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The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6
The Enchantress
The two that are one must become the one that is all. One to save the world, one to destroy it.
San Francisco:
Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel have one day left to live, and one job left to do. They must defend San Francisco. The monsters gathered on Alcatraz Island have been released and are heading toward the city. If they are not stopped, they will destroy everyone and everything in their path.
But even with the help of two of the greatest warriors from history and myth, will the Sorceress and the legendary Alchemyst be able to defend the city? Or is it the beginning of the end of the human race?
Danu Talis:
Sophie and Josh Newman traveled ten thousand years into the past to Danu Talis when they followed Dr. John Dee and Virginia Dare. And it’s on this legendary island that the battle for the world begins and ends.
Scathach, Prometheus, Palamedes, Shakespeare, Saint-Germain, and Joan of Arc are also on the island. And no one is sure what—or who—the twins will be fighting for.
Today the battle for Danu Talis will be won or lost.
But will the twins of legend stand together?
Or will they stand apart—one to save the world and one to destroy it?
San Francisco:
Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel have one day left to live, and one job left to do. They must defend San Francisco. The monsters gathered on Alcatraz Island have been released and are heading toward the city. If they are not stopped, they will destroy everyone and everything in their path.
But even with the help of two of the greatest warriors from history and myth, will the Sorceress and the legendary Alchemyst be able to defend the city? Or is it the beginning of the end of the human race?
Danu Talis:
Sophie and Josh Newman traveled ten thousand years into the past to Danu Talis when they followed Dr. John Dee and Virginia Dare. And it’s on this legendary island that the battle for the world begins and ends.
Scathach, Prometheus, Palamedes, Shakespeare, Saint-Germain, and Joan of Arc are also on the island. And no one is sure what—or who—the twins will be fighting for.
Today the battle for Danu Talis will be won or lost.
But will the twins of legend stand together?
Or will they stand apart—one to save the world and one to destroy it?
513 pages, Hardcover
First published May 22, 2012
About the author
Michael Scott
323 books6,747 followersIrish-born Michael Scott began writing over thirty years ago, and is one of Ireland's most successful and prolific authors, with over one hundred titles to his credit, spanning a
variety of genres, including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Folklore.
He writes for both adults and young adults and is published in thirty-seven countries, in over twenty languages.
Praised for his “unparalleled contribution to children’s literature,” by the Guide to Children’s
Books, Michael Scott was the Writer in Residence during Dublin’s tenure as European City of Culture in 1991, and was featured in the 2006 edition of Who’s Who in Ireland as one of the 1000
most “significant Irish.”
variety of genres, including Fantasy, Science Fiction and Folklore.
He writes for both adults and young adults and is published in thirty-seven countries, in over twenty languages.
Praised for his “unparalleled contribution to children’s literature,” by the Guide to Children’s
Books, Michael Scott was the Writer in Residence during Dublin’s tenure as European City of Culture in 1991, and was featured in the 2006 edition of Who’s Who in Ireland as one of the 1000
most “significant Irish.”
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,627 reviews
June 7, 2012
This is the first time I’m going to review a final book in the series and reviewing the entire series. So here it goes
Rating: ★★★★★
1. Story: Michael Scott has given himself a challenge: write a series of 6 books that only happened in the course of less than 10 days. The outcome, a wonderful series called the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. This series was very-well constructed. There were so many twists and turns here and there, Mr Scott was genius to have crammed them all into 6 books. Plus, there were so many subplots that connected to the main plot of the book, not to mention the mythologies and history lessons that were put in between. I really love the story world that he created, building the folklore and legends into fantasy, manipulating the lives of many of the characters from history, giving them crucial roles to the play for the final battle of the present day.
2. Characters: What was different about this series was that there were no romance involved. The protagonist did not go and find love, yet the character development was so strong, I saw many of the characters change in the course of 6 books. You see them switch sides. You see their struggles as they fought for their missions.In book 6, I really saw the growth of relationships between this group of friends. The dialogs were both funny and sad. I laughed mostly at Scathach and William Shakespeare. I hated and loved the antagonist Dr John Dee. My hostility towards the new villains were so strong, they kept so many secrets in the books! Antagonists from Book 1-6 switched from evil to heroes!
3. Mythology: BRILLIANT! This series served like a mythology lesson. This book gave me new ideas to write on my novel. By the end of the series, I wanted to research more about the characters mentioned in this book! I really wanted to learn more about the 4 Elemental Swords and their roles in history, Danu Talis, Hekate, and much more.
4. Cover: I love how each of the books represent an element, and each of the titles represent a character from the book. I love the silver and gold cover of Enchantress and Warlock. They truly represent the protagonists: Sophie, the Silver; and Josh, the Gold. Whoever did the book covers, excellent job!
5. Ending: A wonderful ending! A few questions were still left unresolved, but I think Michael Scott was saving those for his next series, the Earthlords. The actions scenes before the final conclusion were very fast-paced, I wished I could write something like those. Michael Scott did not repeat any actions or moves, nor were the words repeated simultaneously. I jotted down verbs I could use in my novel. I do believed the ending was a bit quick; and I think he might’ve done this to prevent the book from getting longer. I don’t mind reading a 600-800 page book, as long as I get an excellent ending. It was a resolved and happy ending, I just couldn’t wait what Michael Scott has left in his sleeves.
As for Sophie’s future, I am hoping Michael Scott would write more about her adventures in his upcoming Earthlords series.
If you love mythology, folklore, history, fantasy, and action, then I highly recommend this series!
Rating: ★★★★★
1. Story: Michael Scott has given himself a challenge: write a series of 6 books that only happened in the course of less than 10 days. The outcome, a wonderful series called the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. This series was very-well constructed. There were so many twists and turns here and there, Mr Scott was genius to have crammed them all into 6 books. Plus, there were so many subplots that connected to the main plot of the book, not to mention the mythologies and history lessons that were put in between. I really love the story world that he created, building the folklore and legends into fantasy, manipulating the lives of many of the characters from history, giving them crucial roles to the play for the final battle of the present day.
2. Characters: What was different about this series was that there were no romance involved. The protagonist did not go and find love, yet the character development was so strong, I saw many of the characters change in the course of 6 books. You see them switch sides. You see their struggles as they fought for their missions.In book 6, I really saw the growth of relationships between this group of friends. The dialogs were both funny and sad. I laughed mostly at Scathach and William Shakespeare. I hated and loved the antagonist Dr John Dee. My hostility towards the new villains were so strong, they kept so many secrets in the books! Antagonists from Book 1-6 switched from evil to heroes!
3. Mythology: BRILLIANT! This series served like a mythology lesson. This book gave me new ideas to write on my novel. By the end of the series, I wanted to research more about the characters mentioned in this book! I really wanted to learn more about the 4 Elemental Swords and their roles in history, Danu Talis, Hekate, and much more.
4. Cover: I love how each of the books represent an element, and each of the titles represent a character from the book. I love the silver and gold cover of Enchantress and Warlock. They truly represent the protagonists: Sophie, the Silver; and Josh, the Gold. Whoever did the book covers, excellent job!
5. Ending: A wonderful ending! A few questions were still left unresolved, but I think Michael Scott was saving those for his next series, the Earthlords. The actions scenes before the final conclusion were very fast-paced, I wished I could write something like those. Michael Scott did not repeat any actions or moves, nor were the words repeated simultaneously. I jotted down verbs I could use in my novel. I do believed the ending was a bit quick; and I think he might’ve done this to prevent the book from getting longer. I don’t mind reading a 600-800 page book, as long as I get an excellent ending. It was a resolved and happy ending, I just couldn’t wait what Michael Scott has left in his sleeves.
As for Sophie’s future, I am hoping Michael Scott would write more about her adventures in his upcoming Earthlords series.
If you love mythology, folklore, history, fantasy, and action, then I highly recommend this series!
September 30, 2012
Actual Rating: 4.5 Stars
The Enchantress was a fantastic end to one of my favorite series of all time. The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series has always had a special place in my heart, so while I was sad to see the series end, I must say it ended with a huge bang. This book was definitely my favorite of the entire series!
The Enchantress is different from most young adult books, since it doesn’t focus on romance, rather it focuses on the action. I’m a huge fan of action, I always prefer that over romance. It was actually really refreshing to read a book that’s not all about romance. It’s a nice break from all the other YA books. Instead, this book is more focused on family and friend relationships- and what you would sacrifice for both.
This book was addicting with a capital A. Seriously. With non-stop action, it was just impossible to put down. I read this book in almost one sitting, it was that addicting. I mean, this book is over 500 pages long! But there was always something new happening, something different thrown at the characters that just made me want to keep reading. So addicting!!
The best part of The Enchantress has to be that ending. Sure, there were some seriously awesome plot twists but that one at the end? It took my breath away. It was absolutely genius. I never saw that coming, and I’m betting my buttons that not a single person could see that coming. It was that unexpected. But it was seriously amazing.
My only complaint for this book is that I wasn’t satisfied with Sophie’s ending. I wanted to know more about what happened with her, some more closure. I wanted a better ending with her, so it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t get to know more about what happened .
Overall, The Enchantress was a fabulous ending to a great series. This book had it all; the action, the fantastic ending, the everything. Even though I was sad to say goodbye to the characters, this book is definitely my favorite of the series! If you haven’t picked up the first book in the series, The Alchemyst, I totally recommend that you do!
Find this review, and more at my blog My Not So Real Life!
The Enchantress was a fantastic end to one of my favorite series of all time. The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series has always had a special place in my heart, so while I was sad to see the series end, I must say it ended with a huge bang. This book was definitely my favorite of the entire series!
The Enchantress is different from most young adult books, since it doesn’t focus on romance, rather it focuses on the action. I’m a huge fan of action, I always prefer that over romance. It was actually really refreshing to read a book that’s not all about romance. It’s a nice break from all the other YA books. Instead, this book is more focused on family and friend relationships- and what you would sacrifice for both.
This book was addicting with a capital A. Seriously. With non-stop action, it was just impossible to put down. I read this book in almost one sitting, it was that addicting. I mean, this book is over 500 pages long! But there was always something new happening, something different thrown at the characters that just made me want to keep reading. So addicting!!
The best part of The Enchantress has to be that ending. Sure, there were some seriously awesome plot twists but that one at the end? It took my breath away. It was absolutely genius. I never saw that coming, and I’m betting my buttons that not a single person could see that coming. It was that unexpected. But it was seriously amazing.
My only complaint for this book is that I wasn’t satisfied with Sophie’s ending. I wanted to know more about what happened with her, some more closure. I wanted a better ending with her, so it was a bit disappointing that we didn’t get to know more about what happened .
Overall, The Enchantress was a fabulous ending to a great series. This book had it all; the action, the fantastic ending, the everything. Even though I was sad to say goodbye to the characters, this book is definitely my favorite of the series! If you haven’t picked up the first book in the series, The Alchemyst, I totally recommend that you do!
