Books for February

The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan

Review

Will is an orphan, taken to a place called Redmont Fief after his father and mother died, and raised by the staff there. Because he has always imagined his father as a brave and skilled knight, riding into battle and eventually becoming overcome by superior numbers, he has decided that he wants to go to the Battleschool and train to be a knight when he gets older. But on the choosing day, when all the orphans are chosen for their jobs, the Battleschool master rejects him, saying he is too small. Just as it seems that he may be relegated to a boring life in the fields, he is chosen as the apprentice of an experienced, grim ranger named Halt. At first, he is worried and doesn't know whether this new job is a blessing or a curse. Halt certainly enjoys making him clean up the place while he reads paperwork. But soon Will realizes that he has all the skills needed to be a ranger, he just needs to refine them a bit. And he is going to have to refine those skills, because deep in the mountains, Lord Morgarath, traitor to the land, is preparing for another war, and is sending his bestial assassins out to kill those who defeated him the first time, including Halt.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J K Rowling

Review

In his sixth year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter is looking forward to a year free of Snape (he hasn't got the right grade to get into his potions class), Malfoy (maybe) and Voldemort (yeah, right). But somehow, Snape gets the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, Malfoy manages to humiliate Harry again and again, and Voldemort is gaining power by the day. Soon Hogwarts isn't such a safe place to be, what with cursed necklaces and poisoned beer finding their way into the hands of students and teachers. Malfoy keeps sneaking off where he shouldn't, and Harry follows him, hoping to catch him in the act and prove once and for that he is a death eater. Dumbledore is giving Harry private lessons, teaching him what he and others remember of Voldemort. And throughout all of this, the prophecy looms: "Neither can live while the other survives." Harry knows that sometime, somewhere, he must fight Voldemort. But he is determined to weaken him as much as he can before that final battle. The only way to do this is to destroy the objects which contain severed parts of Voldemort's soul, so that by the time they meet in battle, he will be mortal once more.

Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz

Review

When a dangerous eco-terrorist group known only as Force Three begin killing people who disagree with their viewpoints, Alex Rider had to get involved. Well, actually, no he didn't, but when he protects a boy in a hospital from four of their members, he ends up being kidnapped himself. Their leader, a man with the world tattooed all over his face, and believes Alex to be the son of a rich businessman, says that his father must die for killing off several species of birds on his island. When Force Three realizes that Alex isn't the businessman's son, they lock him in a building which they then burn down, and he barely escapes with his life. Afterward, he is invited to come and stay with the father of the boy he protected, a Russian billionaire called Nikolai Drevin. Alex Rider is amazed by the wealth and power of the small, average-looking man who is Nikolai Drevin. Drevin seems nice enough, and introduces Alex to his son, Paul, in the hopes that they will get along. Alex likes Paul, but he can't help feel that something is amiss. There wasn't any security at the hospital, and the building that was burned down belonged to Drevin. Also, he can't help but feel that he has met Drevin's chief security guard, Payne, before. As Drevin's amazing project, a space hotel called Ark Angel, nears completion, Force Three targets more and more people who are close to the billionaire. And as Alex investigates these killings, he realizes that this is much, much bigger than Force Three. Someone close to Drevin has a grudge to settle, and he plans to drop Ark Angel, the enormous space hotel, right on top of Washington DC. And only Alex is close enough to Drevin to stop him.

Point Blank by Anthony Horowitz

Review

In New York, a rich and powerful man falls down an empty elevator shaft to his death. On the black sea, a retired general dies in a boating accident. Two unfortunate but unrelated accidents, it seems. Or were they? Both men were powerful, rich, and were sending their sons to a very expensive finishing school, Point Blanc, to clean up their bad habits. Point Blanc (white point), is set in a castle in the Alps, accessible only by helicopter. The day before they died, both men had an argument with their sons, and seemed very upset by something they had learned. However, they died before they could tell anyone what they suspected. The MI6 are very interested, but do not want to directly invade the school, in case the whole thing turns out to be a false lead. Once again, they need a child to infiltrate the school, and they ask Alex Rider for help. Alex can't really refuse, as the alternative is to go to jail for lifting up a drug-dealer's barge with a crane and then dropping it on a police station (that was by accident). So he travels to the Point Blanc, pretending to be the son of a supermarket tycoon, and soon makes friends with another boy there, James. But something is wrong with the other students. Apart from the fact that they are so... studious, they seem too much like the headmaster, Dr Grief. One night, James is kidnapped and Alex watches his unconscious body dragged away. A few minutes later, Alex discovers him in his bed, safe and sound. But James has suddenly become well-behaved, studious and too much like the others. Soon Alex realizes that he is in the very middle of a sinister plot that will, if he cannot stop it, bring a hideous future for all of the students remaining at the school, and let loose a madman who believes the world would be better if ruled by a white upper class, with him at the head of it.

