Book: Crocodile Tears
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Rating: 6/10
Recommended age: 14+
In book 8 of the Alex Rider series Alex is once again drawn into danger and mystery by Chance.
Holidaying in Scotland with the Pleasure family, he visits Kilmore Castle with Sabina and her Dad for a new years eve party and her dads research into a article he is writing on the castles owner Desmond McCain,
Chief of a new charity called First Aid after converting to Christianity in prison after he ruined himself getting caught defrauding a insurance company. Everything is fine at the party then Alex beats McCain at a gambling game and wins 25 grand which he selflessly chooses to donate to the charity.
Then their journey home has a unsettling and abrupt halt as their car plunges deep into Loch Arkaig. Mr Pleasure is unconscious and Alex and Sabina are trapped in a car in a Scottish Loch. Now Alex needs to use his knowledge to get both himself, Sabina and her unconscious Dad to safety. After a very close escape danger finds Alex again in the form of an attack by his uncles grave.
then the worst bit of trouble turns up right on the doorstep in the form of freelance journalist Harry Bulman who has been investigating the happening surrounding Alex and has uncovered a substantial amount of facts to fill a book he's going to write about him.
This is going to ruin Alex's life,the media would never leave him alone.
So what choice does Alex have other than return to MI6 for help. they use operation "Invisible Man" to force Bulman to stop writing the article by making it appear he's died and that he is his own psychopathic killer.
All MI6 want in return is another simple favour: on a school trip to a GM factory he has to download the contents of the boss Straiks computer for MI6 to analyse. But it gets complicated as he gets stuck in a tiny hiding place as Straik and McCain are both their and discussing a strange operation as they realise the pc has been compromised. what follows is a chase through the complex and into the Poison Dome a place filled with poisonous plants and animals that have been modified to be hundreds of times more dangerous than nature intended. he ends up blowing up a chimney and sliding down it back onto a school coach just as it leaves. This of course through the injustice shown to Alex throughout the series lands him in trouble with the school.and he gets suspended.
This isn't as bad as it may seem though as it gives him a chance to follow a lead he heard during his eavesdropping on McCain and Straik. about a shooting on Elms Cross.He goes to the film studio there and sees a set based on Africa with dead and starving looking people and animals. Yet another piece of the puzzle. Then the studio bursts into flame and Alex is surrounded by a inferno as the struggles to escape through a air vent.
Meanwhile McCain is enquiring into Alex Rider and who does he meet but Harry Bluman who tells him everything in his last conversation as a living human.
Alex rider is walking home when the deliveryman turns up in the van next thing he know he's trying to fight off a group of kidnappers who drug him and take him to McCain's outpost in the desert.
Surrounded by Guards he finds out the plan to start a huge plague in Kenya with poisoned wheat and then gets left to be eaten by crocodiles.
Saved by a member of Indian RAW he sets off to blow up the huge Simba dam therefore destroying the wheat, but pursued he sets the bomb then gets surrounded halfway up with very little time left.
Bang, the bomb explodes washing away the wheat and half the guards then as Alex accepts death the RAW agent flies past in a plane and manages to get Alex to safety.
They land and everything is fine then McCain arrives and shoots killing the agent but not Alex, fuel is leaking all over from shattered tanks and planes and Alex looks set to die when the fuel catches light burning McCain and splattering all over. McCain is dead,Alex is alive but has got burns all over his back.
But most importantly he survived.
This book was ok but i felt the plot was too similar to Eagle strike and Skeleton Key(books 3+4) with Alex being put through all the mystery and torture, being smuggled from country to country and ending in an airport. That being said it's still a very good read with surprise and excitement all the way through,I felt that it was slightly disappointing in the scope of the whole series of books . Still a ok read in a good series.
Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer
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Saturday 28 May 2011
Wednesday 25 May 2011
BOOK REVIEW: A Hat Full of Sky (Terry Pratchett)
Book: A Hat Full Of Sky
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 5-6/10
Recommended age: 11+
This is Terry Pratchett's 2nd book involving Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men.