Find this review, and more at my blog My Not So Real Life!
June 4, 2012
A very disappointing end to the series. I must say, over the last few books, the series seemed to be dragging, but knowing there was "just one more book" kept me reading. I was hoping to see a lot of threads tied up and see how everything played out. In summary, I was unimpressed. I don't claim to know what Scott's writing process was like, but from my (reader's) point of view, it seems he was just adding things in here and there trying to make everything make sense, but failing at it. A good series concludes with many threads all coming together, drawing from things from the novels before it, but this one didn't really do that at all. Some details just seemed to fit this story (and not coincide with the previous books), so Scott just added them in. Other storylines and components seemed to be left hanging, not explained, or explained poorly. Getting into the time travel stuff especially was very poorly done, making it difficult to follow. Having read this final instalment, I would definitely not recommend reading any of the series to a friend - it had potential, but I think it lost it around the 4th book.
December 10, 2019
The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6), Michael Scott
The Enchantress is the final novel in the six book series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. It was written by Irish author Michael Scott. Enchantress picks up where its predecessor, The Warlock, left off. Two of its central characters, the fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh Newman, have been re-united after being briefly separated. The twins, along with John Dee and Virginia Dare, go back in time to the Isle of Danu Talis, where Osiris and Isis are revealed to be Dee's masters and the twins' parents. Osiris removes Dee's immortality, but Dee does not immediately die (he is later found by Marethyu, who restores his health and sight). Virginia Dare chooses to side with Osiris and Isis. Meanwhile, the Flamels, Niten, and Prometheus discover that Mars, Hel, and Odin are not faring well and that Machiavelli and Billy the Kid have joined them. After successfully turning the monsters on each other, the Flamels join them on Alcatraz. But Billy mistakenly throws the spear heads with the Words of Power at Perenelle (he also used them to kill the Sphinx earlier). The Morrigan throws herself in front of Perenelle and dies instead. Odin and Hel both die slaying an army of Anpu. After finding Aerop-Enap's cocoon, the Flamels and Machiavelli attempt to awake her while Billy and Black Hawk fight a Karkinos (giant crab). Billy is severely wounded and Black Hawk is thrown into the water, presumably eaten by the Nereids. Machiavelli heals Billy and Aerop-Enap kills the Karkinos. Tsagaglalal returns herself to her youthful immortal state and it is discovered that she is one of the First People that were awakened by Prometheus. After putting on an ancient suit of ceramic armour, she goes to the Golden Gate Bridge to fend off an army of Spartoi that were animated by Quetzalcoatl and Bastet. Vowing to keep them from entering the city, Niten and Prometheus defeat quite a few of the Spartoi, but both are killed. After slaying the rest of the Spartoi, Tsagaglalal finds them, but only has enough of her aura left to heal Prometheus. The Elder convinces her to use her aura to heal Niten, asking her to tell him to marry Aoife, whom Niten loves. Quetzalcoatl and Bastet flee after they hear Tsagaglalal roar out of rage.
On Danu Talis, Scathach, Joan of Arc, Saint-Germain, Palamedes, Shakespeare, and the young Prometheus crash their vimana on the original Yggdrasill and meet Hekate and Mars (then Huitzilopochtli), who plan to lead the human inhabitants of the Yggdrasill to liberate the incarcerated Aten. Anubis and his mother Bastet prepare to take over Danu Talis by making Anubis ruler, but Isis and Osiris have other plans. Telling Sophie and Josh to put on silver and gold suits of armour, they prepare to present the twins to the council of elders as the rightful rulers of Danu Talis. Marethyu presents Dare with a tablet containing personal messages, and it convinces her to side with the humani. Marethyu then proceeds to watch Josh and Sophie enter the pyramid because he knows that it will be the last time they get to laugh with one another. While Josh and Sophie wait to be presented, they are attacked by berserkers (bear hybrids), and Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) comes to the rescue. Dare meets Dee in front of the prison, later telling him that she had only wanted a world so that she could make it completely free. She leads the humani against the Elders along with Dee, who dies when allowing her to draw energy off of his aura so she can save the humans from the warden's counter-attack.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه دسامبر سال 2014 میلادی
عنوان: افسونگر: ششگانه اسرار نیکولاس فلامل جاودان - کتاب ششم؛ نویسنده: مایکل اسکات؛ مترجم: پونه اشجع؛ تهران: بهنام، 1392؛ در 536 ص؛ شابک: 9786007132012؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایرلندی - سده 21 م
من افسانه ام. زمانی بود که ادعا داشتم دست مرگ به من نمیرسد و بیماری فرسنگها از من دور است. اما این جملات دیگر حقیقت ندارند. در این لحظه، من تاریخ مرگ خود و همسرم را میدانم: امروز. نقل نمونه متن: (پنجشنبه هفت ژوئن: فصل اول: آینه ی کریستالی کوچک، بسیار قدیمی بود. قدیمیتر از نسل بشر، باستانیها، آرکونها و حتی نژاد کهن که پیش از آرکونها میزیسته اند. آینه یکی از دست ساخته های حاکمان زمین بود که زمانی که دانوتالیس را از بستر دریا بیرون میکشیدند، پیدا شده بود. حدود هزار سال آینه به دیوار یکی از اتاقهای قصر خورشید در دانوتالیس آویزان بود. باستانیان بزرگ و باستانیها که بعد از آنها پا به عرصه ی وجود گذاشته بودند، در مورد کریستال مربعی کوچکی که قابی سیاه رنگ ـ که نه از چوب بود، نه از فلز و نه از سنگ ـ در حیرت بودند. با اینکه به ظاهر کاملاً شبیه آینه بود اما در واقع چنین نبود: سطحش فقط سایه ها را نشان میداد، با این حال کسانیکه از نزدیک به آن شیء نگاه میکردند، اذعان میداشتند که جمجمه و استخوانهای زیر پوستشان را در آن میبینند. به ندرت هم بعضی ادعا میکردند که در آینه منظره ای دور، توده های یخ قطبی، بیابانهایی وسیع یا جنگلهایی مه آلود میبینند. در زمانهای خاصی از سال ـ در اعتدال پاییزی یا تابستانی ـ و زمانی که کسوف و خسوف روی میداد، شیشه میلرزید و تصویرهایی مربوط به زمانها و مکانهایی فراتر از قدرت درک را در خودش به نمایش میگذاشت؛ جهانهای عجیبی و غریبی ساخته شده از فلز و کیتن، مکانهایی که در آنها اثری از ستارگان در آسمان نبود و خورشید سیاه، بیحرکت در آسمان معلق مانده بود. دانشمندان تمام زندگی خود را صرف تلاش برای تفسیر آن صحنه ها کردند، با این وجود حتی آبراهام دانشمند نیز نتوانست آن را رمزگشایی کند. تا اینکه یک روز، وقتی کوئتزآلکوتل باستانی دستش را جلو برد، تا شیشه را روی دیوار صاف کند، دستش به لبه ی قاب گرفت. باستانی سوزشی را احساس کرد، و وقتی دستش را پس کشید با تعجب متوجه شد که دستش زخمی شده است. یک قطره خون کوئتزآلکوتل روی کریستال پخش شد، و ناگهان شیشه شفاف شد و سطح آن، زیر قطره خون که جلز و ولز میکرد، موج برداشت. ... جزیره ی دانوتالیس در قلب یک امپراطوری وسیع که در سرتاسر جهان گسترده شده است... جزیره ی دانوتالیس در حال سوختن و نابودی، بر اثر زلزله ویران شده و خیابانهای و ساختمانهای عظیمش در دل دریا فرو رفته اند... جزیره ی دانوتالیس از زیر کوه یخ نمایان است و نهنگهای دندان اره ای از روی کوه های یخ میپرند... دانوتالیس باشکوه و زیبا از دل بیابانی بی انتها سربرآورده است... مرد باستانی آن روز آینه را دزدیده بود و هرگز آن را ب��زنگردانده بود. و حالا، کوئتزآلکوتل لاغراندام با ریش سفید، تکه ای پارچه ی آبی و بنفش را روی یک میز چوبی ساده پهن کرد. با دست، پارچه را روی میز صاف کرد و نخهای اضافه و گرد و خاک آن را تکاند. به آرامی کریستال مربعی با قاب مشکی را روی پارچه قرار داد و با گوشه ی پیراهن سفید لیننش شیشه را پاک کرد. شیشه، چهره ی باستانی با آن دماغ عقابیش را منعکس نکرد: سطح شفاف آن با دودی خاکستری رنگ پیچ خورد و کج و معوج شد. کوئتزآلکوتل روی شیشه خم شد، سوزنی از آستین پیراهنش بیرون آورد و نوک سوزن را در گوشت شست دستش فرو کرد. با زبان قدیمی تولتک زمزمه کرد: «شستم رو سوراخ میکنم و...» قطره ای خون نوک انگشتش جمع شد.... «حالا یه اتفاق عجیب میافته. اینجوری.» دستش را روی شیشه گرفت و قطره ی خون روی شیشه چکید و پخش شد. سطح کریستال قدیمی بلافاصله لرزید و تکان خورد و رنگین کمانی از رنگها روی آن جاری شد. دود قرمزرنگی از سطح شیشه بلند شد؛ و بعد رنگها، تصاویر را شکل دادند. هزار سال آزمایش و مقادیر زیادی خون ـ که فقط مقدار کمی از آن مال خودش بود ـ به باستانی یاد داده بود که چطور تصاویر روی کریستال را کنترل کند. آنقدر به شیشه خون داده بود که کم کم به این نتیجه رسیده بود که کریستال زنده و دارای احساس است. همانطور که به شیشه زل زده بود، زیر لب گفت: «من رو ببر به سانفرانسیسکو.» شیشه کدر شد، نور سفید و طوسی سطح آن را گرفت و ناگهان کوئتزآلکوتل متوجه شد که بر فراز شهر معلق است و دارد از بالا به خلیج نگاه میکند. با تعجب گفت: «چرا شهر سالمه؟ چرا آتیش نگرفته؟ چرا هیچ جونوری تو خیابونا نیست؟» به ماکیاولی و بیلی بچه اجازه داده بود به سانفرانسیسکو بروند تا هیولاهای خفته در آلکاتراس را بیدار و در شهر رها کنند. آیا این بدین معنی بود که آنها نتوانسته بودند ماموریتشان را به انجام برسانند؟ شاید هم او زود رسیده بود؟ تصویر کریستال یکبار دیگر تغییر کرد، و روی آلکاتراس ثابت ماند. کوئتزآلکوتل حرکتی را در آب تشخیص داد. موجودی از خلیج گذشت و به سمت شهر به راهش ادامه داد. کوئتزآلکوتل دستهایش را به هم مالید. نه، خیلی دیر نشده بود: درست به موقع رسیده بود و میتوانست نظاره گر آشوب باشد. از آخرین باری که نابودی یک شهر را دیده بود، خیلی وقت میگذشت و او چنان منظره هایی را بسیار دوست میداشت. تصویر رنگی ناگهان تکان خورد و محو شد. مرد باستانی سوزن را دوباره در دستش فروکرد و خون بیشتری روی شیشه ریخت و آن را تغذیه کرد. شیشه یک بار دیگر زنده شد و تصویر سه بعدی شهر با وضوح کامل، دوباره شکل گرفت. کوئتزآلکوتل تمرکز کرد، تصویر به سمت پایین رفت، و او را به طرف امواج خروشان و سفید دریا کشاند. موجود بسیار بزرگی به شکل مارپیچ زیر امواج در حرکت بود؛ چیزی شبیه به یک اژدهای دریایی. باستانی چشمهایش را تنگ کرد. تشخیص جزییات سخت بود ولی به نظر میآمد موجود بیش از یک سر دارد. سرش را به نشانه ی تایید تکان داده خوشش آمده بود. فکر خوبی بود. کاملاً منطقی به نظر میرسید که موجود را اول به سمت شهر بفرستند. از تصور ویرانیهایی که آن موجود در خیابانهای شهر به بار میآورد، لبخند زد و دندانهای وحشیانه اش نمایان شدند. کوئتزآلکوتل دید که اژدهای دریایی از خلیج گذشت، و به طرف یکی از اسکله ها خزید. اخم کرد و بعد انگار که تازه متوجه شده باشد داستان از چه قرار است، سرش را تکان داد. موجود در امبارکادرو به ساحل قدم گذاشت. عالی است: آنجا پر از توریست است. فکر زیرکانه ای است. نور خورشید روی سطح دریا حرکت کرد. باستانی درخشش کمرنگی از لکه های آبی و قرمز را در آب دریا تشخیص داد و متوجه شد اژدها دارد مستقیم به سمت لکه های رنگی میرود. کوئتزآلکوتل ناخودآگاه سرش را پایینتر برد. سرش را آنقدر به شیشه نزدیک کرده بود، که بینی عقابیش تقریباً به سطح کریستال میخورد. بوی دریا را حس میکرد، بوی نمک و ماهی گندیده و جلبک دریایی... و یک چیز دیگر. چشمانش را بست و نفس عمیقی کشید. شهر باید بوی فلز، دود، غذای سوخته و بدنهای نشسته را بدهد. اما این چه بوهایی بود که به مشامش میرسید؟ بوهایی که هیچ جایی در شهر نداشتند: بوی تند نعناع، بوی شیرین رازیانه، و بوی خوش چای سبز. به محض اینکه هیولا ـ لوتان ـ سر از آب بیرون آورد، و هفت سرش را به سمت لکه های آبی و قرمز روی آب برد، کوئتزآلکوتل فهمید موضوع چیست. مرد باستانی هاله ها و رنگها را شناخت: قرمز هاله ی پرومتئوس بود، و آبی هاله ی آدمیزاد جاودان، نیتن. بوی شدید نعناع در فضا هم فقط و فقط میتوانست مربوط به یک نفر باشد: نیکولاس فلامل کیمیاگر. کوئتزآلکوتل در همان لحظه آنها را که انتهای اسکله ایستاده بودند، دید. و بله. یک زن هم آنجا بود، پرنل ساحره که باستانی از او خاطره ی تلخی داشت. ناخودآگاه زبانش را به جای خالی دندان آسیابش که ساحره آن را شکانده بود، برد. شرایط خوب نبود. اصلاً خوب نبود: یک باستانی پیمان شکن و سه تا از خطرناکترین و مرگبارترین آدمیزادهای روی قلمروی زمین. کوئتزآلکوتل دستهایش را محکم مشت کرد، ناخنهای تیز و سیاه رنگش در گوشت کف دستش فرو رفتند. قطرات خون از کف دستش روی شیشه ریخته شد و تصاویر زنده ماندند. بدون پلک زد�� به کریستال زل زده بود. ... لوتان برگشت تا از هاله ها تغذیه کند... موجود با کمک دمش از آب بیرون آمد، هر هفت سرش با دهانهای باز برای غذا حمله بردند... نوری از آتش سبزرنگ و بوی شدید نعناع. باستانی با دیدن اینکه لوتان در یک آن به یک تخم رگه دار آبی تبدیل شد، فریاد زد: «نه!» تخم به سمت دستهای کیمیاگر پرت شد. فلامل آن را پیروزمندانه قاپید... تخم را به هوا انداخت و بعد یک مرغ دریایی آن را گرفت و در جا قورت داد. کوئتزآلکوتل نعره زد: «نه، نه، نه، نه، نه...» چهره اش سیاه شد و به شکل تصویر همان افعی ترسناکی که همیشه کابوس مایاها و آزتکها بود، درآمد. دندانهای نامرتبش از دهانش بیرون زد، چشمهایش باریک شدند و تارهای موهای تیره اش مثل میخ اطراف صورتش سخت شدند. روی میز کوبید. میز چوبی قدیمی ترک برداشت اما عکس العمل خیلی سریع مرد باستانی آینه را از افتادن و شکستن نجات داد. خشمش به همان سرعتی که پدیدار شده بود، رنگ باخت. کوئتزآلکوتل نفس عمیقی کشید و دستش را بین موهای سختش فرو برد و آن را صاف کرد. تنها کاریکه بیلی بچه و ماکیاولی باید انجام میدادند، آزاد کردن چند هیولای کوچک در شهر بود ـ سه یا چهار هیولا کفایت میکرد. دو تا هم بس بود؛ حتی یک هیولا. برای شروع موجودی بزرگ با فلس و دندان، مناسب به نظر میرسید. اما آنها موفق نشده بودند و تاوان این شکست را بعدها میدادند البته اگر جان سالم به در میبردند. باید هیولاها را از جزیره بیرون میکرد اما به این منظور اول باید فلاملها و دوستان باستانی و جاودان آنها را سرگرم میکرد. ظاهراً وقت آن رسیده بود که کوئتزآلکوتل شخصاً، اختیار امور را به دست بگیرد. خنده ای ناگهانی دندانهای سوزنی باستانی را آشکار کرد. او چند موجود دست آموز در قلمروی اشباح خودش نگه داشته بود ـ بدون شک آدمیزادها آنها را هیولا مینامیدند. باید آنها را آزاد میکرد. از طرفی شکی نبود که کیمیاگر همانطور که با لوتان مقابله کرده بود، با آنها هم میکرد. پس نیاز به چیزی بزرگتر داشت. چیزی بسیار بزرگتر از چند هیولای کوچک و کثیف. کوئتزآلکوتل تلفن همراهش را از روی میز آشپزخانه برداشت. شماره ی لوس آنجلس را از حافظه ی گوشی گرفت. پانزده بار زنگ خورد تا بالاخره کسی از آن طرف خط جواب داد. کوئتزآلکوتل با صدای خشنی گفت: «هنوز اون کیسه ی دندونی رو که هزار سال پیش بهت فروختم، داری؟ میخوام ازت بخرمش. چرا؟ چون میخوام به فلامل یه درس درست و حسابی بدم... و حواسشون رو پرت کنم تا بتونم هیولاها رو از جزیره آزاد کنم.» مکث کرد. «چقدر میفروشیش؟ مجانی؟ خب. چه خوب. آره. معلومه که میتونی تماشا کنی. تو ویزا پوینت میبینمت. مطمئن میشم که هیچ آدمیزادی اون اطراف نباشه.» کوئتزآلکوتل زمزمه کرد: «و حالا یه اتفاق عجیب میافته. اینجوری... داره میاد به سمت تو کیمیاگر. به سمت تو. »)؛ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
The Enchantress is the final novel in the six book series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. It was written by Irish author Michael Scott. Enchantress picks up where its predecessor, The Warlock, left off. Two of its central characters, the fifteen-year-old twins, Sophie and Josh Newman, have been re-united after being briefly separated. The twins, along with John Dee and Virginia Dare, go back in time to the Isle of Danu Talis, where Osiris and Isis are revealed to be Dee's masters and the twins' parents. Osiris removes Dee's immortality, but Dee does not immediately die (he is later found by Marethyu, who restores his health and sight). Virginia Dare chooses to side with Osiris and Isis. Meanwhile, the Flamels, Niten, and Prometheus discover that Mars, Hel, and Odin are not faring well and that Machiavelli and Billy the Kid have joined them. After successfully turning the monsters on each other, the Flamels join them on Alcatraz. But Billy mistakenly throws the spear heads with the Words of Power at Perenelle (he also used them to kill the Sphinx earlier). The Morrigan throws herself in front of Perenelle and dies instead. Odin and Hel both die slaying an army of Anpu. After finding Aerop-Enap's cocoon, the Flamels and Machiavelli attempt to awake her while Billy and Black Hawk fight a Karkinos (giant crab). Billy is severely wounded and Black Hawk is thrown into the water, presumably eaten by the Nereids. Machiavelli heals Billy and Aerop-Enap kills the Karkinos. Tsagaglalal returns herself to her youthful immortal state and it is discovered that she is one of the First People that were awakened by Prometheus. After putting on an ancient suit of ceramic armour, she goes to the Golden Gate Bridge to fend off an army of Spartoi that were animated by Quetzalcoatl and Bastet. Vowing to keep them from entering the city, Niten and Prometheus defeat quite a few of the Spartoi, but both are killed. After slaying the rest of the Spartoi, Tsagaglalal finds them, but only has enough of her aura left to heal Prometheus. The Elder convinces her to use her aura to heal Niten, asking her to tell him to marry Aoife, whom Niten loves. Quetzalcoatl and Bastet flee after they hear Tsagaglalal roar out of rage.
