, let alone live to tell her about his really, really bad day. I liked the urgency of the opening paragraphs – Dean doesn’t have time to do anything but barrel to meet his fate, and making that bus is going to have some alarming consequences for him.
A freak hailstorm destroys the bus and almost ends Dean’s life. Saved from a certain and painful death, Dean ends up in a superstore with a group of very different kids, running a spectrum of ages. With nobody but themselves to depend on, they have to work together to survive as one disaster after another wreaks havoc to the world outside. They actually have it good, considering the magnitude of the disasters that are unfolding outside. Secure in the store, they are safe and have plenty of supplies as they wait to be rescued. But as it becomes apparent that there isn’t going to be a rescue, they must take matters into their own hands. Should they stay safe inside the store? Or should they venture out into the unknown and look for their parents?
I enjoyed this read, despite some pacing issues. I also had to suspend disbelief in order for this story to work for me. The prose was strong enough that I decided to just sit back and follow along as Dean narrated his adventure. Circumstances weren’t all that dire for the kids
Galaxy Craze is an actress as well as an author. Her latest book, The Last Princess, is in stores now. Galaxy dropped by the virtual offices to chat about her post-apocalyptic tale, and she brought a present! She brought a copy of The Last Princess for one of you to win, so after the interview, enter for your chance to take this book home!
[Manga Maniac Café] Can you tell us a little about The Last Princess?
[Galaxy Craze] The Last Princess is a super fast-paced action-adventure YA book (for readers age 12 and up). It centers on sixteen-year-old Eliza Windsor’s (the youngest daughter of the King and Queen of England’s) fight to find her brother and sister and avenge her parents’ death.
[Manga Maniac Café] How did you come up with the concept and the characters for the story?
[Galaxy Craze] I worked closely with Joelle Hobeika, my editor at Alloy. They asked me to write this book and when I met with them they already had the title but our idea of the story changed a lot over time.
[Manga Maniac Café] What was the most challenging aspect of writing the book?
[Galaxy Craze] I don’t know if all writers feel this but the constant self doubt running through my head. I hear myself say "Why bother, there are enough books," or just the mantra of "I can’t do this!" That’s the hardest part—getting over the doubt.
[Manga Maniac Café] What three words best describe Eliza?
[Galaxy Craze] Determined, passionate, and loyal.
[Manga Maniac Café] What is Eliza’s single more prized possession?
[Galaxy Craze] Well, I guess a horse isn’t really a possession but I’ll have to say her amazing courageous horse Caligula.
[Manga Maniac Café] What are your greatest creative influences?
[Galaxy Craze] To be honest I’m struggling now with finding the focus and inspiration. When I became a mother, instead of seeing the beauty in things, now I see the danger. I used to get a lot of inspiration from nature but the last time I was at the beach with my children I was constantly on guard, looking at the ocean in a suspicious and fearful way I never had before.
[Manga Maniac Café] What three things do you need in order to write?
[Galaxy Craze] Strong English black tea ( I used to drink with whole milk but now I use soy milk), a pen or pencil, and paper. Oh and of course the ever elusive FOCUS.
[Manga Maniac Café] What is the last book that you read that knocked your socks off?
[Galaxy Craze] More than long fancy sentences and words I have to look up in the dictionary, what I look for in a writer, is clear picture. This is why I love Jean Ryhs author of The Wide Sargasso Sea. Her concise and simple prose create a clear picture and unbreakable atmosphere. Lines, moments and vision ring clear and true in her novels.
[Manga Maniac Café] If you had to pick one book that turned you on to reading, which would it be?
[Galaxy Craze] Charlotte’s Web. I remember sleeping over at a friend house in the English country side and crying into the pillow so I wouldn’t wake anyone.
[Manga Maniac Café] What do you like to do when you aren’t writing?
