Odds & Ends: Events, News & Local Theater

If you are in Mason, Texas on October 4th, you can participate in various activities on Old Yeller Day related to the book and the Disney movie (1957). Fred Gibson, the author of Old Yeller (1956), lived most of his live in Mason. Here is an article about the festivities, and here is the calendar of events on the Mason city website.

Apparently Ludwig Bemelmans' grandson has created a new Madeline story. You can read about it here. I think they could have just left the character well enough alone in print with the five original stories (you can see my thoughts in general about this practice here in part 1 and part 2), but perhaps this is one that will work. (According to a couple of reviews mentioned in the AP article, it looks like it does not though.) I will probably take a look at it once the library has it.

The Earnest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida has worked out an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow the six-toed cats to stay. Here is the AP story.

If you are in Northern Utah, here are a few productions you might want to see:

Jekyll and Hyde - Rodgers Memorial Theater in Centerville is performing this musical based on Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) through October 30th. Go to www.rodgersmemorial.com for more information.

In American Fork, through October 13th, you can experience the Legend of Sleepy Hollow Concert, based Washington Irving's short story originally published in 1820, with an orchestra, a sound effects artist, and a fully costumed chorus and narrator, as well as other activities for the whole family. Go to www.sleepyhollowshow.com for more information.

And lastly, BYU is hosting the University of Utah's production of the Classical Greek Tragedy Medea (431 BC), by Euripides on September 29th. Get production and ticket information at www.byuarts.com.

Brisinger Launch

With the release of Brisinger (2008) last week, I have been asked what I think about Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. I only read Eragon (2003), the first book and haven't had much desire to read any of the others.

While I was impressed that Christopher was 15 or so when he wrote it, the story just didn't intrigue me. I would suppose if I were younger and had not read Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings or Anne McCafferty's Dragonriders of Pern novels, or seen Star Wars (1997), I would have found the characters, world, and ideas interesting. Since I have though, there weren't any surprises or real originality so I didn't continue with the series.

Besides the derivative nature of story, I have one other complaint. Keep in mind that I have read, seen and enjoyed plenty of books and movies that push credibility and I believe I give authors quite a bit of slack - but I still expect some internal logic. I bought the magic, history, etc. in Eragon except that Eragon himself was able to not only learn to write his own language in the space a a few weeks, but also other languages. I have studied languages and I just could not accept that a person could become proficient in either in such a short time. Perhaps I missed the explanation, or it was cleared up in the second book.

It is heartening that the Inheritance Cycle is getting so much attention with midnight releases and all. I wish Christopher great success. Maybe someday I will catch up on the series (I do understand his writing has improved and I would hope the story has started to incorporate more original ideas - even Terry Brook's The Sword of Shannara (1977) is a retelling of The Lord of the Rings and look were it has taken him), but for now there are just too many older stories I haven't read and new, original ones coming out.

Free Neil Gaiman & Brandon Sanderson Books

Neil Gaiman gives a link in his blog (here) to a site where you can download an electronic version of Neverwhere (1996). This eBook has a shelf life so you have until a set date to read it after you have downloaded it. If you haven't read it, and you don't have access to a library for whatever reason, this is a great way to sample without buying.

Until September 30, 2008 you can also go here on the Fantasy Book Critic's blog to enter win copy of Gaiman's forthcoming The Graveyard Book (2008).

While you are on the Fantasy Book Critic's blog, you can enter to win several other books, including Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy until October 14. (Here is a direct link to the form for the trilogy)

Both of the Neverwhere and Mistborn stories are well written and set in refreshingly (and increasingly hard-to-find) original fantasy worlds. Let me know if you win one of the drawings or what you think about any of the books if you read them.

Cabinet of Wonders: Evil, Incarnate

In Cabinet of Wonders: Evil, Incarnate, Heather McDougal present ideas and illustrations related to how storytellers use negative physical characteristics to represent evil. and what it says about us.

It is not often you can read references to Leonardo da Vinci, Heath Ledger as the Joker, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination, and Beowulf, as well as works by William Shakespeare, Frank Herbet, Neil Gaiman, Lemony Snicket, and Charles Dickens among others - all in one discussion.

While you are there, check out some of her previous, facinating posts.