On Danu Talis, Scathach, Joan of Arc, Saint-Germain, Palamedes, Shakespeare, and the young Prometheus crash their vimana on the original Yggdrasill and meet Hekate and Mars (then Huitzilopochtli), who plan to lead the human inhabitants of the Yggdrasill to liberate the incarcerated Aten. Anubis and his mother Bastet prepare to take over Danu Talis by making Anubis ruler, but Isis and Osiris have other plans. Telling Sophie and Josh to put on silver and gold suits of armour, they prepare to present the twins to the council of elders as the rightful rulers of Danu Talis. Marethyu presents Dare with a tablet containing personal messages, and it convinces her to side with the humani. Marethyu then proceeds to watch Josh and Sophie enter the pyramid because he knows that it will be the last time they get to laugh with one another. While Josh and Sophie wait to be presented, they are attacked by berserkers (bear hybrids), and Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) comes to the rescue. Dare meets Dee in front of the prison, later telling him that she had only wanted a world so that she could make it completely free. She leads the humani against the Elders along with Dee, who dies when allowing her to draw energy off of his aura so she can save the humans from the warden's counter-attack.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز دهم ماه دسامبر سال 2014 میلادی
عنوان: افسونگر: ششگانه اسرار نیکولاس فلامل جاودان - کتاب ششم؛ نویسنده: مایکل اسکات؛ مترجم: پونه اشجع؛ تهران: بهنام، 1392؛ در 536 ص؛ شابک: 9786007132012؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایرلندی - سده 21 م
من افسانه ام. زمانی بود که ادعا داشتم دست مرگ به من نمیرسد و بیماری فرسنگها از من دور است. اما این جملات دیگر حقیقت ندارند. در این لحظه، من تاریخ مرگ خود و همسرم را میدانم: امروز. نقل نمونه متن: (پنجشنبه هفت ژوئن: فصل اول: آینه ی کریستالی کوچک، بسیار قدیمی بود. قدیمیتر از نسل بشر، باستانیها، آرکونها و حتی نژاد کهن که پیش از آرکونها میزیسته اند. آینه یکی از دست ساخته های حاکمان زمین بود که زمانی که دانوتالیس را از بستر دریا بیرون میکشیدند، پیدا شده بود. حدود هزار سال آینه به دیوار یکی از اتاقهای قصر خورشید در دانوتالیس آویزان بود. باستانیان بزرگ و باستانیها که بعد از آنها پا به عرصه ی وجود گذاشته بودند، در مورد کریستال مربعی کوچکی که قابی سیاه رنگ ـ که نه از چوب بود، نه از فلز و نه از سنگ ـ در حیرت بودند. با اینکه به ظاهر کاملاً شبیه آینه بود اما در واقع چنین نبود: سطحش فقط سایه ها را نشان میداد، با این حال کسانیکه از نزدیک به آن شیء نگاه میکردند، اذعان میداشتند که جمجمه و استخوانهای زیر پوستشان را در آن میبینند. به ندرت هم بعضی ادعا میکردند که در آینه منظره ای دور، توده های یخ قطبی، بیابانهایی وسیع یا جنگلهایی مه آلود میبینند. در زمانهای خاصی از سال ـ در اعتدال پاییزی یا تابستانی ـ و زمانی که کسوف و خسوف روی میداد، شیشه میلرزید و تصویرهایی مربوط به زمانها و مکانهایی فراتر از قدرت درک را در خودش به نمایش میگذاشت؛ جهانهای عجیبی و غریبی ساخته شده از فلز و کیتن، مکانهایی که در آنها اثری از ستارگان در آسمان نبود و خورشید سیاه، بیحرکت در آسمان معلق مانده بود. دانشمندان تمام زندگی خود را صرف تلاش برای تفسیر آن صحنه ها کردند، با این وجود حتی آبراهام دانشمند نیز نتوانست آن را رمزگشایی کند. تا اینکه یک روز، وقتی کوئتزآلکوتل باستانی دستش را جلو برد، تا شیشه را روی دیوار صاف کند، دستش به لبه ی قاب گرفت. باستانی سوزشی را احساس کرد، و وقتی دستش را پس کشید با تعجب متوجه شد که دستش زخمی شده است. یک قطره خون کوئتزآلکوتل روی کریستال پخش شد، و ناگهان شیشه شفاف شد و سطح آن، زیر قطره خون که جلز و ولز میکرد، موج برداشت. ... جزیره ی دانوتالیس در قلب یک امپراطوری وسیع که در سرتاسر جهان گسترده شده است... جزیره ی دانوتالیس در حال سوختن و نابودی، بر اثر زلزله ویران شده و خیابانهای و ساختمانهای عظیمش در دل دریا فرو رفته اند... جزیره ی دانوتالیس از زیر کوه یخ نمایان است و نهنگهای دندان اره ای از روی کوه های یخ میپرند... دانوتالیس باشکوه و زیبا از دل بیابانی بی انتها سربرآورده است... مرد باستانی آن روز آینه را دزدیده بود و هرگز آن را ب��زنگردانده بود. و حالا، کوئتزآلکوتل لاغراندام با ریش سفید، تکه ای پارچه ی آبی و بنفش را روی یک میز چوبی ساده پهن کرد. با دست، پارچه را روی میز صاف کرد و نخهای اضافه و گرد و خاک آن را تکاند. به آرامی کریستال مربعی با قاب مشکی را روی پارچه قرار داد و با گوشه ی پیراهن سفید لیننش شیشه را پاک کرد. شیشه، چهره ی باستانی با آن دماغ عقابیش را منعکس نکرد: سطح شفاف آن با دودی خاکستری رنگ پیچ خورد و کج و معوج شد. کوئتزآلکوتل روی شیشه خم شد، سوزنی از آستین پیراهنش بیرون آورد و نوک سوزن را در گوشت شست دستش فرو کرد. با زبان قدیمی تولتک زمزمه کرد: «شستم رو سوراخ میکنم و...» قطره ای خون نوک انگشتش جمع شد.... «حالا یه اتفاق عجیب میافته. اینجوری.» دستش را روی شیشه گرفت و قطره ی خون روی شیشه چکید و پخش شد. سطح کریستال قدیمی بلافاصله لرزید و تکان خورد و رنگین کمانی از رنگها روی آن جاری شد. دود قرمزرنگی از سطح شیشه بلند شد؛ و بعد رنگها، تصاویر را شکل دادند. هزار سال آزمایش و مقادیر زیادی خون ـ که فقط مقدار کمی از آن مال خودش بود ـ به باستانی یاد داده بود که چطور تصاویر روی کریستال را کنترل کند. آنقدر به شیشه خون داده بود که کم کم به این نتیجه رسیده بود که کریستال زنده و دارای احساس است. همانطور که به شیشه زل زده بود، زیر لب گفت: «من رو ببر به سانفرانسیسکو.» شیشه کدر شد، نور سفید و طوسی سطح آن را گرفت و ناگهان کوئتزآلکوتل متوجه شد که بر فراز شهر معلق است و دارد از بالا به خلیج نگاه میکند. با تعجب گفت: «چرا شهر سالمه؟ چرا آتیش نگرفته؟ چرا هیچ جونوری تو خیابونا نیست؟» به ماکیاولی و بیلی بچه اجازه داده بود به سانفرانسیسکو بروند تا هیولاهای خفته در آلکاتراس را بیدار و در شهر رها کنند. آیا این بدین معنی بود که آنها نتوانسته بودند ماموریتشان را به انجام برسانند؟ شاید هم او زود رسیده بود؟ تصویر کریستال یکبار دیگر تغییر کرد، و روی آلکاتراس ثابت ماند. کوئتزآلکوتل حرکتی را در آب تشخیص داد. موجودی از خلیج گذشت و به سمت شهر به راهش ادامه داد. کوئتزآلکوتل دستهایش را به هم مالید. نه، خیلی دیر نشده بود: درست به موقع رسیده بود و میتوانست نظاره گر آشوب باشد. از آخرین باری که نابودی یک شهر را دیده بود، خیلی وقت میگذشت و او چنان منظره هایی را بسیار دوست میداشت. تصویر رنگی ناگهان تکان خورد و محو شد. مرد باستانی سوزن را دوباره در دستش فروکرد و خون بیشتری روی شیشه ریخت و آن را تغذیه کرد. شیشه یک بار دیگر زنده شد و تصویر سه بعدی شهر با وضوح کامل، دوباره شکل گرفت. کوئتزآلکوتل تمرکز کرد، تصویر به سمت پایین رفت، و او را به طرف امواج خروشان و سفید دریا کشاند. موجود بسیار بزرگی به شکل مارپیچ زیر امواج در حرکت بود؛ چیزی شبیه به یک اژدهای دریایی. باستانی چشمهایش را تنگ کرد. تشخیص جزییات سخت بود ولی به نظر میآمد موجود بیش از یک سر دارد. سرش را به نشانه ی تایید تکان داده خوشش آمده بود. فکر خوبی بود. کاملاً منطقی به نظر میرسید که موجود را اول به سمت شهر بفرستند. از تصور ویرانیهایی که آن موجود در خیابانهای شهر به بار میآورد، لبخند زد و دندانهای وحشیانه اش نمایان شدند. کوئتزآلکوتل دید که اژدهای دریایی از خلیج گذشت، و به طرف یکی از اسکله ها خزید. اخم کرد و بعد انگار که تازه متوجه شده باشد داستان از چه قرار است، سرش را تکان داد. موجود در امبارکادرو به ساحل قدم گذاشت. عالی است: آنجا پر از توریست است. فکر زیرکانه ای است. نور خورشید روی سطح دریا حرکت کرد. باستانی درخشش کمرنگی از لکه های آبی و قرمز را در آب دریا تشخیص داد و متوجه شد اژدها دارد مستقیم به سمت لکه های رنگی میرود. کوئتزآلکوتل ناخودآگاه سرش را پایینتر برد. سرش را آنقدر به شیشه نزدیک کرده بود، که بینی عقابیش تقریباً به سطح کریستال میخورد. بوی دریا را حس میکرد، بوی نمک و ماهی گندیده و جلبک دریایی... و یک چیز دیگر. چشمانش را بست و نفس عمیقی کشید. شهر باید بوی فلز، دود، غذای سوخته و بدنهای نشسته را بدهد. اما این چه بوهایی بود که به مشامش میرسید؟ بوهایی که هیچ جایی در شهر نداشتند: بوی تند نعناع، بوی شیرین رازیانه، و بوی خوش چای سبز. به محض اینکه هیولا ـ لوتان ـ سر از آب بیرون آورد، و هفت سرش را به سمت لکه های آبی و قرمز روی آب برد، کوئتزآلکوتل فهمید موضوع چیست. مرد باستانی هاله ها و رنگها را شناخت: قرمز هاله ی پرومتئوس بود، و آبی هاله ی آدمیزاد جاودان، نیتن. بوی شدید نعناع در فضا هم فقط و فقط میتوانست مربوط به یک نفر باشد: نیکولاس فلامل کیمیاگر. کوئتزآلکوتل در همان لحظه آنها را که انتهای اسکله ایستاده بودند، دید. و بله. یک زن هم آنجا بود، پرنل ساحره که باستانی از او خاطره ی تلخی داشت. ناخودآگاه زبانش را به جای خالی دندان آسیابش که ساحره آن را شکانده بود، برد. شرایط خوب نبود. اصلاً خوب نبود: یک باستانی پیمان شکن و سه تا از خطرناکترین و مرگبارترین آدمیزادهای روی قلمروی زمین. کوئتزآلکوتل دستهایش را محکم مشت کرد، ناخنهای تیز و سیاه رنگش در گوشت کف دستش فرو رفتند. قطرات خون از کف دستش روی شیشه ریخته شد و تصاویر زنده ماندند. بدون پلک زد�� به کریستال زل زده بود. ... لوتان برگشت تا از هاله ها تغذیه کند... موجود با کمک دمش از آب بیرون آمد، هر هفت سرش با دهانهای باز برای غذا حمله بردند... نوری از آتش سبزرنگ و بوی شدید نعناع. باستانی با دیدن اینکه لوتان در یک آن به یک تخم رگه دار آبی تبدیل شد، فریاد زد: «نه!» تخم به سمت دستهای کیمیاگر پرت شد. فلامل آن را پیروزمندانه قاپید... تخم را به هوا انداخت و بعد یک مرغ دریایی آن را گرفت و در جا قورت داد. کوئتزآلکوتل نعره زد: «نه، نه، نه، نه، نه...» چهره اش سیاه شد و به شکل تصویر همان افعی ترسناکی که همیشه کابوس مایاها و آزتکها بود، درآمد. دندانهای نامرتبش از دهانش بیرون زد، چشمهایش باریک شدند و تارهای موهای تیره اش مثل میخ اطراف صورتش سخت شدند. روی میز کوبید. میز چوبی قدیمی ترک برداشت اما عکس العمل خیلی سریع مرد باستانی آینه را از افتادن و شکستن نجات داد. خشمش به همان سرعتی که پدیدار شده بود، رنگ باخت. کوئتزآلکوتل نفس عمیقی کشید و دستش را بین موهای سختش فرو برد و آن را صاف کرد. تنها کاریکه بیلی بچه و ماکیاولی باید انجام میدادند، آزاد کردن چند هیولای کوچک در شهر بود ـ سه یا چهار هیولا کفایت میکرد. دو تا هم بس بود؛ حتی یک هیولا. برای شروع موجودی بزرگ با فلس و دندان، مناسب به نظر میرسید. اما آنها موفق نشده بودند و تاوان این شکست را بعدها میدادند البته اگر جان سالم به در میبردند. باید هیولاها را از جزیره بیرون میکرد اما به این منظور اول باید فلاملها و دوستان باستانی و جاودان آنها را سرگرم میکرد. ظاهراً وقت آن رسیده بود که کوئتزآلکوتل شخصاً، اختیار امور را به دست بگیرد. خنده ای ناگهانی دندانهای سوزنی باستانی را آشکار کرد. او چند موجود دست آموز در قلمروی اشباح خودش نگه داشته بود ـ بدون شک آدمیزادها آنها را هیولا مینامیدند. باید آنها را آزاد میکرد. از طرفی شکی نبود که کیمیاگر همانطور که با لوتان مقابله کرده بود، با آنها هم میکرد. پس نیاز به چیزی بزرگتر داشت. چیزی بسیار بزرگتر از چند هیولای کوچک و کثیف. کوئتزآلکوتل تلفن همراهش را از روی میز آشپزخانه برداشت. شماره ی لوس آنجلس را از حافظه ی گوشی گرفت. پانزده بار زنگ خورد تا بالاخره کسی از آن طرف خط جواب داد. کوئتزآلکوتل با صدای خشنی گفت: «هنوز اون کیسه ی دندونی رو که هزار سال پیش بهت فروختم، داری؟ میخوام ازت بخرمش. چرا؟ چون میخوام به فلامل یه درس درست و حسابی بدم... و حواسشون رو پرت کنم تا بتونم هیولاها رو از جزیره آزاد کنم.» مکث کرد. «چقدر میفروشیش؟ مجانی؟ خب. چه خوب. آره. معلومه که میتونی تماشا کنی. تو ویزا پوینت میبینمت. مطمئن میشم که هیچ آدمیزادی اون اطراف نباشه.» کوئتزآلکوتل زمزمه کرد: «و حالا یه اتفاق عجیب میافته. اینجوری... داره میاد به سمت تو کیمیاگر. به سمت تو. »)؛ پایان نقل. ا. شربیانی
