The Soldiers of Halla

Title: The Soldiers of Halla
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 10)
Genre: Young Adult



Saint Dane thinks he has won. Uncle Press always told Bobby that he could not truly triumph over Saint Dane until Saint Dane thinks he has won. This is the chance for Bobby and all the other Travelers.

We learn the answers to all of the questions. Who the Travelers are, where they came from and why they have all these weird "powers" as well as why Saint Dane seems to have more. I'm not going to lie - it's a little out there.

Sure, I can take flying through time and space to territories where Cats are the humans and humans are pets, to territories that can live through Lifelight - but the answers to being a Traveler have me thinking it's far fetched. Ha.

This is the final battle. I enjoy that it takes part on several different territories - Third Earth, Cloral (yay!), Denduran, Eelong...maybe others. I like that we got to see a little more from each of the Travelers who didn't play such a big roll (Elli and Kasha). I thought it was a good ending to the series.

And I cried...twice. Once when the Travelers were saying their final goodbyes to each other, and once after I closed the book. It's over. I've been reading the Pendragon series since late 2006. That's three and a half years with the series and it's over. I can't help but feel sad that I will not hear anymore from Bobby Pendragon - Traveler of Second Earth.

Raven Rise

Title: Raven Rise
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 9)
Genre: Young Adult



The battle has come to Second Earth. When we last left Bobby he had destroyed the flume on Ibara, so that both he and Saint Dane would be stuck there. Unfortunately, soon after Bobby learns that Saint Dane has opened the flume back on Rubic City and that his beloved Telleo is really Nevva Winters. Yikes. It's time for Bobby to jump back into the game.

While Bobby is on his "holiday," Courtney. Mark and Patrick are trying to deal with the happenings on Second Earth. There is a new Traveler in town - Alexander Naymeer who has, with the help of Saint Dane, decided to educate the world about Halla. He is choosing those who are special in some way and working to "marginalize" those that are not. There is a bit of a Holocaust feeling to it in my opinion and this is a very dark book.

I didn't enjoy this one as much as some of the other books in the series. Is it because it takes place on Second Earth, and there is little to nothing new to learn about it? I don't know. Maybe because this book doesn't have much if any carefree moments of the other books. None the less, the book was a good addition to the series and the ending sets up the next book beautifully,

The Pilgrims of Rayne

Title: The Pilgrims of Rayne
Author: D. J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 8)
Genre: Young Adult



The Pilgrims of Rayne has a lot of bouncing around. While reading it we visit just about each of the 10 territories. The only ones Bobby doesn't visit - Cloral (and Eelong, the flume has collapsed) is prevalent through Saint Dane.

Bobby leaves Courtney with Dodger on First Earth in hopes that she can find Mark and stop him from doing whatever it is that he's doing there. She has her own full fledged adventure while Bobby has one on Ibara.

Ibara is a territory without a current Traveler. The previous Traveler was killed on Quillan and never got the chance to pass on his duty. Bobby does so for him, when he finds the previous Traveler's son, Siry. Siry is head of a group of rebellious "kids." They want to know what the Tribunal is hiding from them. They want to know about the world. Unfortunately, they learn about it in a nasty way.

There is a huge battle for Halla that is being prepared for for most of the book. There are surprises that I forgot about (and some that I didn't). Even though I've read this book before, I still wasn't able to predict what was going to happen. I love when books are still fresh when you read them after the first time.

At the end of the Pilgrims of Rayne, the Convergence has begun. Knowing this and remembering all that went down in this book really makes me excited for getting to the tenth book in the series. Only one more to go before that!

Quillan Games

Title: Quillan Games
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 7)
Genre: Young Adult



Bobby has received an "invitation" to come to Quillan. Quillan is a territory where Blok rules. They own everything, including some of the people. There is no competition, everything is Blok. The one store that sells food is simply entitled, "Food" because there is only the one store. Same with "Drink" and anything else that you may want to buy. Everything is grey, and there is no freedom of expression. No music, no paintings, no individuality. Quillan is a pretty grim place.

One thing that does get the inhabitants excited are the games. They wager for food, shelter, and even their lives. Of course when they loose it can mean things as bad as death, or essentially getting a life back.