[Galaxy Craze] I like to run or take a really faced past Yoga class (I’m not sure I LIKE either but it’
| | Title: Above World Author: Jenn Reece Publisher: Candlewick ISBN: 978-0763654177 |
May Contain Spoilers
From Amazon:
| Thirteen-year-old Aluna has lived her entire life under the ocean with the Coral Kampii in the City of Shifting Tides. But after centuries spent hidden from the Above World, her colony’s survival is in doubt. The Kampii’s breathing necklaces are failing, but the elders are unwilling to venture above water to seek answers. Only headstrong Aluna and her friend Hoku are stubborn and bold enough to face the terrors of land to search for way to save their people. But can Aluna’s warrior spirit and Hoku’s tech-savvy keep them safe? Set in a world where overcrowding has led humans to adapt—growing tails to live under the ocean or wings to live on mountains—here is a ride through a future where greed and cruelty have gone unchecked, but the loyalty of friends remains true. |
Review:
After reading Dark Life by Kat Falls, I became fascinated by the idea of living in the ocean. When I saw Above World by Jenn Reese, I was chomping at the bit to read it. In this Middle Grade adventure, Aluna, a girl who lives in the ocean, must venture Above World to discover why the technology that allows her people to breathe underwater is failing. I loved the spunky Aluna, and I also thought that her best friend, Hoku, was a wonderful character, too. Both of them have to deal with very frightening situations, and as they face down death time and again, the thought of saving their people gives them the courage to continue on their journey.
When Aluna finds the body of one of her friends, she discovers that the elders are keeping a secret from the residents of her city – the breathing tech that allows the Kampii to live underwater is failing. Each Kampii has a bio-tech breathing necklace that keeps them from drowning. Several of the necklaces ceased functioning, and the elders, including Aluna’s father, have quickly covered up the resulting deaths, not wanting to start a panic. Instead of trying to discover why the necklaces are starting to fail, the elders are firmly denying that there is a problem. The Kampii in her city have kept themselves hidden from the Above World for generations, and they don’t want to have anything to do with the surface world. Aluna runs away from home, determined to save her people.
I loved the world building in this post-apocalyptic adventure. As the population swelled and the available land was consumed by growing numbers of people, new environments were exploited with the help of bio-technology. The Kampii, who are like mermaids, were allowed to live under the water with their necklaces. Centaurs were engineered to live in the desert, and Aviars were given wings so they could live on top of mountains. Disease swept through the human population, and chaos followed. Now the remaining life forms are at war, battling for control of the old technology.
Aluna is a strong, determined protagonist, and I liked her a lot. She is impulsive and stubborn, and these flaws work to get her out of many dicey situations. She isn’t able to give up, and and she can’t accept failure. That’s just not an option for her. The thought of quitting never occurs to her, even when she is standing up to very scary enemies that would have had me running, screaming, in the opposite direction
If you think the economy is bad now, just imagine if
chocolate was hard to find in the United States. Even worse that that: illegal! I think I would join Anya Balanchine's gangster family that deal in the illegal importing and selling of chocolate. (Me shuttering!!!) Coffee is illegal also, but that is not a big deal. (I used to believe it turned your knees black, so what is the allure? But I digress.) Anya's older brother, Leo, was permanently disabled in a "hit" meant for his father. In the same hit, their mother was killed. To add to the family trauma, as Anya and her little sister were playing under their father's desk, hit men broke into their home and executed him while he sat at the same desk. All over the control of chocolate and coffee. Anya's life is further complicated by a lousy boyfriend who is a villain. She is pursued by the son of the assistant DA, a star-crossed lovers situation if I ever saw one. Her grandmother, who should be the head of the family business, is slowly fading away. Even though Leo is older, Anya has to take on the burdens of her family. The lousy, now ex, boyfriend? He causes so much trouble that Anya ends up in jail at "Liberty House." The extended family are not helping Anya's dire situation either. I think the reader will really feel the pressure of a teenager who has far too many worries and responsibilities for her age, the horror of Liberty House, the economic decline of New York City, and the insanity that creates criminals.
ENDERS' Rating: **** Gabrielle's Website
Beckett, Bernard. (2006) Genesis. London: Quercus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84724-930-2. Author age: young adult. Litland recommends age 14+.