April 12, 2016
Tremendo final. No puedo creer que Scott se haya guardado tanto para este tomo. Me sorprendió muchísimo. Un extraordinario cierre para una saga que empezó sin gustarme mucho pero que terminó volviéndome loco en cada página. Brillante.
La Encantadora no es un libro perfecto, tampoco carece de partes que aburren o resultan anodinas para la trama. Tiene diálogos que son puro relleno, meros chistes y jugueteos entre personajes para hacer más amena la lectura. También es imposible ignorar los capítulos que sobran. Sin embargo, todo eso queda en un plano oscuro, tapado por escenas que emocionan a la vez que provocan en el lector una rabieta con lloriqueo y lamentos silenciosos. Queda oculto por revelaciones que doblan, destruyen y agrietan una historia herida y que hiere sin piedad bajo el control de un implacable autor.
La Encantadora no es un libro perfecto, pero es una sinfonía de dioses que se levantan y caen, leyendas que miran al cielo buscando respuestas y de secretos enterrados que renacen para reclamar lo que es propio.
La Encantadora no es un libro perfecto, tampoco carece de partes que aburren o resultan anodinas para la trama. Tiene diálogos que son puro relleno, meros chistes y jugueteos entre personajes para hacer más amena la lectura. También es imposible ignorar los capítulos que sobran. Sin embargo, todo eso queda en un plano oscuro, tapado por escenas que emocionan a la vez que provocan en el lector una rabieta con lloriqueo y lamentos silenciosos. Queda oculto por revelaciones que doblan, destruyen y agrietan una historia herida y que hiere sin piedad bajo el control de un implacable autor.
La Encantadora no es un libro perfecto, pero es una sinfonía de dioses que se levantan y caen, leyendas que miran al cielo buscando respuestas y de secretos enterrados que renacen para reclamar lo que es propio.
August 10, 2015
Gosh, so much to say about this book. The ending left me satisfied, but I am so unimpressed by Scott's writing that I will likely never pick up a book of his ever again.
This series fell prey to every fantasy cliche that drives me nuts, starting with Michael Scott trying waaaaay too hard to impress us. In the first two books, we established a hierarchy of immortals, Next Gen, Elder, and Great Elder. But Scott keeps trying to one-up himself - before the Great Elders were Archons, and before them Ancients, and before them Earthlords and blah blah blah. I'd really love it if he just decided on what the ultimate godlike race is and left it at that.
Then, in this book, we get to spend chapters watching every single character introduced put on armor, or reminisce about the past, or worry about the future, or make dire statements about the end of the world. Scathatch, in particular, is fond of making dramatic "you will!" replies to comments made in the past. This was clever the first time, then it grew very wearing. Also, was it really necessary to cut back to the same battle - Niten and Prometheus vs some lizards - every third chapter? Every single time, they would fight a lizard, talk about battles, and one of them would "fall." So much of this book was filler, I feel it could easily have been combined with the previous one.
The problem is that the incredibly interesting characters are also the relatively minor ones. For example, I love Virginia Dare, and would have loved to see more of her. The crew left back in the present is the far more interesting one - Machiavelli, Billy the Kid, the Flamels - but there's a feeling that they are just a minor subplot.
The ending, with the twins' prophecy and everything, is a satisfying one. But Scott performs so much build-up, that a lot of it seems like useless hype. In particular, I don't get why we're treated to political drama courtesy of Bastet and Anubis when that barely ends up figuring in.
I recommend reading this series, but I can't say it was one of my favorites. Michael Scott's writing is appalling, and I now have an urge to read something that's fast and to the point. The only thing saving this series is the rather clever idea of writing historical figures and gods as Elders and immortals, a la Percy Jackson. But Rick Riordan never waffles on like this.
This series fell prey to every fantasy cliche that drives me nuts, starting with Michael Scott trying waaaaay too hard to impress us. In the first two books, we established a hierarchy of immortals, Next Gen, Elder, and Great Elder. But Scott keeps trying to one-up himself - before the Great Elders were Archons, and before them Ancients, and before them Earthlords and blah blah blah. I'd really love it if he just decided on what the ultimate godlike race is and left it at that.
Then, in this book, we get to spend chapters watching every single character introduced put on armor, or reminisce about the past, or worry about the future, or make dire statements about the end of the world. Scathatch, in particular, is fond of making dramatic "you will!" replies to comments made in the past. This was clever the first time, then it grew very wearing. Also, was it really necessary to cut back to the same battle - Niten and Prometheus vs some lizards - every third chapter? Every single time, they would fight a lizard, talk about battles, and one of them would "fall." So much of this book was filler, I feel it could easily have been combined with the previous one.
The problem is that the incredibly interesting characters are also the relatively minor ones. For example, I love Virginia Dare, and would have loved to see more of her. The crew left back in the present is the far more interesting one - Machiavelli, Billy the Kid, the Flamels - but there's a feeling that they are just a minor subplot.
The ending, with the twins' prophecy and everything, is a satisfying one. But Scott performs so much build-up, that a lot of it seems like useless hype. In particular, I don't get why we're treated to political drama courtesy of Bastet and Anubis when that barely ends up figuring in.
I recommend reading this series, but I can't say it was one of my favorites. Michael Scott's writing is appalling, and I now have an urge to read something that's fast and to the point. The only thing saving this series is the rather clever idea of writing historical figures and gods as Elders and immortals, a la Percy Jackson. But Rick Riordan never waffles on like this.
December 29, 2020
A quick review reflecting the whole series...
On the surface, the six books of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel are fun, fast-paced and make for a perfectly fine YA adventure story. Scott's love (and knowledge) of mythology is clear and engaging, and the incredibly large cast of characters both historical and legendary are sure to encourage a deeper curiosity.
This is a “Chosen One(s)” story line; although the title of the series suggests a focus on Flamel, the story revolves around the teen-aged 'twins of legend,' Josh and Sophie and their role in saving...well, everything. All the things. If you are looking for a magical high stakes story with fairly simplistic ideals, this will wrap you up for a while.
On the flip side, and maybe look out for minor spoilers here:
The main characters aren't particularly likable, and as the cast of characters grows the twins get less and less spotlight. This isn't a bad thing, but it serves to highlight their weaknesses as opposed to celebrating their growth. The magic system starts off interesting, but remains disappointingly undeveloped. Each bit of training and learning the twins do feels anticlimactic. Every single character is just a little too reticent about revealing important information, which gets old early on. Also, just about everyone is maybe a little too redeemable.
I suppose a good way to sum up my experience of the series is like this: I finished it, and fairly quickly, too. But I can't be bothered to break down my thoughts about each individual book, or even try to highlight my likes and dislikes beyond what I've just done. By no means a bad tale, I enjoyed the story, but won't likely revisit it.
On the surface, the six books of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel are fun, fast-paced and make for a perfectly fine YA adventure story. Scott's love (and knowledge) of mythology is clear and engaging, and the incredibly large cast of characters both historical and legendary are sure to encourage a deeper curiosity.
This is a “Chosen One(s)” story line; although the title of the series suggests a focus on Flamel, the story revolves around the teen-aged 'twins of legend,' Josh and Sophie and their role in saving...well, everything. All the things. If you are looking for a magical high stakes story with fairly simplistic ideals, this will wrap you up for a while.