The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby

Review

In the biggest city in the world, it's not just birds that can fly. People are often seen soaring through the sky, and if you cannot fly, you are branded a Leadfoot. A waste. A person to be looked down upon. The Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless is one place for these kind of people. And Gurl is the biggest Leadfoot at Hope House. Gurl was brought there as a baby, named by the matron of Hope house, Miss Terwiliger (who isn't very good at naming things!), and she doesn't know who her parents are. Although she cannot fly, she has a hidden secret, one so hidden that even she doesn't know it. She can turn invisible.

But even though she doesn't know it, there are others in the city who do. A ruthless (but rather dashing, in his opinion) gangster named Sweetcheeks Grabowski, and his enormous sidekick named odd John (who has a zipper running down his face) are looking for her. He knows that there is a Wall (invisible person) somewhere in the city, and has sent spies all over to find her. And Miss Terwiliger, once she finds out the Gurl is a Wall, forces Gurl to steal for her by hiding Gurl's pet cat and blackmailing her with it. When Gurl escapes, she falls straight into the not-so-loving arms of odd John and Sweetcheeks, who want her to perpetrate some sort of crime during the Flyfest, the big competition to see who is the best flier in the city. Can she escape, find her parents and live happily ever after?

One False Note by Gordon Korman

Review

In book two of the 39 Clues series, Amy and Dan found themselves on a world-wide treasure-hunt that, thanks to their thieving, scheming relatives, ended up being a lot more dangerous than they thought it would be. They pried through the history of Benjamin Franklin and braved Paris' catacombs to find the first clue. The clue, a piece of music written by Mozart, led them to try and find the house of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Unfortunately, their killer cousins, the Holts, have different ideas, and ambush them in their train on their way to Vienna. Although they escape, the siblings soon realize that Mozart's house holds very interesting information, but nothing that will help them in their quest. That is until they find out about a diary written by Mozart's sister, which they ask for at a library but find that it had been stolen. They immediately suspect another one of their relatives, a super-rich TV star named Jonah Wizard. Sure enough, when they rob his apartment, they find the book. But the most important pages have been ripped out of it! Where are these pages? Where are their other relatives? And do they want to find the 39 clues enough that they would risk their lives?

Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz

Review

Night comes quickly to Skeleton Key, a small island where, in a heavily defended compound, a retired Russian general is building a nuclear bomb. In his anger at his country's defeat and the corruption from the west, he has formed a plan to obliterate thousands of Russians and probably make most of Europe uninhabitable, which would be a bonus. When Alex Rider is called in to be part of "family" that will travel to Skeleton Key to try and stop the general, he has been under attack by a Triad, a Chinese gang, for incapacitating one of their members. He agrees to the job, and the MI6 agrees to appease the Triad. But when he travels to the island, nothing seems to be wrong. The island is a beautiful place, and the people seem friendly enough. But soon playtime is over, and his "mother and father", two American spies, organize a diving expedition well out of the allowed diving area. The reason for this is an underground cavern that leads up into the general's base, that is supposedly forgotten. Unfortunately, the cavern was not forgotten, and the failed expedition ends with Alex captured and the two spies killed by a deadly trap. Can Alex stop the general's plan to bring the world to its knees and put himself in power?

Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz

Review

Alex Rider has been through a lot. When his uncle, actually a spy in the MI6, was killed in a backfired operation, Alex was drafted in to finish the job. He has battled an insane scientist who wanted himself and his clones to rule the world, and an angry Russian general who attempted to destroy his former country, but he has never faced an enemy that could defeat him. Now he faces a far more dangerous foe: his own past. In his last mission, an assassin, in his last breaths, told him to go to Venice and seek Scorpia. When a botched infiltration attempt in Venice almost kills him, he still doesn't give up. He parachutes onto the roof of a pharmaceutical company that has been working with Scorpia, and almost gets killed once again. He is instead brought one of the leaders of Scorpia, Mrs Rothman. Scorpia, it turns out, is a criminal organization that specializes in assassination and infiltration. His father was one of their top assassins before he was killed by the MI6, the organization Alex has been working for! Alex agrees to work with Scorpia, but something about the story he has been told troubles him. Was his father really an assassin and not a secret agent as he had always been told. And Scorpia is planning something, an operation called Invisible Sword, which will potentially kill hundreds of British schoolchildren. Can Alex figure out what Invisible Sword is, and save the lives of hundreds?