Bobby somehow finds himself to be a Challenger. One of the select few who compete in the games. It sounds like an honor, and it almost is, except that this honor usually ends in death. The games are deadly, and you loose eventually because you are basically a prisoner.

The Traveler of this territory is Nevva Winters, who is a secretary of sorts to the trustees of Blok. She is also part of a revolution against them with a main component being Bobby.

Saint Dane makes another brief interference, but I feel like he isn't as prevalent in this story. Don't mistake that to mean that he's not manipulating and trying to take down the territory, this time it is just a little more subtle.

Although I love the Pendragon series as a whole, this is not one of my favorite books. For some reason it reminds me of Harry Potter 4, which could be because of the games. I didn't care for HP4, and Quillan Games falls in a similar ho hum category. Overall the story is good, but something about it just doesn't spark me the way the rest of the books in the series do.

The Rivers of Zadaa

Title: The Rivers of Zadaa
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 6)
Genre: Young Adult



Even though I think that Black Water is a turning point for the Pendragon series, I feel like The Rivers of Zadaa take it a bit farther. We learn new things about just about every main character, and even some of the more minor ones.

The territory of Zadaa is Loor's territory. There are two different "races." The Batu who live above ground and the Rokador, who live below ground and control the water. There is a drought and the two groups are brewing for a war. Sounds like Saint Dane to me!

Black Water

Title: Black Water
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 5)
Series: Young Adult



I think of this book as the beginning of something different for the Pendragon Series. I feel like all the books leading up to this one are fun and pretty self contained. This book change the series and what comes next.

Eelong is a different sort of territory. For one, the quigs are humans and the Traveler is basically a Panther. All humans, gars, are repressed and basically treated worse then animals. Bobby has a hard time fitting in with this of course. There is the ever popular turning point that can throw the territory into chaos. I think this book was the most filled with surprises.

As Saint Dane says, "The rules have changed."

The Reality Bug

Title: The Reality Bug
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 4)
Genre: Young Adult



Veelox!

Veelox reminds me of a thought I use to have when I was younger. I use to wish that you could have a contraption at the end of your bed where you could both program what you would dream about and record what you dream. Sometime I have such wonderful dreams that I wish to go back relive them or check for more detail. This is almost what Veelox is like.

On Veelox there LifeLight. This is an area where people get hooked up to machines and can actually "live" what they are thinking about. The problem with this is no one wants to live real life anymore. Bobby meets Aja the Traveler from Veelox and her acolyte. Bobby gets to learn first hand what LifeLight is like. Aja thinks she has the perfect solution - a bug/virus that will make everyone's jump (dream) less perfect and more realistic. Her hope is that people will start to come out of LifeLight when the perfection is gone.

Unfortunately, Saint Dane has his hands in things and not everything goes to plan...

The Never War

Title: The Never War
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 3)
Genre: Young Adult



The third installment of the Pendragon series has us taking the flume to First Earth. First Earth is Earth in the 1930s. We meet Gunny, the First Earth traveler while Bobby and Spader get acquainted with First Earth. Gunny works at the Manhattan Tower Hotel - so Bobby and Spader are staying there and pretending to be Bell Boys while checking out Max Rose - the Top Gangster.

The three Travelers are toying with the time right before WWII breaks out. There are Nazis and many other historically relevant items/people/happenings. The three need to quickly determine what the turning point is (as usual) and stop Saint Dane!

The Lost City of Faar

Title: The Lost City of Faar
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 2)
Genre: Young Adult



At the end of The Merchant of Death Saint Dane took the flume off to Cloral. Uncle Press and Bobby had no choice but to follow him, while Loor went off to her own territory.

Cloral is my personal favorite territory and with it one of my favorite Travelers, Spader. I think that this may also be D.J. MacHale's favorite territory because when I met him and he signed my book, he signed it Hobey Ho! Which is a phrase that is used often by Spader and in Cloral. It's also Uncle Press's favorite territory.

Cloral is a world that has no dry land. It is all water and the different cities and whatnot are created on floating barges. They have the most advanced and awesome technologies that revolve around water. I just love this place :)

Of course Saint Dane is trying to tip Cloral during it's time of chaos. He is helping to poison the underwater crops that the world depends on for food. To stop him Uncle Press, Bobby and Spader follow clues left by Spader's Dad to find an ancient city that is thought to only be a myth.