On the flip side, and maybe look out for minor spoilers here:
The main characters aren't particularly likable, and as the cast of characters grows the twins get less and less spotlight. This isn't a bad thing, but it serves to highlight their weaknesses as opposed to celebrating their growth. The magic system starts off interesting, but remains disappointingly undeveloped. Each bit of training and learning the twins do feels anticlimactic. Every single character is just a little too reticent about revealing important information, which gets old early on. Also, just about everyone is maybe a little too redeemable.
I suppose a good way to sum up my experience of the series is like this: I finished it, and fairly quickly, too. But I can't be bothered to break down my thoughts about each individual book, or even try to highlight my likes and dislikes beyond what I've just done. By no means a bad tale, I enjoyed the story, but won't likely revisit it.
July 5, 2012
It's pretty close to a one star, but I do like some of the characters enough. So who is the Enchantress? I have no idea. It's lovely to title a book something and for a reader to get through it with no idea who the title is referring to. That is not the main problem with this book or series however. It was just too much. Too many characters, too much random story lines. I'm actually not even really sure what the purpose of this entire series was. We already knew what was going to happen in the finale since it had already happened ten thousand years ago. In this finale book, like several of its predecessors nothing happens for a long time and in the climax nothing much happens and in this the finale, Danu Talis falls. Surprise, surprise because it had already fallen ten thousand years ago in I believe the same manner so were we seeing the past or the present?
It's also subtitled the Secret Life of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel but the Flamels have gradually taken a back seat as the series progressed and really become non-entities in this book.
Inexplicable things happen throughout like Isis and Osiris all of a sudden becoming crazy beasty "Earthlords" whatever that is. If it was explained in a previous book I didn't remember. I also question the whole hierarchy since the Elders don't seem to have any more powers than the immmortal humans which I truly didn't get. Their power comes from the same source, auras, and they die when they use it up which seems awfully quickly in some cases. Scott tells us that Flamel once dropped a mountain on the giant spider but that didn't use up too much of his aura? I absolutely hate books that don't have a set of rules or when the rules are changed on a whim and that seems to be the case here.
Again there were too many characters and too many things going on and things were wrapped up way too quickly and in some cases way too neatly. Oh Quetzalcatl and Bestet all of a sudden take off when Aunt Agnes shows up. Really they would give up that quickly. I'm shaking my head as a write this.
This series had the potential to be good but Scott seems to be interested in telling us how many mythologies he knows instead of focusing on a good plot.
It's also subtitled the Secret Life of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel but the Flamels have gradually taken a back seat as the series progressed and really become non-entities in this book.
Inexplicable things happen throughout like Isis and Osiris all of a sudden becoming crazy beasty "Earthlords" whatever that is. If it was explained in a previous book I didn't remember. I also question the whole hierarchy since the Elders don't seem to have any more powers than the immmortal humans which I truly didn't get. Their power comes from the same source, auras, and they die when they use it up which seems awfully quickly in some cases. Scott tells us that Flamel once dropped a mountain on the giant spider but that didn't use up too much of his aura? I absolutely hate books that don't have a set of rules or when the rules are changed on a whim and that seems to be the case here.
Again there were too many characters and too many things going on and things were wrapped up way too quickly and in some cases way too neatly. Oh Quetzalcatl and Bestet all of a sudden take off when Aunt Agnes shows up. Really they would give up that quickly. I'm shaking my head as a write this.
This series had the potential to be good but Scott seems to be interested in telling us how many mythologies he knows instead of focusing on a good plot.
July 8, 2012
Alright, so last night I finished reading The Enchantress, by Michael Scott. Last book in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. Pure drivel.
Now, I know what you are thinking. "Torry, what do you expect when you read a book meant for children?" Good point, but still, whatever happened to good story telling? None of the characters are believable, the way they transition as the story develops seems contrived, the dialogue is cheesy, the plot nonsensical, and the entire time I feel like the author is just tries to show me how much esoteric knowledge he has about mythology. AND WHY MUST AUTHORS DABBLE WITH TIME TRAVEL, BUT CREATE PARADOXES? IS THIS THE FUCKING TERMINATOR???
Some of the characters were kind of cool, if one dimensional, but we are left hanging with so many of them. Some of the biggest characters of the book have no ending; no resolution to their stories. Others feel like their sage was wrapped up quickly, with abrupt transformation that do not keep pace with how the characters were developed (I use that word lightly) throughout the series.
Still, if you completely suspend disbelief and maybe get a little drunk, you can have a good time reading these novels. Lots of fantastical elements, frequent deus ex machina, colorful but shallow characters, and interesting conspiracy. In other words, if you like Dan Brown novels, you will love this series.
Now, I know what you are thinking. "Torry, what do you expect when you read a book meant for children?" Good point, but still, whatever happened to good story telling? None of the characters are believable, the way they transition as the story develops seems contrived, the dialogue is cheesy, the plot nonsensical, and the entire time I feel like the author is just tries to show me how much esoteric knowledge he has about mythology. AND WHY MUST AUTHORS DABBLE WITH TIME TRAVEL, BUT CREATE PARADOXES? IS THIS THE FUCKING TERMINATOR???
Some of the characters were kind of cool, if one dimensional, but we are left hanging with so many of them. Some of the biggest characters of the book have no ending; no resolution to their stories. Others feel like their sage was wrapped up quickly, with abrupt transformation that do not keep pace with how the characters were developed (I use that word lightly) throughout the series.
Still, if you completely suspend disbelief and maybe get a little drunk, you can have a good time reading these novels. Lots of fantastical elements, frequent deus ex machina, colorful but shallow characters, and interesting conspiracy. In other words, if you like Dan Brown novels, you will love this series.
December 19, 2020
Complete 5 Golden Stars
the Alchemyst: ★★★★★/5
the Magician: ★★★★★/5
the Sorceress: ★★★★/5
the Necromancer: ★★★★★/5
the Warlock: ★★★★★/5
the Enchantress: ★★★★★/5
another series ended, leaving me in shock & heartache of this loss.
this book had one of the most satisfying, fast paced, yet sad ending in all the series I have read. I loved how the truths revealed, how the prophecy unfolded so unexpectedly & awe-aspiring.
so fast-pace, so action-packed & shocking! (no wonder! it's the LAST book!)
everything ends up in Danu Talis.
I just LOVE this book.
I also so LOVE Marethyu!
RTC after re-read (probably in 2021) Sooooooon I'll be back!
the Alchemyst: ★★★★★/5
the Magician: ★★★★★/5
the Sorceress: ★★★★/5
the Necromancer: ★★★★★/5
the Warlock: ★★★★★/5
the Enchantress: ★★★★★/5
another series ended, leaving me in shock & heartache of this loss.
this book had one of the most satisfying, fast paced, yet sad ending in all the series I have read. I loved how the truths revealed, how the prophecy unfolded so unexpectedly & awe-aspiring.
so fast-pace, so action-packed & shocking! (no wonder! it's the LAST book!)
everything ends up in Danu Talis.
I just LOVE this book.
I also so LOVE Marethyu!
RTC after re-read (probably in 2021) Sooooooon I'll be back!
![Profile Image for [S] Bibliophage.](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1517936499i/11854153._UX200_CR0,52,200,200_.jpg)
April 20, 2018
Finally, I could move on after I finish reading this last installment of the book series. I was quite surprised that it was Josh and not Sophie who save the modern world and destroyed the Danu Talis. I was really rooting for Sophie to be the chosen one because I don't like Josh's attitude on the 4th and 5th book. But after contemplating on Josh's journey, I think it really suits him to make the biggest sacrifice and become a hero.
Josh experienced a lot of emotions such as anger, jealousy, uncertainty, and pride. But after all of these, Dee made him realized that whenever he was in doubt; he should always use his heart. The biggest revelation, I guess, is that Josh became Death or also called Marethyu and who gave the book of Codex to Nicholas.
I am curious about what happened to Sophie who isn't really related to him by blood, which was also revealed in this last book. If it's true that the author will be writing a sequel to this series, hopefully, there could be a chance that Sophie and Josh will meet again.
Josh experienced a lot of emotions such as anger, jealousy, uncertainty, and pride. But after all of these, Dee made him realized that whenever he was in doubt; he should always use his heart. The biggest revelation, I guess, is that Josh became Death or also called Marethyu and who gave the book of Codex to Nicholas.
I am curious about what happened to Sophie who isn't really related to him by blood, which was also revealed in this last book. If it's true that the author will be writing a sequel to this series, hopefully, there could be a chance that Sophie and Josh will meet again.
June 4, 2012
Well...The story is finally over and I'm not sure I am pleased with what happened with this story. All of the things that I loved about the first 3 books slowly melted away from the overall story as we got closer and closer to the end. The most disheartening thing, was seeing how Mr. Scott marginalized Nicholas Flamel: the title character of the series. Surely the story was equally about "the twins of legend," but in my opinion, the author became so tangential that it became off-putting.
It is understandable that Michael Scott has artistic license to take the story wherever he would like it to go. But I think he ran out of ideas because he forced himself to write each book on a one year deadline. In that regard, I felt the last two books were too much filler, too much talking about the same thing, too much material that could have been shortened down (or expanded upon) with some good, quality editing. Ultimately, I found myself turning the pages to get to more and more of the story. But I can't stand when I read a book and the entire book is rising action. Mr. Scott spent 4 books taking me all over the world, and even to other worlds! (shadowrealms) Then a decision was made to keep the reader stuck on Alcatraz or Danu Talis?? It simply made me angry and confused.
As far as the characters are concerned, it was sad to see how Mr. Scott devolved them all into caricatures of themselves. The dialogue in this last book was just awful! It was cheesy, feigned comic relief, hollow, empty, and a waste of paper. I can't explain how obnoxious it was to re-read the same one sentence description that the author gave, EVERY SINGLE TIME a character was re-introduced during the story. At this point in a series of books, if you don't think that your reader knows the characters, you should probably come up with new ones. I get it: Scathach has red hair, green eyes, and sharp teeth. I get it: Nicholas and Perenelle are looking older. I get it: "The Change" makes the Elders look different. HOW MANY TIMES DID I NEED TO BE REMINDED OF THOSE TRIVIAL DETAILS?? It was very patronizing and it made the story very choppy.
While there were no real loose ends, it was just bizarre to see how it all came to an end. I was not really a fan of anything that happened on Danu Talis in the last book. It was cheesy and so far removed from what I remember the first few books being. The big reveal at the end, was something I had seen a book and a half before we were supposed to find out. I'm not saying that is something everyone should have seen, but it made me question a lot. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the book titles, but there were a few in the series that made me question if they should have been swapped with one of the other titles...most specifically the last two.