And now, the rest of the story ... (part II)

(a continuation of part I from the previous post, looking at continued works of authors after they have passed away, starting with the list)

• While various authors have written novels with Ian Fleming's James Bond, Sebastian Faulks was commissioned to write Devil May Care (2008)
• Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written several prequels and a couple of sequels to Frank Herbert's Dune novels
• Roger Zelazny's estate authorized John Betancourt to write a five-prequel series to Zelazny's ten Chronicles of Amber books (this Dawn of Amber series was cancelled after the four books)
• Robert Ludlum's estate gave permission to Eric Van Lustbader to write new Jason Bourne stories (and three have been published)
• Robert Jordan's widow selected Brandon Sanderson to finish the last book in Jordan's Wheel of Time series (which is still in progress and unpublished)

Honestly, I have only read one series of these authorized continuation books in this list, so I can't comment on most of them specifically.

I did have the misfortune of listening to the Legends of Dune trilogy [The Butlerian Jihad (2002), The Machine Crusade (2003), The Battle of Corrin (2004)] This trilogy takes place thousands of years before Dune (1965), to explain how the technology, social structure (including ruling families and other organizations) and culture in the Dune universive began. If I had other audio books to listen to at the time I probably wouldn't have finished these.

Some of it could have been the reader, but beyond that I found the stories to be cliche ridden and void of the plot complexity, thought provoking themes and ideas, and realistic characters and character development that Frank Herbert had in his Dune novels (well, OK, most of his Dune novels - at least the original trilogy and the fourth). With these I felt like I was listening to the first attempt of an author from the 1950's to write a space opera. I kept hoping that each book in the Legends trilogy would get better than the previous, but they didn't. (If I had to recommend one of the three to read upon pain of death, it would be the middle one though. But you have been warned.)

As you might guess, I doubt I will read or listen to any more Dune books by these two. I have read and enjoyed other books by Brian. Perhaps the collaboration of these two authors actually produces something a minuscule of a fraction of the work as their individual and independent worked combined. I assume Brian Herbert worked from notes or outlines his father created at some point, but I started to wonder more and more how much Brian, or Kevin Anderson, followed or modified those notes. I would have preferred an original timeline with notes to these bloated doorstops.

Where am I going with all of this? I would guess that it boils down to if the new author manages to continue with the characters, worlds, or ideas in a way you would feel the original author would, you will like the book. And this is going to vary from author to author, and story to story. With stories that are your favorites, I would guess you are going to be less likely to enjoy the new versions.

I wish Colfer the best of luck with his book (even though I think Terry Prachett might have been a better choice). As Colfer has written six Artemis Fowl books I would imagine he is use to getting both criticism and praise for each new book in that series, which should prepare him for the response from Adam's Hitchhiker fans.

Regardless of what you think about a non-Adams Hitchhiker book, or about Colfer as the choice, I hope that this exposes the Hitchhiker universe (and everything) to more people so they can experience the original books themselves where they might not have otherwise.

What are some other official, authorized or commissioned sequels or prequels of contemporary authors would you add to the list? How do you feel they did with the characters, worlds and ideas they were working with? I am interested to find out.

And now, the rest of the story ... (part I)

Jane Belson, Douglas Adams' widow, authorized Eoin Colfer, the author of several young adult and children's books including the popular Artemis Fowl series, to write the sixth book in the even-MORE-increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy.

The announced title is And Another Thing ..., and you can read Belson's and Colfer's thoughts on this here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/17/douglasadams

This got me to thinking about other stories officially sanctioned by a writer's estate, or by the legal copyright holders.

While some estates would sanction this type of work to appease the fans, especially in the case where the originally published work is unfinished, most of the commissions are made because the estate and the publisher think they can make some money. That isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as the new author produces something the readers enjoy.

I would imagine it would be difficult for a writer. First the writer would need to be a fan of the original, or perhaps is just looking for a challenge or possible notoriety, or he or she may just need some cash. Second the writer would need to decide if they were going to write it in their voice or try to imitate the original voice of the author. Both paths are fraught with danger. To some extent, this would probably depend on how much the author left behind. Were some parts already written? How much of an outline did the original author provide? The new author would also have to take into consideration how different her or his style is from the original author's.

