Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Pendragon Before the War: Book 1 of the Travelers
Title: Pendragon Before the War
Author: D. J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon Mini Series (Book 1)
Genre: Young Adult
One of my all time favorite series is D.J. MacHale's Pendragon series. It is currently a 9 book series, with the tenth and final book being released on May 12th. In waiting for it to come out, I've decided to read the Before the War books (there are 3) and reread the rest of the series (Once I finish the pile of library books I currently have)
Each of the Before the War books consists of 3 short stories (less than 100 pages each). Each story tells about the life of one of the Travelers before they meet Bobby or even really know about being a Traveler. Book 1 tells the story of Kasha, Vo and Gunny.
Kasha, Traveler of Eelong, has in my opinion, the worst story of the ones I read. Kasha is basically like a panther shaped human. These large cats walk on their hind legs and are basically the main runners of the world. There are real humans here, called gars, but they don't talk and are more like slaves. Kasha's story tells of her playing a dangerous game that hurts gars, and the change in the way of her thinking about them.
Gunny, Traveler of First Earth, is one of my favorite characters in the series. He exists in First Earth, which is Earth in the time of the 1930s. His story revolves around murder and gangs in the 30's, saving a friend's son and helping to prove another friend to be innocent of a murder. I like that Gunny is an older guy (60's I believe they mention in this one) yet he runs around saving lives and acting like one of the younger guys. Later he's also an awesome friend to Bobby.
Vo Spader, Travler of Cloral, definitely ranks up there as favorite character as well. Cloral is a world that is basically all water with little man made island like structures floating around. They have some awesome water items. In Spader's story we learn about his graduation to be an aquaneer and his struggle with his emotions and ego. He learns to work as part of a duo or team and not always showing off.
Initially I didn't think I was going to like the stories, since Kasha's wasn't interesting, but a friend said they got better, and indeed they did. I loved how somewhere in each person's story they either mentioned seeing a Travler ring (although they didn't know what it was) or they would meet Press. I almost wish at times they would have gone up to the point that they met Bobby, so we could see it from their side as well.
Labels:
Pendragon,
Series,
Young Adult
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