Publisher’s description:
The island Republic has emerged from a ruined world. Its citizens are safe but not free. Until a man named Adam Forde rescues a girl from the sea. Fourteen-year-old Anax thinks she knows her history. She’d better. She’s sat facing three Examiners and her five-hour examination has just begun. The subject is close to her heart: Adam Forde, her long-dead hero. In a series of startling twists, Anax discovers new things about Adam and her people that question everything she holds sacred. But why is the Academy allowing her to open up the enigma at its heart? Bernard Beckett has written a strikingly original novel that weaves dazzling ideas into a truly moving story about a young girl on the brink of her future.
Our thoughts:
Irregardless of whether you are an evolutionist or creationist, if you like intellectual sci-fi you’ll love this book. How refreshing to read a story free from hidden agendas and attempts to indoctrinate its reader into a politically-correct mindset. And while set in a post-apocalyptic era, the world portrayed is one in which inhabitants have been freed from the very things that sets humans apart from all other creation, including man-made. Once engulfed in the story, the reader is drawn into an intellectual battle over this “difference” between man and man-made intelligence. The will to kill; the existence of evil. A new look at original sin. And a plot twist at the end that shifts the paradigm of the entire story.
Borrowing from the American movie rating scale, this story would be a PG. Just a few instances of profanity, it is a thought-provoking read intended for mature readers already established in their values and beliefs, and who would not make the error of interpreting the story to hold any religious metaphors. The “myth” of Adam and Art, original sin and the genesis of this new world is merely a structure familiar to readers, not a message. The reader is then free to fully imagine this new world without the constraints of their own real life while still within the constraints of their own value system.
Genesis is moderately short but very quick paced, and hard to put down once you’ve started! Thus it is not surprising to see the accolades and awards accumulated by Beckett’s book. The author, a New Zealand high school teacher instructing in Drama, English and Mathematics, completed a fellowship study on DNA mutations as well. This combination of strengths gives Genesis its intrigue as well as complexity. Yet it is never too theoretical as to exclude its reader. See our review against character education criteria at Litland.com’s teen book review section. And pick up your own copy in our bookstore!
The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1), by James Dashner on GoodreadsRelease Date: October 6th, 2009
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Categories: Dystopian, Post-Apocalyptic, Sci-Fi
Challenge: 100 Books in a YearOther books in the series: The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner, #2),
The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3)Read in July 2011Summary from Goodreads:Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You're in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids -- the Runners -- venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.
Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he's unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, anddoes Thomas hold the key to finding a way out?
In The Maze Runner, Dashner has crafted a creative and engaging novel that's both mysterious and thought provoking.
My Opinion: I'd read a lot about this book, some really good reviews, and it had always been on top of my TBR list. So when I saw it in my local bookstore, I knew I had to buy it. Not that many American books find their way to Latin America, so I was really happy to find this one.
 |
| Cover of my/Latin American edition. |
The Boy at the End of the World
by Greg van Eekhout
Fisher's first moments of life could end up being his last. Born from a pod of bubbling gel, he comes to awareness in a lab that is collapsing around him. Fisher manages to escape with the help of a slightly dysfunctional (and humorous) robot that Fisher names Click from the noise that the robot makes. Fisher is the only "specimen" who survived the destruction of the Ark, which was built to preserve the species of the Earth, so he may be the last human left. Accompanied by Click and a young Mammoth that Fisher calls Protein, Fisher sets off to find out if there are any other humans surviving anywhere.
The Boy at the End of the World is a delightful post-apocalyptic novel that strikes the perfect tone for middle-grade readers. It's amusing, touching, and occasionally scary (the nano Intelligence that they meet is quite creepy), and it touches on themes of friendship and what it means to be human.
Fisher has "darkly pigmented" skin, giving this book bonus points for diversity. Here is an interesting post from author Greg van Eekhout talking about Fisher's skin color, the development of the cover, and his own background.
Buy The Boy at the End of the World from:
Amazon.com
Your local independent bookseller through IndieBound
Barnes & Noble
FTC required disclosure: Reviewed from ARC. Review copy provided by the publisher to enable me to write this review. The bookstore links above are affiliate links, and I earn a very small percentage of any sales made through the links. Neither of these things influenced my review.