The Chaos King by Laura Ruby

Review

Mr Fuss doesn't like fuss. That's why he is going around the city, clearing up any loose ends and strange devices he can find. If that means hiring a squad of vampires and an insane punk who likes to call himself the Chaos King, so be it. But his employer, a man who likes to keep the city neat and tidy, has forbidden him to go anywhere near two children who probably have something to do with a strange, magical pen that brings whatever is written with it to life, albeit in a strange, random way. So he hires the punk and a team of vampires to deal with the kids, so he doesn't have to get his hands dirty. But the two children are the two heroes from the last book, Gurl (who now finds herself named Georgie, and the only daughter of the Richest Couple in the Universe) and Bug (who's real name is Sylvester). Georgie is finding that being the Richest Child in the Universe is not so much fun, as she goes to a school with other girls who used to be the richest but are are now second-richest, and not happy about it. Also, Sylvester (nicknamed Bug because of his large, bug-like eyes), hasn't been particularly friendly recently. It is all turning into a huge mess, but it is about to get bigger, as someone is bringing things around the city to life, things like statues and long-dead squids. Mr Fuss is not happy, but neither are Georgie and Bug, as the Punk and his vampire cronies are trying to draw all the rich of the city into some kind of chaotic art gallery, where none of them may walk out alive.

The Witches of Dreadmore Hollow by Riford Mckenzie

Review

When Elijah's long-lost aunts come to stay with the family, many strange things happen. For one, a menacing man with a hunchbacked timber wolf was seen digging in the Dreadmore family graveyard, and woke up some strange, living vines that seemingly ripped off his hand. Then his parents disappear, supposedly on a journey to find his grandmother, who has floated off in her balloon. His aunts immediately take him to their beauty shop in the Moaning Marsh, which is a strangely out-of-the-way place to place a shop. Soon, however, it becomes clear that this isn't any normal beauty shop, and that the girls who come out seem to be getting stranger, not prettier. His aunt's hired man looks suspiciously like the one he found digging in the graveyard. And then there are his aunt's medicines, which invariably try to do something nasty to him. Finally, he has to admit that his aunts are witches. And what a nasty witching scheme they are brewing. They are seeking to reunite the pieces of the broken Dreadmore family cauldron, which will restore their powers. And then they are going to force the cauldron to choose one of them to be the new head witch of the Dreadmore family, which will give them tremendous power over the others. Can Elijah stop their wicked plot before it comes to fruition?

Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith

Review

When Grace and Marty's parents are lost in a helicopter accident over the jungle, the boarding school they are staying with decides that they can no longer keep them. They are sent to live with their Uncle Wolfe, who, to put it lightly, is a bit strange. His house is a set on an island fortress, all his vehicles come from the military and he has an airfield on the island. He also keeps a live octopus in a tank in his library. And his library is full of books on creatures that exist only in myth and legend. Yes, the twins would like to get out of here as soon as they can. But trouble is brewing, and Wolfe's nemesis, Dr Noah Blackwood, is hatching a plan to capture some legendary creature in the Congo. Wolfe will not let the twins, who just a few hours earlier wanted to go back to boarding school, come with him. But through a series of accidents, they end up dropping straight from the cargo hold of the plane they are on into the Congo, with the luggage. Forging their way through the sticky, hot, dangerous jungle, they learn a lot about creatures thought to be extinct, but even more about their own pasts...

The Dark Lord of Derkholme by Diana Wynne Jones

Review

In a small fantasy realm plagued by crass commercialism, one man, the wizard Derk, has just been named this year's Dark Lord. He isn't very happy about it, either, but the oracles appointed him, and so he has to do his job, even if it means razing his little cottage and rebuilding it as a Gothic Castle. Even if it means entertaining hundreds of off-world tourists on the orders of the horrible Mr Chesney, who has turned his world into an amusement park. Because if he doesn't, Mr Chesney, who has the backing of a powerful demon, will probably kill him and his entire family. So he creates a castle over his small cottage, and waits for the tourists, the Pilgrim Parties, to come to him. The nearby town has made arrangements to hide in storm cellars while Derk razes the village for the benefit of the Pilgrims. Meanwhile, his children are forced to march hundreds of drugged convicts across hill and valley, to be the Dark Lord's army. But there is something going wrong, all the magic is draining out of the land. As Derk's son attempts to track it down, he discovers something unimaginably wrong happening in the heart of the land. But still, the tours must go on.

-- JackW - 04 Feb 2009