Tiffinay shouldn't just casually leave her body. It's just so incovenvienent having to look at herself in a tiny cracked mirror. What harm can it be? she is a trainee witch afterall.
She has never seen or heard of the being who stirs high above the downlands,a being with no brain or body, a being drawn iresitabally towards the empty body. Then the trail is lost, as Tiffany retunrs into her body.
A few days later she's packed her things and is heading with miss Tick to the mountains to stay and work for Miss Level, another witch,who for some reason is unusual.
That's when the Nac Mac Feegle,the tiny fealess pictsies who were thrown out of fairyland for being drunk and disorderly, the fairies who like nothing more than "stealin,dinkin and fightin!".
They have been watching Tiffinay since the events of the 1st book:The wee free men.
They know what the creature is,and what it can do.A hiver posses body's and minds of those powerful and foolish enough to allow it in.
Tiffinay knows nothing of this and has bigger problems on her mind than unknown,invisible creatures.Problems like a woman with 2 bodies, The everyday life of a witch, Higher magik and the complete inability to do anything impressive.
She makes a fool of herself infront of other witches in training, and meets the boss snob Annagramma who bosses everyone about and is obssesed with the higher Magik and that witches should show off.
All of this leads to her being pretty unhappy and she once again utters the simple words that cause her to leave her body.But this time the hiver is ready and snap, she no longer has control of her body,and no one apart from the feegels know why she's changed...
The hiver greatly is enjoying it's new found body and power and embarks on becoing a person to be feared. It enlists the help of Annagramma, and goes shopping with a old mans funeral money, Turns a wizard into a frog just for a discount and generally is behaving badly. And Tiffinay trapped in her own mind can do nothing but watch as It slowly take control of her more and more and it starts creeping through her mind trying to find the last bit of her.
But now the wee free men arrive , with the help of Miss Level and a bath, enter Tiffinays mind and find the last remenant of her being trapped in a replica of the chalk inside her own imagination.
There is no sign of Tiffinay in that strange place within the mind but as they look around the sun is setting and when it does Tiffinay will be lost forever. The nac mac feegle go to get things that might help using a scarecrow type thing made of themselves and gold coins. sheeps wool, jolly sailor tobbacco and turpentine.
The combination of these makes the mind remember and the hiver is drawn against it's will to the small part of Tiffinay's brain it doesn't control, and meets the feegles waiting their.
It's driven from Tiffinay's mind my sheer force of her mind and the power within her and the feegles can do nothing but watch has it get driven away by a huge creature made out of the land.
With a start Tiffinay wakes up,she's herself, then mistress weatherwax turns up and Tiffinay is having trouble sorting herself from the echos of the hiver other victims. Once that's done they leave and start travelling through the mountains as the hiver isn't gone it's just hiding.
Mistrees Weatherwax and Tiffinay go to the witch trials in the hope of luring it their where there are plenty of witches to help it when it arrives and Tiffany finally uncovers what it is and how to get rid of it.
But can they suceed? read the book to find out.
This book is still really goodbut i found it less funny and enjoyable compared ot the first one. good read and good plot just not quite as engaging. Still not a bad book and I will definately buy the next one.
Hope you found this review helpful.
The Devonian Book Reviewer.
UK :
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Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 5-6/10
Recommended age: 11+
This is Terry Pratchett's 2nd book involving Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men.
Tiffinay shouldn't just casually leave her body. It's just so incovenvienent having to look at herself in a tiny cracked mirror. What harm can it be? she is a trainee witch afterall.
She has never seen or heard of the being who stirs high above the downlands,a being with no brain or body, a being drawn iresitabally towards the empty body. Then the trail is lost, as Tiffany retunrs into her body.
A few days later she's packed her things and is heading with miss Tick to the mountains to stay and work for Miss Level, another witch,who for some reason is unusual.
That's when the Nac Mac Feegle,the tiny fealess pictsies who were thrown out of fairyland for being drunk and disorderly, the fairies who like nothing more than "stealin,dinkin and fightin!".
They have been watching Tiffinay since the events of the 1st book:The wee free men.