Overall, I am just very defeated by the way this series played out. I've had this experience a few times and it makes me wonder why authors put limits and restrictions on their writing. If you have a story you want to write, don't limit yourself, or in this case, force yourself to stretch the story over a pre-determined amount of pages. The entire last three books could have been edited down to one decent novel. Instead, we got no new characters, no new places, TIME TRAVEL (the kiss of death), regurgitated plot action/characters, and a big flop of an ending!
I am truly disappointed and I don't know if I can invest more time in his books if this is what Michael Scott delivered for the so-called ending to what started out as a truly epic series.
It is understandable that Michael Scott has artistic license to take the story wherever he would like it to go. But I think he ran out of ideas because he forced himself to write each book on a one year deadline. In that regard, I felt the last two books were too much filler, too much talking about the same thing, too much material that could have been shortened down (or expanded upon) with some good, quality editing. Ultimately, I found myself turning the pages to get to more and more of the story. But I can't stand when I read a book and the entire book is rising action. Mr. Scott spent 4 books taking me all over the world, and even to other worlds! (shadowrealms) Then a decision was made to keep the reader stuck on Alcatraz or Danu Talis?? It simply made me angry and confused.
As far as the characters are concerned, it was sad to see how Mr. Scott devolved them all into caricatures of themselves. The dialogue in this last book was just awful! It was cheesy, feigned comic relief, hollow, empty, and a waste of paper. I can't explain how obnoxious it was to re-read the same one sentence description that the author gave, EVERY SINGLE TIME a character was re-introduced during the story. At this point in a series of books, if you don't think that your reader knows the characters, you should probably come up with new ones. I get it: Scathach has red hair, green eyes, and sharp teeth. I get it: Nicholas and Perenelle are looking older. I get it: "The Change" makes the Elders look different. HOW MANY TIMES DID I NEED TO BE REMINDED OF THOSE TRIVIAL DETAILS?? It was very patronizing and it made the story very choppy.
While there were no real loose ends, it was just bizarre to see how it all came to an end. I was not really a fan of anything that happened on Danu Talis in the last book. It was cheesy and so far removed from what I remember the first few books being. The big reveal at the end, was something I had seen a book and a half before we were supposed to find out. I'm not saying that is something everyone should have seen, but it made me question a lot. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the book titles, but there were a few in the series that made me question if they should have been swapped with one of the other titles...most specifically the last two.
Overall, I am just very defeated by the way this series played out. I've had this experience a few times and it makes me wonder why authors put limits and restrictions on their writing. If you have a story you want to write, don't limit yourself, or in this case, force yourself to stretch the story over a pre-determined amount of pages. The entire last three books could have been edited down to one decent novel. Instead, we got no new characters, no new places, TIME TRAVEL (the kiss of death), regurgitated plot action/characters, and a big flop of an ending!
I am truly disappointed and I don't know if I can invest more time in his books if this is what Michael Scott delivered for the so-called ending to what started out as a truly epic series.
February 27, 2013
My god, what a clusterfuck. I am so unbelievably disappointed in the direction this series has gone, and particularly how it ended. I have no problem with this as a children's series, I am an adult and I love my YA/children's stories, but I'll be damned if my childhood self could keep track of half the shit that's been going on and adding to the massive pile of poop that's been gathering since the second book.
The increasing number of characters, the many many places/times/dimensions to which they have been split, the many points of view the reader is forced to assume. There's no way a child would enjoy the latter books in this series. This last one has my head spinning, and I had to force myself to read through it simply because I didn't want to have myself suffer through the previous confusing books in vain.
The increasing number of characters, the many many places/times/dimensions to which they have been split, the many points of view the reader is forced to assume. There's no way a child would enjoy the latter books in this series. This last one has my head spinning, and I had to force myself to read through it simply because I didn't want to have myself suffer through the previous confusing books in vain.
November 13, 2016
Kraj jeste dobro odradjen. Manje vise dobijamo sve odgovore i dosta njih su iznenadjujuci sto je uvek plus. Ali kada imas ovako puno likova na kraju logicno je da ce sam kraj biti malo razvodnjen. Ipak mozemo biti zadovoljni.
Glavni problem (barem za mene) sto stalno imam osecaj da je radnja suvise razvucena i da pisac stalno pokusava da nekako popuni praznine praznom pricom i dogadjajima koji ne doprinose ni cemu. Odnosno ovo nije trebalo da bude serijal od 5 knjiga vec je trebalo da se napise kao trilogija-
Tako da steta, serijal je fino poceo, dosegno vrhunac kod druge knjige i posle toga se odugovlacilo do poslednjih 100tinak strana 5 knjige.
Ako je neko ljubitelj 'Heroja sa Olimpa' vredi da baci pogled, za sve druge bolje da zaobidju.
Glavni problem (barem za mene) sto stalno imam osecaj da je radnja suvise razvucena i da pisac stalno pokusava da nekako popuni praznine praznom pricom i dogadjajima koji ne doprinose ni cemu. Odnosno ovo nije trebalo da bude serijal od 5 knjiga vec je trebalo da se napise kao trilogija-
Tako da steta, serijal je fino poceo, dosegno vrhunac kod druge knjige i posle toga se odugovlacilo do poslednjih 100tinak strana 5 knjige.
Ako je neko ljubitelj 'Heroja sa Olimpa' vredi da baci pogled, za sve druge bolje da zaobidju.
July 7, 2019
Review originally published in Phantases and Other Funny Words
*Deep breath*
Okay
*Sighs*
Note: The following review is divided into two parts. The first part is spoiler-free and gives my overview thoughts on the book and series. The second part provides an in-depth analysis with spoilers. Be warned.
Part One: Overview
This is a very difficult review for me to write, and chances are, it’s going to be a very long one as well. I don’t like writing negative reviews, and usually I try to focus on the positives. But I regret to say that there are very few in this book. I understand the effort and work and time that goes into writing a novel, and it is nothing short of amazing to have one published. And this makes the following review all the more difficult. I will simply say that this review is entirely subjective, and it is only a depiction of my opinion.
If you’ve read my reviews for the past volumes in this series, then you’re probably aware that I’m not the biggest fan of it. I was tired of the series by book 3, and yet I read it all the way through. Some of you may wonder, why did I do that? Mainly because I saw potential in the series. I saw that it could become much more than what it was, at least up to The Sorceress. Then the series was utterly derailed and lost and unfocused.
While The Necromancer was jumbled and clumsy, and The Warlock was just plain boring, The Enchantress was very infuriating. The previous books failed to deliver on what they promised, but I kept expecting (hoping) that at least the final book of the series would deliver something that felt epic or grand or amazing. However, as you can imagine, I don’t think it met even those expectations. Nothing in this book is satisfying. The characters are but traces of what they were, and they weren’t even that developed to begin with. Nicholas Flamel, after whom the series is named, disappears from the primary narrative and becomes less than a side plot. He becomes plain filler.
The prose in this novel is beyond awkward, and the action is almost laughably described. At one point, the author uses the word “miasma” to describe the aura of Joan of Arc. From context, it can be inferred that the word is supposed to work in a positive manner. However, by definition, the word “miasma” is a negative word that couldn’t politely be applied to someone’s aura. Miasma: a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor. Not to mention the repetition in the writing.
In Chapter 21, p. 144:
In Chapter 22, p. 149:
It’s too clumsy to have been a joke and too shortly after to be a callback. It’s almost like the author only has a limited number of phrases and he applies the best-fitting one to the situation. At times it almost feels like he underestimates his audience. Throughout the entire book, he describes nearly every character’s appearance and setting and the situation they’re in every time they appear, even if we just last saw them two chapters ago. Readers, even young readers, are fully capable of remembering the characters they’re supposed to be following without needing a constant reminder of what they look like. These repetitive descriptions occur with Bastet, Billy the Kid, Scathach, Niten and Prometheus.
But the repetition isn’t the only problem with the writing style. During a battle, the author writes “The hardest part was knowing when to move. Too soon and he’d miss the spear, too late and the blade would have already struck him.” The character in question is trying to knock a projectile out of the way, and reading the two sentences above mentioned, I can’t help but think that they describe all there is to deflecting a projectile. That’s not the hardest part, but the absolute description of the action. It is almost like saying that the hardest part of walking was knowing how to take several consecutive steps without falling.
The dialogue is no better. I even believe the quality decreased from the last book. Not only are the words overly simplistic and unrealistic, half the time the dialogue is useless and serves no purpose beyond inflating the book with words. Some characters are in the middle of End of the World danger, and they keep pausing and having these long conversations about the past and their powers. The Flamels are guilty of this, stopping and walking about their past and how they met and where they have been while a battle is happening. And this wouldn’t be a problem, except that the author keeps hammering in the urgency of the battle and the time crunch.
The myths, yet again, are abysmal. I may be repeating myself with each review, but if Scott doesn’t care about using the same phrase twice in the span of ten pages, I shouldn’t care either. Looking back over the book series, I should have let go of all my expectations for the myths. These legendary beings and creatures, especially as presented in this book, are completely eviscerated of their essence; they are completely unrecognizable. Gone is the wonder or the awe or the larger-than-life scale of these creatures. They’ve been reduced to poorly executed, weakened, bland, geeric and undignified mutants who never were worthy of respect or of having tales told about them. They’re a bunch of bickering, annoying, pretentious and unoriginal bunch of elitists who differ in no way from virtually every other Upper-Class-Villains in all of the Western canon. They started as little more than low-budget versions of themselves, and ended as entirely different, hollow, uncompelling things.
Finally, I have to address the impeccable directions provided. This has bothered me since reading the first book, but I saw it as a minor problem for the most part. But now, I must bring it up. Scott keeps using the names of roads and streets and neighborhoods to describe the paths that characters take from one location to another. I’m fairly certain that most of this book’s readership doesn’t live in San Francisco, or London or Paris, so naming all these streets is utterly useless and needless. In previous books, as I mentioned, these GPS-caliber directions didn’t bother me so much because the pacing kept the characters jumping from one action scene to another. However, in this book there are a couple of instances where the only objective of an entire chapter is to have a character walk from Point A to Point B. And to make things worse, Scott names the streets, specifies which direction, right or left, the characters take and why and which route is faster. It almost feels like the author is bragging that he had a map of the city open beside him as he wrote, and he marked every single path. If he had spent as much time developing characters as he did planning Nicholas Flamel’s Guidebook to California, the series would have been a lot better. Specific directions are fully useless even if you live in the city in question, because these directions are altogether unnecessary and irrelevant to the narrative, and serve as nothing but a waste of time.
Before going to the spoiler section, I will say that this book was unnecessarily long. The main plot kept getting derailed by pointless asides with characters that I cared so little about, I was very sorely tempted to skip their chapters altogether. Characters that were once prominent in the series wind up becoming part of the background, and yet the author keeps focusing on them even though they serve no real purpose to the narrative. Their small plotlines could be easily summed up in one or two chapters, with the remainder of the novel focusing on the two only characters who have any impact on the story anymore: Josh and Sophie.
