A whole lot worse than I thought was possible

When this showed up for sale, I picked it up. The synopsis looked good and I needed a book. I still regret the purchase. This is one of the worst books I've read in ages. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to an amazing degree sometimes, but this book demanded too much of me. It was as if the author forgot parts of his own mythology. The magic and science of Lorien are interesting, but ultimately inconsequential. The bad guys were cartoonishly awful. His characters (none of which I found remotely relatable) acted bizarrely for the sole purpose of moving the plot along. If you're going to have an unrealistic plot, you need for your characters to behave realistically. The level to which the authors failed in this endeavor is hard to overstate. And (I'm sorry, but I just wanted to scream this the whole time this book was playing), who tries to escape from baddies from Mogadore by moving to a state that literally has a city called Mogadore?



I'm familiar with Neil Kaplan's work in some video games he's done. You can hear that he is a gifted voice actor, but the only voices passable in this were Four's and Henri's. The other characters sounded like caricatures and every single one of the female characters he voiced sounded utterly vapid. Granted, the writing didn't help these female characters, but the voice put it right over the top.



My $5 were not completely wasted, however. My nine-year old son really enjoyed this. He's begging me to purchase the next in the series. I refused. He can just go get it from the library and read it himself. I'd rather be thrown to the Mogadorians than hear any more of this.