They know what the creature is,and what it can do.A hiver posses body's and minds of those powerful and foolish enough to allow it in.
Tiffinay knows nothing of this and has bigger problems on her mind than unknown,invisible creatures.Problems like a woman with 2 bodies, The everyday life of a witch, Higher magik and the complete inability to do anything impressive.
She makes a fool of herself infront of other witches in training, and meets the boss snob Annagramma who bosses everyone about and is obssesed with the higher Magik and that witches should show off.
All of this leads to her being pretty unhappy and she once again utters the simple words that cause her to leave her body.But this time the hiver is ready and snap, she no longer has control of her body,and no one apart from the feegels know why she's changed...
The hiver greatly is enjoying it's new found body and power and embarks on becoing a person to be feared. It enlists the help of Annagramma, and goes shopping with a old mans funeral money, Turns a wizard into a frog just for a discount and generally is behaving badly. And Tiffinay trapped in her own mind can do nothing but watch as It slowly take control of her more and more and it starts creeping through her mind trying to find the last bit of her.
But now the wee free men arrive , with the help of Miss Level and a bath, enter Tiffinays mind and find the last remenant of her being trapped in a replica of the chalk inside her own imagination.
There is no sign of Tiffinay in that strange place within the mind but as they look around the sun is setting and when it does Tiffinay will be lost forever. The nac mac feegle go to get things that might help using a scarecrow type thing made of themselves and gold coins. sheeps wool, jolly sailor tobbacco and turpentine.
The combination of these makes the mind remember and the hiver is drawn against it's will to the small part of Tiffinay's brain it doesn't control, and meets the feegles waiting their.
It's driven from Tiffinay's mind my sheer force of her mind and the power within her and the feegles can do nothing but watch has it get driven away by a huge creature made out of the land.
With a start Tiffinay wakes up,she's herself, then mistress weatherwax turns up and Tiffinay is having trouble sorting herself from the echos of the hiver other victims. Once that's done they leave and start travelling through the mountains as the hiver isn't gone it's just hiding.
Mistrees Weatherwax and Tiffinay go to the witch trials in the hope of luring it their where there are plenty of witches to help it when it arrives and Tiffany finally uncovers what it is and how to get rid of it.
But can they suceed? read the book to find out.
This book is still really goodbut i found it less funny and enjoyable compared ot the first one. good read and good plot just not quite as engaging. Still not a bad book and I will definately buy the next one.
Hope you found this review helpful.
The Devonian Book Reviewer.
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Monday 23 May 2011
BOOK REVIEW: Hendersons Boys-Secret Army (Robert Muchamore)
Book: Secret Army
Author: Robert Muchamore
Rating: 6/10
Recommended Age: 12+
The third book of Robert Muchamore's Henderson boys series and this book focuses on the challenges that Espionage Research Unit faces as the teenagers under Henderson's Command need to over come the trials involved in their training.
As new recruits join and groups are created they undergo a rigorous training regime designed to make them perfect for undercover work. from combat training to radio operating to a assault course thing they are slowly getting better and better.
But when one of the senior officials takes a bad view on their operational ability, they must all work together to pass a review of operations.
Then all that's left is the small matter of learning how to parachute, going undercover in Britain and steeling a gun turret. And with the threat of closure still looming. Henderson's Boys have their work cut out f they are going to succeed.
This book is ok. It's kind of a book that introduces the unit and characters before they do anything major. It focuses more on the training and running of operatives in Britain and I think is valuable despite it not being as adventurous and action packed as the first 2. However it gives you a good idea of what's happening which leads nicely into the fourth book. A worthwhile read but not as gripping as the first two.
Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer
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Author: Robert Muchamore
Rating: 6/10
Recommended Age: 12+
The third book of Robert Muchamore's Henderson boys series and this book focuses on the challenges that Espionage Research Unit faces as the teenagers under Henderson's Command need to over come the trials involved in their training.
As new recruits join and groups are created they undergo a rigorous training regime designed to make them perfect for undercover work. from combat training to radio operating to a assault course thing they are slowly getting better and better.
But when one of the senior officials takes a bad view on their operational ability, they must all work together to pass a review of operations.