Rot & Ruin
by Jonathan Maberry
Benny Imura was just a toddler on First Night, when the world fell to the zombies, but he has flashes of memory from that night. He remembers his half-brother Tom taking him and running away, leaving his mother behind to become one of the walking dead. Because of this, Benny knows that Tom is a coward, even if other people think he's some bad-ass zombie hunter. Benny refuses to apprentice with Tom, even though he has to find a job by the time he turns fifteen, or his rations will be cut in half. Finally, jobless on the eve of his fifteenth birthday, Benny has no choice but to ask Tom to take him on as an apprentice zombie hunter. But when Tom takes Benny on his first trip into the Rot & Ruin, the zombie-infested world outside the walls of the town, Benny begins to learn that things are not as simple as he expected. For who can make sense of a world where heroes become monsters and monsters turn out to be human?
I'm not all that interested in zombies, and when this book was nominated for the Cybils award, I resisted reading it initially. But when several of my fellow Cybils panelists not only added it to their working shortlists, but actively pushed for it, I had to read it. I was glad that I did!
Rot & Ruin is not only an action-packed story with suspenseful scenes that will keep you reading late into the night, but it also has depth and character development. The heart of the story is Benny's developing relationship with Tom, and coming to terms with the past and the present. Even killing zoms is not as simple as it seems; Benny learns from Tom to recognize that they once were human, with loved ones who might mourn them still. As often is the case in horror, the real monsters are not the zombies, but the humans.
On its surface, Rot & Ruin is a zombie novel, but it's really much more than that. At it's heart it's a Western, with some Samurai mythos added for good measure. (But then, there are close ties between Westerns and Samurai movies, anyway). In one scene where Tom steps into a confrontation, I swear I could hear the music from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in my head.
There's an ethnic diversity in this book that feels genuine, not forced. Of course the survivors of a diverse nation would be diverse, and the population of the town of Mountainside reflects that. Benny himself is half Japanese, and his half-brother Tom is a full Japanese-American. (Tom and Benny share a father but have different mothers). Tom is a hot guy, a deadly fighter, and yet sensitive too, which makes a welcome change from the frequent stereotypes.
With a couple of strong female characters, and a credible teen romance (from a guy's point of view), Rot & Ruin has something for everyone.
Rot & Ruin was the 2010 Cybils Winner for Teen Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Buy
The Stand: Captain Trips
The Stand: American Nightmares
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Mike Perkins
Based on The Stand by Stephen King
Stephen King's The Stand is one of my favorite books of all time. It's one of those books that I go back to and reread from time to time. So I was excited when I heard about the new graphic novel adaptations from Marvel Comics, written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and illustrated by Mike Perkins. I haven't read many graphic novels, but it's something that I've wanted to get more into, so I thought this would be a great opportunity. I wasn't disappointed.
Marvel is releasing the story in installments, first as comics, then as hardcover books collecting five comics in each hardcover. The first hardcover is The Stand: Captain Trips, and it tells the story of the spread of the deadly bio-engineered virus that comes to be known as Captain Trips. In the second hardcover, The Stand: American Nightmares, the survivors of the modern plague begin to travel, in search of help or other survivors, while being plagued by nightmares of a dark man.
One of the best things about the original book is the characters; there is a large and diverse cast of characters representing all aspects of humanity. Some of them you can't help but love, others are ambiguous, and others are strongly in the camp of darkness. Stephen King brings all these characters to vivid life, and The Stand is really the story of how these characters weather the crisis and the aftermath, and what choices they make in the larger battle between good and evil. Bringing these characters to visual life on the page had to be one of the biggest challenges for Aguirre-Sacasa, Perkins, and the team, and they succeeded brilliantly. As an appendix to the first book makes clear, the team gave much time and attention to getting the characters right, and I think it paid off. Most of the characters look pretty much the way I imagined them, although the characters on the dark side tend towards an exaggeration in appearance that isn't to my taste, but that is probably the norm in the comics genre.
The same attention to detail was applied to the locations, from the beautiful seaside town of Ogunquit, Maine, to the streets of New York City. The appendix to the second book explains how Mike Perkins traced Larry's route through New York City and took photographs, and how he used those photographs to create the panels in the book.