In some cases, the new author is left to use the character(s), world(s), and ideas however they like. These are probably the types of continuations I am less of a fan of. I don't know if Colfer is basing this new book on notes and ideas the Adam's left behind or not. That will probably push me a little in one direction of the other. The fact that I have read some of Colfer's other novels makes it more likely that I will read this one, but I will still probably wait to get a feel for the response of others. I just don't have time to read everything, or maybe I am just a literary sheep.

Much like the movie versions of a book, my opinion is the original is still there to love, enjoy, ignore or loath regardless of how I feel about the new prequel, sequel or adaptation. If I really don't like it, I can just compartmentalize it as non-canonical. There is not any guarantee I would have even liked the prequels or sequels written by the original author had he or she lived - there are times I wish the original author would have left things well enough alone as they were. We have WAAAYY too many unneeded sequels and story extensions with living authors.

Using the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy as an example, I really liked the first two books [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980)], and I thought the other three books had their moments, but for me the went sequentially down hill and I found Mostly Harmless (1992), the fifth book, mostly neh. (Interestingly, the books were based on a radio program (1978), and a TV series followed in 1981, with the movie in 2005. Adams was directly involved with the radio and television programs, and the movie followed a treatment he worked on before his death, and still all of these differ from the each other and from the books.)

Anyway, as I mentioned somewhere near the beginning, this announcement got me thinking of some other authorized completions, continuations and prequels:

• Lee Nelson finished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians (2003), a recently found, half-written sequel to Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
• The Special Trustees of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, who hold the copyright to J.M.Barrie's Peter and Wendy (1911), selected Geraldine McCaughrean to write the official sequel - published in 2008 as Peter Pan in Scarlet
• Margarett Mitchel's estate authorized Alexandra Ripley to write Scarlett (1991), a sequel to Gone with the Wind (1936)

(the list and discussion continue in the next post)

Breaking Dawn, Midnight Sun & Note to Stephenie Meyer

If you are planning on reading Breaking Dawn (2008), Stephenie Meyer’s 4th book in the Twilight Saga, you might not want to read any further as this is full of spoilers. Although chances are that if you are going to read it, you already have.

My cousins touted Twilight (2005) since it came out. After two more books [New Moon (2006) and Eclipse (2007)], and deciding to catch up on young adult fantasy written by authors with Utah connections I jumped in. I listened to the first three books (Ilyana Kadushin does a GREAT job with the audio versions).

I found the books full of intriguing twists on vampires and werewolves, quite intense emotional energy and engaging characters. I found Bella frustrating - I didn't agree with a lot of her decisions. I have never been a 17 year old female, but due to the response of those I talked with Bella Swan really resonated with them. So if you are looking for a window into the 17-24 year-old female psyche, this could be a pretty good one. I never really connected with Edward Cullens in the four published books, but I did feel for Jacob Black. New Moon, which focused more on Jake and Bella's relationship is still my favorite of the series.

Breaking Dawn started off quicker than I anticipated and ended up going in direction I didn’t anticipate. It was unexpected to switch to Jake’s perspective, but it made sense as Bella wasn’t doing or seeing much. I enjoyed the book, but I was disappointed.

Throughout the other books becoming a vampire is presented as a sacrifice – loosing connections with family and friends, the ability to have children, control for a year, freezing your character and development. Yet Bella manages to not only keep it all, she even manages to control her vampire urges from the beginning. In fact, with Jake imprinting nobody suffers at all in the book.
It just seemed that Meyer didn’t want to have anyone not have a happy ending. It is not that I wished ill toward anyone, but I feel that some suffering or sacrifice or pain could make the happy endings happier and more powerful. It was a lost opportunity, a chance to add some contrast to the story and make the ending more of a cathartic experience. This is something that J.K. Rowling didn't shy away from in the Harry Potter series, as a recently well known example. Well known and liked characters suffered and died. It made the eventual triumph sweeter - more meaningful, poignant and real. Decisions usually come with consequences, including potentially painful trade offs, but at this point in the Twilight world, apparently they don’t.

Besides the universal lack of afflictions, there were a few other small issues that prevented Breaking Dawn from being more than just an enjoyable story for me. Alice’s disappearance didn’t throw me (perhaps I have just read too many books with psychics), but the deus ex machina revealing of Nehuel was jarring. It also would have been nice to spend more time with some of the other characters, but I realize that would have made the book waaay too long.