Then all that's left is the small matter of learning how to parachute, going undercover in Britain and steeling a gun turret. And with the threat of closure still looming. Henderson's Boys have their work cut out f they are going to succeed.
This book is ok. It's kind of a book that introduces the unit and characters before they do anything major. It focuses more on the training and running of operatives in Britain and I think is valuable despite it not being as adventurous and action packed as the first 2. However it gives you a good idea of what's happening which leads nicely into the fourth book. A worthwhile read but not as gripping as the first two.
Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer
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USA:
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Sunday 22 May 2011
BOOK REVIEW: The Wee Free Men(Terry Pratchett)
Book: Wee Free Men
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 5-6/10- due to the fact that it's a good lighthearted adventure story but i think aimed at people younger than me.
Recommended Age: 10-14
Tiffany Aching come from a long line of Aching who have lived and farmed on the chalk land for generations.She's looked at the world in her own way and has clearly got first sight and second thoughts. So when the nightmares come from the hills she already has the skills to stop them, she can be a witch of the chalk.
Having no clue what to do she meets her first monster attack armed only with a frying pan. Then she meets the Nac Mac Feegles(WeeFreeMen). A group of rowdy pictsies who got thrown out of fairyland for being drunk and disorderly and rebelling against the queen. Dim-witted but brave they are interested in 3 things:
Stealing,Drinking and Fighting.
These small people have a comedy value with their actions and speech and makes the story fun the whole way through
Then the Queen of fairyland ( which isn't anything like it sounds) steals Tiffany's brother. Armed with a frying pan and the Wee Free Men she sets off into a world where nothing is as it seems.
A world filled with nightmare creatures and dream traps, a world where nothing is real.
Caught in drone dreams time and time again Tiffinay and the Nac Mac Feegles are in for a tough challenge.
Finding the long lost son of the baron, confronting the queen and being chased by bumble women and nightmares they must escape with her brother and avoid the traps and terrors the queen sends after them,
Tiffinay the new chalk witch, inexperienced and with no help from other witches apart from some advice and a toad. Is up against it. But will she succeed?
This book is very good with it's humorous qualities and adventure mixed in with unconventional thoughts(sometimes up to 3 different ones form one brain) and a series of characters and events that are strange but enjoyable.
Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer
UK :
USA:
Germany:
Author: Terry Pratchett
Rating: 5-6/10- due to the fact that it's a good lighthearted adventure story but i think aimed at people younger than me.
Recommended Age: 10-14
Tiffany Aching come from a long line of Aching who have lived and farmed on the chalk land for generations.She's looked at the world in her own way and has clearly got first sight and second thoughts. So when the nightmares come from the hills she already has the skills to stop them, she can be a witch of the chalk.
Having no clue what to do she meets her first monster attack armed only with a frying pan. Then she meets the Nac Mac Feegles(WeeFreeMen). A group of rowdy pictsies who got thrown out of fairyland for being drunk and disorderly and rebelling against the queen. Dim-witted but brave they are interested in 3 things:
Stealing,Drinking and Fighting.
These small people have a comedy value with their actions and speech and makes the story fun the whole way through
Then the Queen of fairyland ( which isn't anything like it sounds) steals Tiffany's brother. Armed with a frying pan and the Wee Free Men she sets off into a world where nothing is as it seems.
A world filled with nightmare creatures and dream traps, a world where nothing is real.
Caught in drone dreams time and time again Tiffinay and the Nac Mac Feegles are in for a tough challenge.
Finding the long lost son of the baron, confronting the queen and being chased by bumble women and nightmares they must escape with her brother and avoid the traps and terrors the queen sends after them,
Tiffinay the new chalk witch, inexperienced and with no help from other witches apart from some advice and a toad. Is up against it. But will she succeed?
This book is very good with it's humorous qualities and adventure mixed in with unconventional thoughts(sometimes up to 3 different ones form one brain) and a series of characters and events that are strange but enjoyable.
Hope you found this review helpful,
The Devonian Book Reviewer
UK :
USA:
Germany:
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