The graphic novel is very true to the book, and although the scenes are necessarily abbreviated, the pictures do much to fill in the details, as they should. I was particularly interested to see how they would handle the famous Lincoln Tunnel scene, one of the scariest scenes I've read in a
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on 5/22/2010
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REVIEWS OF UNUSUAL SIZEA million books! Give or take. It's been far too long since I've updated my reading list and reviews on here. I'm not sure why. If I'd just write the dang review right after I read it, I wouldn't have such a daunting pile of books in front of me! Onward!
BOOKS
5 THINGS ABOUT...
TANNER'S TWELVE SWINGERS
by Lawrence Block
1999, 272 pages
1 - The third book in the
Sam at Parenthetical.net is having an "Old-School Apocalypse April" this month. Throughout April, she'll be rereading "old favorite" apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic books from the 1980s to see how they hold up. Check out the Old-School Apocalypse April here.
POD
by Stephen Wallenfels
At exactly 5:00am on March 14, the invasion begins. It starts with a horrible screeching noise, then black spheres descend from the sky and vaporize people and cars in the streets with beams of light. After the streets are cleared, the spheres just hang there, mysteriously. Telephones, internet, and all other electronic communications are shut down, and the streets remain a danger zone.
Sixteen-year-old Josh, trapped with his father in their house in Prosser, Washington, calls the spheres Pearls of Death, or PODs for short. Meanwhile, a twelve-year-old girl named Megs is trapped in a hotel parking garage in Los Angeles, when her mother leaves her in the car just before the invasion, promising to return in an hour.
The book alternates between Josh’s and Megs’ stories, as each deals with the aftermath of the invasion. Both are surrounded by people, and yet in some sense alone. Josh’s father obsessively organizes their limited resources, while refusing to allow Josh to talk about his mother, missing and possibly dead in the invasion. Josh can see the people in the apartment building across the street, but with no communications and the streets unsafe, they might as well be on Mars.
Megs spends her time hiding in the garage from the denizens of the hotel; her instincts warn her that she’s safer on her own. When she can, she scavenges food, water, and other resources from the other cars to survive.
POD is science fiction at its best: a gripping post-apocalyptic novel that keeps you on the edge of your seat, yet has human character and human relationships at its heart. One of the fascinating things about post-apocalyptic SF is a chance to look at what can happen to society when life becomes dangerous and resources scarce. The aliens are not the scariest thing in this book; that honor goes to the people who will do anything for food, water, or antibiotics, and the people who use the situation to their own advantage.
POD is a fairly short book, and a quick read. Once you start, you won’t want to put it down. The two stories are a little unbalanced for the first part of the book, in that Megs faces more immediate danger than Josh. Josh's story is more of a relationship story which, while compelling, is slower to develop, and at first I kept wanting to switch back to Megs’ story.
The characters are fascinating and well-developed. Josh's point of view is so well-written that even as an adult and a parent, I sided with Josh in his conflicts with his dad, and felt that his dad was being unreasonable. Megs is a likable, spunky girl who has well-developed survival skills from an unstable pre-invasion home life.
The length of this book might make you wonder if it would be appropriate for middle-grade readers. But this is definitely a YA, not middle-grade book: there are people (and animals) getting vaporized and killed and hurt in horrible ways, and dead bodies bloating after days (weeks) hanging around. Some middle-grade readers may enjoy it, but others might find it too frightening.
POD is the first book in a trilogy, and some questions are left unanswered at the end.
FTC required disclosure: Review copy provided by the publisher to enable me to write this review. The Amazon.com links above are Amazon Associate links, and I earn a very small percentage of any sales made through the lin
The Keeper's Shadow
The Longlight Legacy, book 3
by Dennis Foon
In this exciting and powerful conclusion to The Longlight Legacy, time is running out as Darius, Master of the City, begins to accelerate his plans towards an unknown purpose. People are dying, victims of a new technology that seems to rip out their very life force. And Darius appears to be building a new Dreamfield construction that just may make his power unstoppable.