The Merchant of Death

Title: The Merchant of Death
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon (Book 1)
Genre: Young Adult



The Pendragon series is another of my ultimate favorite book series. If you haven't read it - you should. It's a fantasy series that in my mind surpasses even Harry Potter...by a lot.

Bobby Pendragon is going about his normal 14 year old business, getting ready to win the championship at his basketball team, having a first kiss with a girl he's had a crush on forever and then his Uncle Press shows up.

Uncle Press convinces Bobby that he needs his help, for what he doesn't say. The two take off and jump into a flume because they are Travelers. They take off to a Territory with scary Bear like quigs. Bobby needs help to save the Milago from the Bedoowan. Sound confusing?

A whole world (well several) come alive in D.J. MacHales writing. Each of the 10 books visits a different Territory where Bobby had to save it at it's critical turning point. I waited and waited for the 10th book to come out and bought it the morning it did. Of course at that point I was reading so many different series that I had gotten from the library that I didn't have time to read it properly. Now that I do, I'm starting with Book 1 and reading through to the end. I read the books several years ago and I want to be fresh when I read 10. It's always interesting to go back and read books that are early on in a series. I keep picking up new information or innuendos that I never did the first time around.

Next up, one of my favorite territories, Cloral!

Pendragon Before the War: Book 3 of the Travelers

Title: Pendragon Before the War
Author: D. J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon Mini Series (Book 3)
Genre: Young Adult



Finished the last before the war book the day before the 10th and final book comes out. Hurray! This book went the fastest of the three. It contains the stories of Siry, Loor and Patrick.

Loor, the traveler from Zadaa, is a warrior entrusted with the task of returning a sacred ax that has been stolen. She has to trek over a desert for days and is challenged both physically and mentally. Of course it is all to prepare her for something bigger...

Siry, the traveler from Rayne, thinks that there is something more out in the world then what the adults are telling him. He is very curious and when a Flighter is captured and held captive in his village, he wants to learn from her and teach her in return. Unfortuately she has other ideas.

Patrick, the traveler from third earth, is a librarian and teacher. He is entrusted with the information that a book has been stolen. In Patrick's time all books are hidden away in the depths of the underground library and are kept at perfect levels so they don't disinigrate. All books have had digital copies made of them, so no one really needs to look at the physical book. Because someone has stolen a few, and presumably burned them, Patrick sets out on a mission to find the culprit.

Something that I did enjoy is that we saw more of Saint Dane in the stories. Sometimes I didn't notice it was him until later. They would mention his blue eyes, and I wouldn't think much of it until later in the story. I am now good and excited for the book coming out tomorrow :)

Pendragon Before the War: Book 2 of the Travelers

Title: Pendragon Before the War
Author: D.J. MacHale
Series: Pendragon Mini Series (Book 2)
Genre: Young Adult



Book 2 follows three more Travelers: Aja, Alder and Elli. It was a really quick read and I enjoyed all of the stories in this grouping.

Aja, the Traveler of Veelox, is the first story. Veelox is an interesting world, they have something called Lifelight. It is something that in my mind makes me think programable dreams. You can pick a game, or simulation and it's like you are really there living it out. I think it sounds like fun :) Aja's conflict is that someone is trying to hurt people using Lifelight and she needs to stop them by playing a dangerous game.

Elli, comes from Quillan. Quillan is a territory that is run by a company called Blok. It has gambling that can end in gambling your life against your debts and there are also people who play the "games." Blok is very controlling, creating a very unoriginal territory where everyone wears gray and has little individual thoughts. There is also a group of people who are rebelling against this in their own way (of course) by collecting old, forbidden things from how the territory use to be. Elli accidentally stumbles across these rebels and earns their trust through keeping their hideouts clean. Eventually she become a very valuable piece in the search for relics.

Alder, Traveler from Denduron, wants to be a knight. Problem is, he's an orphan and it costs a lot to train. He is told if he works to pay his way he then can train. However, he is taken advantage of and is never given the opportunity to train, only to serve people. Then one day an odd old man comes to Denduron and will train him, really train him, for free. Of course Alder takes him up on it and ends up learning many valuable lessons and becomes a better knight then anyone who trained in the academy.

I'm anxiously awaiting the next trio, it is already released (actually just last week), I just need to get it from the library. I am most excited about Loor's story!

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.