The stand off of the Volturi and the Cullens (and friends) was disappointing, but Stephenie did address that in the Breaking Dawn FAQ on her site (http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bd_faq.html). The whole Volturi/Cullens collecting of gifted vampires (whether planned or not) started to remind me of the Magento/Professor X mutant gathering in X-Men.

I kept waiting for either the vampires or the werewolves to realized that none of them asked to become what they had become. In fact, Bella is the only one out of the multitudes of supernatural creatures that consciously decided her transformation. No one ever verbalized this though.

Do I still recommend Breaking Dawn? Yes, but not as not as strongly as I felt I could have. It does appear to be the end of Bella’s story as the uber-Bella is now immortal and unchangeable.

Luckily, Meyer opened up so many plot threads that I am sure she is planning to return to this world of sparkly vampires and werewolves/shape-shifters the size of buffaloes. First we have the introduction of several new and intriguing vampires. The Volturi are still in power. Then there is news of Johann somewhere in South America trying to create a super-race of half-breed vampires. (Do you think there is any chance he was involved with the Nazi’s?) Something is going on with Billy Black that was never explained. And while this is not the last loose thread, Edward commented that Jake could have competition for Renesmee with Nehuel. With all of these elements that Meyer can pick up and use in new stories, I would probably hold off on buying the forthcoming The Twilight Saga: The Official Guide (due out Dec 30, 2008) because at some point they will need to update it.

Meyer could use Midnight Sun (unpublished but available on http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html) to begin to address some of the shortcomings in the series by filling in holes and providing explanations missing in the other books. So far she hasn't, but in the dozen chapters available in the partial draft I finally began to identify with Edward. (Although I don’t buy it that after 80 years a mind reader doesn’t realize that he dazzles and overwhelms human females. Also, I must have skipped over it but when did Edward tell his family that he couldn’t read Bella’s thoughts? Let me know where it happened if you know. Thanks. It just seemed that this would have, or should have been quite a discussion among the Cullens. It intrigued the Volturi after all.)

I imagine that after things blow over with the Midnight Sun leak, and perhaps Meyer has written another book or two, she will come back to finish this. I would also be interested to get Edwards perspective on the New Moon events, especially the time he spent in South America after Victoria.

As if Stephenie Meyer would ever read this, my recommendation to her would be to take the opportunity in writing companion books to the original three Twilight Saga books to fill out the vampire characters some more, and to lay some background so some of the events and “revelations” in Breaking Dawn don’t feel like they are coming out of the blue just to help tie up the story line. If you are interested, Stephenie, just let me know and I can go over my concerns in more detail and even some possible ways you could address them. I will just wait for your email.

For those of you who can't wait for any more Twilight books, at least you will have the movie in November, and if that does well I am sure more movies will follow.

The Quest in Literature and Gaming

In Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narrative (2008), Jeff Howard examines quests in literary and gaming contexts, comparing and contrasting their application in each. Nick Montfort, an assistant professor at MIT, said this about it:

"Jeff Howard’s Quests is an incisive and highly accessible book that leads the reader on an exploration of literature, computer games, and a connection between them. Howard includes valuable tutorials and exercises which draw on literary works, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, while also dealing with the specifics of how to use tools to create computer RPG modules. The book offers useful discussion of the history of adventure games and detailed analysis of quest elements using concepts from narrative theory, poetics, game studies, and other fields. Quests equips students and scholars as they journey onward to read, play, and fashion games and narratives."

This book sounds like a great starting point to review the evolution of storytelling and its application in gaming. You can read a review, as well as a lot of discussion about Howard's ideas at http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/09/0527214&from=rss.

Take that Harry Potter!

Before I jump in to what I want to talk about, let me be upfront and let you know I recommend the Harry Potter series and I believe it will become a classic. This being said, I also realize that J.K. Rowling didn't invent fantasy and that many elements in her books have been around for years if not centuries.

You can't open a collection of fairy tales or myths without encountering stories of young men and women discovering they have special abilities, or parentage, or they are the subjects of prophecies.

In the five Earthsea novels, starting with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) Ursula Le Guin created the School of Magic, where wizards could learn their crafts and their specialties. This was published when Rowling was around 3 years old.