Roan has found the mountaintop sanctuary of the Apsara, a secret group of warrior women descended from one of the four original rebel armies. There, he attempts to forge an alliance between the Apsara, the Brother - the religious sect responsible for the destruction of Roan's village - and other diverse groups both inside and outside the city, to fight the growing power of Darius. But Roan knows that half the battle will be fought in the Dreamfield, so Roan and Lumpy set off on a quest to find the abandoned Foresight Academy, a school founded by the Dirt Eaters, in hopes of finding a map of the Dreamfield in the library there.
Meanwhile, Stowe has escaped the City, but is alone and in bad shape, possessed by a Dirt Eater bent on using or destroying her. Willum and Mabatan find her, but exorcising the Dirt Eater possessing her could kill her or damage her psyche. While Willum tries to save Stowe, Mabatan works to help Alandra, Roan's Dirt Eater friend, as she suffers Dirt withdrawal.
As the various groups converge on the camp of the Brother for a conference of war, Roan tries to find a way to bring the disparate, and sometimes contentious, groups together. Because only by uniting their diverse abilities do they have a prayer of defeating Darius.
The Keeper's Shadow is not only a worthy conclusion, it's probably the best book of the series. Foon masterfully brings together all the elements that he set in motion in the previous books. Roan really comes of age in this book as he struggles to learn how to be a leader, a role he is reluctantly thrust into. All the other characters are wonderful - deep and complex and often more than what they appear to be. Lumpy really comes into his own, showing a keen intelligence and insight coupled with a compassion for all living things that gives him a unique ability to bring people together.
While religious and mystical themes play a role in all the books, they really come to the fore in The Keeper's Shadow. The book probes deeply into questions of faith and belief, as Roan struggles to figure out how to lead a religion he doesn't personally believe in, and other characters are shown to have a surprising faith even in the face of personal knowledge. (I can't say more than that without giving away some plot points). Questions are raised, such as, if a religion or a prophecy is "made up," does that mean that it can't also be true? And, of course, the Dreamfield itself, that mystical "other world" of the psyche, plays a key role, as Roan encounters the living, the dead, and even a god there.
Read my reviews of book 1, The Dirt Eaters, and book 2, Freewalker. You can also read my interview with author Dennis Foon here.
freewalker
by Dennis Foon
The Longlight Legacy, book 2
In The Dirt Eaters, Roan and his sister Stowe were the only survivors of Longlight, a town living by principles of peace and hidden away from a world devastated by war and toxic waste, until it was destroyed by raiders and its inhabitants massacred. Roan escaped, but he was unable to save Stowe, who was captured and taken away to the city.
Now Roan is living in Newlight, a sanctuary where he is attempting to start a new life, along with friends he met in his travels: Lumpy, a Mor-Tick survivor, and Alandra, a healer. The three of them are caring for fourteen children that they rescued from being sent to the city to be used by the Masters of the City. Like Roan and Stowe, the fourteen children have special abilities, which Alandra has cautiously begun to explore. Alandra has been taking the children to the Dreamfield, a dimension of the spirit that can be reached by eating Dirt, a substance mined from an asteroid impact site which conveys special mental powers to those who eat it. Then disaster strikes, as all fourteen children simultaneously fall into a coma. When Alandra is unable to awake them, Roan and Lumpy set off to try to find a way to save the children.
Meanwhile, Stowe has been deified in the city as "Our Stowe," an idol created by the Masters to control the population through worship. Stowe is no longer the frightened child she was when she was brought to the city; her training and her experiences have made her wise beyond her years. She plays her roles well - loving adopted daughter to Darius, the Eldest, as well as the idol Our Stowe, but she knows that she is being used and manipulated by Darius. Stowe's growing powers are formidable, but she is as yet no match for the Masters and Darius, so she meekly bides her time until she can find a way to escape.
It's impossible to try to describe these books in a few paragraphs, and my description above barely scratches the surface of this rich, complex book. As I was reading this book, it struck me that it reminds me in some ways of one of my all-time favorite books, Frank Herbert's Dune. Beyond the obvious similarity between The Longlight Legacy's Dirt and Dune's melange, both addictive substances with mind-enhancing abilities, there's a complex web of politics and shifting allegiances and secret orders and spies and traitors and mysticism here that evokes a sense of Dune without being derivative.