Jane Yolen's Wizard's Hall (1991), came out years before Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997) and it shares many similar story elements including a boy who doesn't know his own power, a wizard school full of whimsical magic (including paintings that move and talk), and the threat of an evil wizard.

What Rowling did was combine the classic and contemporary fantasy components in a unique way creating an original work that resonated at a previously unheard of level in the history of publishing. I doubt we will see another phenomenon like this for years.

With that being said, publishers and writers are still eager to tout they have the next Harry Potter, and/or make digs and Harry Potter and Rowling's wizarding world. Unless the author specifically says so, you can't know if some of these are done on purpose or not.

Here are some that I have read in the past few years. Again, I am not pointing these out to disparage the world Rowling created, or these author's or their stories. I enjoyed all these books in different ways and if you like the Harry Potter books, you could enjoy these as well. Please note that some of these comments are spoilers of sorts, so read the full comparisons at your own risk:

In The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud [The Amulet of Samarkand (2003), The Golem's Eye (2004), and Ptolemy's Gate (2005)] wizards are paranoid, self-serving and ego driven. They are taught one-on-one through an apprentice system. It is pointed out that in this world a school for wizards could not exist as wizards hoard their knowledge and don't even share all that they know with their apprentice, if they take one. Also, the magic in this world is actually performed by demons - wizards just learn how to bind and command demons to perform their will. The stronger the demon, the more powerful acts the wizard can accomplish.

In the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan, Perseus "Percy" Jackson discovers that the Greek myths are not only real stories, but that the creatures, gods, etc. still exist and that he is the son of Poseidon. He learns this gives him special abilities and enemies. He also hears other characters refer to a prophecy that might involve him. I have read the first book, The Lightning Thief (2005), and am currently in the middle of The Sea of Monsters (2006), the second one, so I don't yet know things play out in any of the subsequent books (there are two more so far).

At the point I am at in the series I have noticed the following similarities with Rowling's books. Whereas Harry Potter went to Hogwarts during the school year and he feels his true home is there, and he stayed in the "real" world during the summers; Percy stays in the "real" world during the school year and goes to Camp Half-Blood with other demigods during the summer and he feels more at home at the Camp. Those who are invited to the camp are broken out into one of 12 cabins, as opposed to the four Hogwart Houses. Each of these cabins is named after a god (Ares, Hermes, Athena, etc.), and in most cases the characters belong to the cabin based on their divine parentage. These cabins compete with each other for annual prizes in various Greek events.

Brandon Sanderson published the young adult novel Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians (2007). In this, the first book of a series, the orphaned and perpetually clumsy Alcatraz Smedry discovers his parents were actually part of the Free Kingdomers group fighting against the Librarians and that his clumsiness is really a powerful ability which he must learn to control. The real dig at Rowling's world comes at the end where Alcatraz is allowed to go back to his foster parent's house and he is told the Free Kingdomers will come back to get him. Alcatraz assumes that he will have to stay with them for the summer (I guess he either read Harry Potter himself or saw the movies). They then show up within a few hours and lovingly chastise him that they just wanted to give him some time to gather his things and say goodbye, that it would be ridiculous to leave him where their enemies knew he was, especially as they had so much to do in their fight against the Librarians.

Those are just a few I have read and recognized. I would be interested to hear about any other books you know of that were written before the Potter series that have similar story elements, or of any stories published afterwards that appear to borrow but possibly twist elements from Harry Potter.

Jim Henson Exhibit

I recently convinced my tween son to watch the Muppet movies and other Jim Henson projects. He is to the point that he gets the puns and some of the other humor that passes over the heads of younger kids who enjoy the shows on a simpler level.

Jim Henson was an incredible, gifted storyteller, able to appeal to an audience of all ages. Among the many "celebrity" news reports, the announcement of his death 18 years ago is one of the few I still vividly remember. He was aptly included in Time magazines top 100 Artist & Entertainers of the 21st century (http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/henson.html)

Henson left an incredible and creative legacy from Sesame Street (1969+), to The Muppet Show (1976-1981) and Fraggle Rock (1983-1987), as well as other TV programs and various movies. His The Storyteller (1988) remains one of my favorite TV shows ever. In it Henson combined various forms of puppetry and some animation to tell Greek myths and lesser-known European fairy tales.

In addition to exposing my children to Jim Henson's magic, I stumbled across news about this travelling exhibit that is going to be at the Smithsonian for another month: http://www.sites.si.edu/henson/index.html. I wish I was going to be in the DC area - or any of the cities it will eventually be in. If you have a chance, I understand it is well worth going to. If you can't make it (like myself), maybe put on your own Henson Movie/TV Show Marathon.

Maximum Ride - Books 1 & 2

In March of this year I attended the Public Library Association (PLA) conference in Minneapolis, MN. One of the best parts of this was all of the free books. With our registration packet came two books by James Patterson - Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment (Book 1) (in paperback), and Maximum Ride: School's Out Forever (Book 2) (in hardback). I hadn't read anything by Patterson and I put them in my to-be-read pile.

Later, as I was packing for a family reunion in July, I picked up the paperback to possibly bring along. I noticed that the chapters were extremely short, usually 2 to 4 pages long. I thought it would be a perfect book that I could be interrupted on at any point and not have to worry too much about losing the flow of the story, so I took it.

As I started to read it, two of my younger cousins remarked on how much they liked the books. One is a teenager, the other is in her early twenties and I know they have liked some of the same books and authors I have so I thought things were boding well for this series. Then I started getting into the book ...

The best part of the book is that the chapters are short, so it moves along at a pretty good pace and it is easy to read in short, interruptable chunks. Unfortunately, characterization and descriptions are sacrificed.

Before I get too far into my review, here is the basic story. (I will keep spoilers to a minimum, but there are going to be some - so be warned.) Six children are living on their own, hiding from "the School," a laboratory where they were genetically enhanced with wings and other abilities. In the first book the School finds them takes the youngest one back. The other five head out to rescue her. They get her out and keep running, looking for their parents along the way. The second book continues with them on the run, finding a potential ally and leading a "normal" life for a little while before continuing on the run. Now back to my thoughts on the two books ...

It took me several chapters before I realized the main character, Maximum "Max" Ride, was female. After that, it took me most of the book to connect the names and abilities of the other members of the flock, except for the youngest, Angel. I never really grew to care for them. Max had her moments, but that was it. Questions were raised about why the School let them escape in the first place, why they leave them alone at some times and pursue them at others, who are their allies and who are their enemies, etc. The first book seemed to end so abruptly without any answers that I decided to read the second book to see if any of the ideas were explained. They weren't.

There is an Empire-Strikes-Back type revelation at the end that seems to be forgotten or ignored in the second book, so I am not sure if it was a revelation or a ruse. A "major" death at the end of the first book turns out to be somewhat irrelevant by the second book as that character's clone is created. The first book is told from Max's point of view, and in the second book, the point of view changes occasionally. Unfortunately, it was not always clear that it wasn't Max telling the story at points so that made some parts a little confusing for a few moments.

I discovered that the library has the third book on CD, so I might eventually listen to it to see if any questions are answered, or if this is a Young Adult book version of the Lost series on TV.

While the books have a few twists on ideas, the ideas are far from new. On TV, you could have watched Mutant X or James Cameron's Dark Angel with Jessica Alba, to see genetically enhanced children/teenagers coming to grips with their abilities, hiding from those who created them, tyring to find out answers as to who they are, etc. Jessica Alba's character's name was even Max! These ideas aren't new to speculative fiction in print, movies, TV or comic books. In the past ten years, the animated series Batman Beyond had geneticists "splicing" animal genes with humans as well.

The flock is constantly being chased by Erasures - other kids who can morph into wolf-like creatures. These reminded me of the Fetchers in Garth Nix's Keys of the Kingdom series. The Fetchers are part dog, but they almost became comic relief in their inability to achieve their missions also. The fact that nothing works in the flock's favor, and that several events seem pointless and that there are more than a few gaps in logic, I finished these two books with the same unfulfilled taste in my mouth as The Series of Unfortunate Events left me.

This series (the fifth book is due out next year) is a best seller and has won awards, so perhaps I have just read or seen too many stories that are similar that the ideas If you haven't seen or read many of the books and shows I mentioned, perhaps this series will be fresh enough to you keep you going - and bring you to the movie that is supposed to be released in 2010 (maybe the screen writers will be able to improve on the story - we can hope). In the meantime, I would recommend you find something else to pass your time and engage your thoughts and imagination.