In spite of these similarities, The Longlight Legacy is a highly original series. Foon has done an amazing job of creating a richly detailed world populated by a variety of cultures and characters. In this second book of the series, we finally get to know Stowe, and she's quite a compelling character - in some ways she's still a young girl, and a girl wounded by her experiences, in other ways, she's as wily and manipulative as the Masters who trained her. Stowe is also addicted to Dirt, an addiction that sometimes drives her to extremes.
Then there's Roan, who is wrestling with both the demons of the past and prophecies of the future. Roan must confront his own demons of guilt and loss before he can help the children. Along the way, his preconceptions, and those of the reader, are shattered time and again, as people turn out to be different than Roan has come to believe.
The story is intense and holds your interest, although I did find Stowe's story to be the more compelling of the two in this book. This is definitely a series that I'm going to want to go back and read again.
There are some horrifying things in the book, such as organ harvesting from children to keep the Masters alive, so this isn't a book for sensitive readers. Although there is a summary of the first book at the beginning of this one, I highly recommend reading The Dirt Eaters first because of the complexity of the series.
I was asked to a contribute to an anthology of poems and illustrations for 10-14 year olds, with the subject matter being totally open. Don't ask me why I came up with an underwater rave party! it just came out, and was a lot of fun to do.
Just wondering what you think of the composition?
The jellyfish will be the light sources (think laser light show!) and the eel is a black light eel.
I'm going to do this in colour, for my folio, but the anthology itself is in black and white - so i guess i'll just have to be very conscious of the value and tone when i am painting. Any ideas of how to make it vibrant in B&W (seeing how raves are such psychedelic crazy colours) ?
Thanks all!
By:
Maggie Summers,
on 8/26/2007
Blog:
A Latte a Day
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We had visitors swim in this past week to help Captain SeaCroft in his quest to clean up the sea: Boris Blowfish, Jasper Jellyfish, BuckStar (and you thought I was going to say Starbucks didn't you?) Clam-mity and Corabell Clownfish.
I think I'm in the sea, snail and bug mode of illustrating right now. This illo is not part of the original "captain" concept but one I've had in my sketchbook for some time. These cheery fellows were just wiggling off the page saying "pick us to be your visitors please!"
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Quick correction: Georgess McHargue got her NBA nomination for THE IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE, not THE BEASTS OF NEVER.
Wow. Now that I know I was being manipulated by a “band of hippie hammer-lovers” or imperialist loving trains I don’t think I’ll look back on my son’s early childhood the same again. Although honestly, he just loved the trains and talking construction vehicles. Is that sooooo bad???
Good catch, Peter! And bad show, oh obituary writer.
Colleen, I think you’re in the clear. Unless you son starts colonizing other kids’ sandboxes “for their own good”. Then at least you know who to blame.
I am absolutely thrilled to be a Colorful Character and honored to be among such greats!
Love the Children’s Book Council Harry Potter link! I am totally going to name a local trivia team That’s So Ravenclaw, if the originators wouldn’t mind.
(And as I’m headed to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios this weekend, I’ll look for a chance to use the phrase.)
Love the minimalist posters, especially the ones for The Princess and the Pea and The Wizard of Oz (though it was missing ‘home’). Thanks for the link.
Is that Spinelli cover supposed to be about a boy and his older triplet brothers? Or did the illustrator have only the one model and not enough imagination to change somebody’s hair color?
Thanks so much for mentioning my post. I’m thrilled! And that cover is obviously a young Henry Winkler, dreaming of being the Fonz.
Elliott posted the full and unedited interview with Woodson in two parts on her blog. Its a must read if you like the profile in Ms. Magazine
Speaking of youngsters to publishing, the AAP has been sponsoring the Young to Publishing Group for 10 years now! I really enjoyed it when I was a newly minted editorial assistant in New York in the early 2000s and hopefully it’s still helpful for other newbies. Check it out at: http://youngtopublishing.com/
You might appreciate today’s drawing lesson on how to draw bunnies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2011/aug/02/how-to-draw-bunnies-simone-lia
(and note that Simone Lia, as well as Oliver Jeffers in his post (Same series) on how to draw penguins…. both compare various appendages to sausages). Ah, the UK. Not sure our american illustrators would use the same analogy.