Any and all passion seems to be gone from the series, the characters move just like figurines on a gameboard, moving from one place to another with very little investment or emotion or even necessity. They do what they do because the author wants them to and that’s the only thing driving them. The word “motivation” is beyond a joke by now. Allegiances have shifted at least three times for almost every character, and nobody, not even the villains, know what they want anymore.
Part Two: Detailed Analysis and SPOILERS
As it happens, the grand finale of this series involves Josh and Sophie going back in time to destroy the island of Danu Talis and to guide the surviving humans into building their own civilizations. One of the twins is meant to destroy the city and the other is meant to lead the survivors. However, as with every single time-travel story, there are many plot holes in the shape of paradoxes. The time travel in this book makes absolutely no sense. The twins must destroy Danu Talis for them to be able to even go back in time to begin with. But they still have the choice to let Danu Talis be, which would erase all of human history from day that onward…and this would render the twins as people out of time, incapable of affecting events which led to them even existing. The attempted explanation using time-streams doesn’t help, and if anything, makes the time-space travel all the more confusing. There were so many holes that I gave up trying to make sense of it and to even try to pinpoint them all.
At the end of The Warlock, it’s revealed that Josh and Sophie are the children of Isis and Osiris, who also happen to be John Dee’s masters. Near the end of The Enchantress, it is then revealed that Isis and Osiris are Earthlords who kidnapped Josh (a Neanderthal baby) and Sophie (a 10th century Russian steppe dweller infant) and placed them in a Shadowrealm that had no concept of time. Though it may make me seem all the more pretentious for it, I will praise the twist that Josh and Sophie are from different points in time, both kidnapped by the creatures who manipulated them (and of course there’s a but). But the manipulation of Isis and Osiris is half-baked at best. Osiris tells the twins that “We taught you history and mythology so that when you did discover the truth, it would not be such a terrifying revelation, and so you would have some familiarity with the characters and creatures you’d encounter.” Firstly, myths have absolutely nothing in common with whatever these Elders are supposed to be, as I already mentioned above. Secondly, these teachings in mythology and history clearly didn’t include even the names of Bastet, Anubis, Hecate, Odin, Coatlicue and only vaguely touched on the background for Mars. Some of these I could understand, like Odin who was a recluse and Coatlicue who was banished to a distant Shadowrealm. But how could Osiris not teach the twins about Bastet and Anubis, two of the most prominent Elders who would stand in the way of Isis’s and Osiris’s plan?
With that smooth segue, let me talk about Osiris’s and Isis’s plan. As I already said, they’re Earthlords, the oldest race mentioned in this series. And what do these uber-ancient beings of forgotten history look like? Dragons. Just plain, vanilla, generic dragons. At least I should be grateful that they don’t look like Komodo dragons. And their plan was to open a portal to the past to bring all the other Earthlords into Danu Talis and rule again. Their real plan was identical to their fake plan, which involved opening a portal to the past to bring something through. Not only is this plan colossally flawed, but it would also open another million plot holes in the story to add to those already made by the twins’ time travel. I must admit that I almost laughed out-loud at this unexpected, unfounded, so-called reveal that sprung entirely out of nowhere. There were no hints to this reveal. The best reveals are those which change the way we, the readers, see past events in the story. This changes absolutely nothing.
And for all their power, the Earthlords are very easily defeated with the four gladii-ex-machina, which come from nowhere and are never explained. But these swords are but some of the things that are never explained. Abraham the Mage was just some Elder. How could he see the future? Why could he see the future? Why did he choose to help the humans? Why did he write the Codex? How come he was forgotten in myth even though he was a fairly prominent Elder? What deal did he make with Chronos that gave him the power of foresight? Why did Chronos have this power? Where even was Chronos? And speaking of missing characters, where was the Witch of Endor during the events of this book? Sophie has her memories, and the Witch clearly remembers the Fall of Danu Talis, so why was she weirdly absent? And the most important question of all, how could Tsagaglalal, a mere human of literal clay, defeat the Spartoi, these legendary monsters of myth? We see her fight, and she’s amazing at it, and she’s revealed to be the teacher of both Scathach and Aoife. Her power doesn’t stretch only to her combat, but her aura is apparently strong enough to completely alter full sections of the Golden Gate Bridge, turning them to vapor, liquid, quicksand and heat the up. If this is the power that a mere clay human has, how were the ancient humans enslaved by the Elders? Of all we’ve seen, Elders have absolutely no mystical power whatsoever. They resort to claws or teeth or fists, because, apparently, they are nothing but weird-looking humans who are weaker than the real humans. These so-called Gods straight out of legend are as useless and weak as the human writing this review. The only difference, it seems, is that the Elders mutate at some point in their lives to make them conveniently match the myths of Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Aztec and others.
Having read the whole series, I’ve developed a theory. The first half of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel follows a patter that is fairly familiar. Normal kids turn out to be special, an ancient prophecy talks about them, and they’re destined to save the world. Additionally, we have ancient myths and legends that are supposed to be magical. That’s not a bad setup. But then something happened. The Last Olympian, the final book in the Percy Jackson series, was published, and Scott found that he had been beaten to the finale he himself had been building up to. So, the last three books of his series were quickly rewritten so they would be different from Rick Riordan’s own series of modern-world-meets-myth. Scott made his myths lean more towards science fiction, introduced the madness of the Ancients and the Earthlords, added the concept of ancient aliens to fit his Elder Race, and shoehorned in time travel. The Last Olympian was published in 2009, the same year as The Sorceress (which is the last book in the series that has any structure or passion or drive). So, Scott, wanting to stand out, came up with a jumbled, roundabout second half of a series that makes little to no sense and that loses the small value that the first three books had. Of course, this is just a theory, but so far, it seems to hold up. Characters from the first three books become nothing more than an afterthought in the last three. Dee goes from being the main antagonist to just another name in a word jumble. Saint-Germain, Scathach, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Palamedes and even the titular Nicholas Flamel are tossed to the side in favor of the new characters of the last three books: Virginia Dare, Aten, Marethyu, Prometheus, Niten, Tsagaglalal, Isis and Osiris.
All in all, not a very good finale to a series that had quite a lot of potential. Apologies for the longer review than usual, but I wanted to provide my analysis on this book and on the series as a whole.
*Deep breath*
Okay
*Sighs*
Note: The following review is divided into two parts. The first part is spoiler-free and gives my overview thoughts on the book and series. The second part provides an in-depth analysis with spoilers. Be warned.
Part One: Overview
This is a very difficult review for me to write, and chances are, it’s going to be a very long one as well. I don’t like writing negative reviews, and usually I try to focus on the positives. But I regret to say that there are very few in this book. I understand the effort and work and time that goes into writing a novel, and it is nothing short of amazing to have one published. And this makes the following review all the more difficult. I will simply say that this review is entirely subjective, and it is only a depiction of my opinion.
If you’ve read my reviews for the past volumes in this series, then you’re probably aware that I’m not the biggest fan of it. I was tired of the series by book 3, and yet I read it all the way through. Some of you may wonder, why did I do that? Mainly because I saw potential in the series. I saw that it could become much more than what it was, at least up to The Sorceress. Then the series was utterly derailed and lost and unfocused.
While The Necromancer was jumbled and clumsy, and The Warlock was just plain boring, The Enchantress was very infuriating. The previous books failed to deliver on what they promised, but I kept expecting (hoping) that at least the final book of the series would deliver something that felt epic or grand or amazing. However, as you can imagine, I don’t think it met even those expectations. Nothing in this book is satisfying. The characters are but traces of what they were, and they weren’t even that developed to begin with. Nicholas Flamel, after whom the series is named, disappears from the primary narrative and becomes less than a side plot. He becomes plain filler.
The prose in this novel is beyond awkward, and the action is almost laughably described. At one point, the author uses the word “miasma” to describe the aura of Joan of Arc. From context, it can be inferred that the word is supposed to work in a positive manner. However, by definition, the word “miasma” is a negative word that couldn’t politely be applied to someone’s aura. Miasma: a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor. Not to mention the repetition in the writing.
In Chapter 21, p. 144:
She looked at Niten. “And you don’t have to look quite so happy about it!”
In Chapter 22, p. 149:
Joan of Arc pinched her friend’s arm. “You don’t have to look quite so happy about it!”
It’s too clumsy to have been a joke and too shortly after to be a callback. It’s almost like the author only has a limited number of phrases and he applies the best-fitting one to the situation. At times it almost feels like he underestimates his audience. Throughout the entire book, he describes nearly every character’s appearance and setting and the situation they’re in every time they appear, even if we just last saw them two chapters ago. Readers, even young readers, are fully capable of remembering the characters they’re supposed to be following without needing a constant reminder of what they look like. These repetitive descriptions occur with Bastet, Billy the Kid, Scathach, Niten and Prometheus.
But the repetition isn’t the only problem with the writing style. During a battle, the author writes “The hardest part was knowing when to move. Too soon and he’d miss the spear, too late and the blade would have already struck him.” The character in question is trying to knock a projectile out of the way, and reading the two sentences above mentioned, I can’t help but think that they describe all there is to deflecting a projectile. That’s not the hardest part, but the absolute description of the action. It is almost like saying that the hardest part of walking was knowing how to take several consecutive steps without falling.
The dialogue is no better. I even believe the quality decreased from the last book. Not only are the words overly simplistic and unrealistic, half the time the dialogue is useless and serves no purpose beyond inflating the book with words. Some characters are in the middle of End of the World danger, and they keep pausing and having these long conversations about the past and their powers. The Flamels are guilty of this, stopping and walking about their past and how they met and where they have been while a battle is happening. And this wouldn’t be a problem, except that the author keeps hammering in the urgency of the battle and the time crunch.
The myths, yet again, are abysmal. I may be repeating myself with each review, but if Scott doesn’t care about using the same phrase twice in the span of ten pages, I shouldn’t care either. Looking back over the book series, I should have let go of all my expectations for the myths. These legendary beings and creatures, especially as presented in this book, are completely eviscerated of their essence; they are completely unrecognizable. Gone is the wonder or the awe or the larger-than-life scale of these creatures. They’ve been reduced to poorly executed, weakened, bland, geeric and undignified mutants who never were worthy of respect or of having tales told about them. They’re a bunch of bickering, annoying, pretentious and unoriginal bunch of elitists who differ in no way from virtually every other Upper-Class-Villains in all of the Western canon. They started as little more than low-budget versions of themselves, and ended as entirely different, hollow, uncompelling things.
Finally, I have to address the impeccable directions provided. This has bothered me since reading the first book, but I saw it as a minor problem for the most part. But now, I must bring it up. Scott keeps using the names of roads and streets and neighborhoods to describe the paths that characters take from one location to another. I’m fairly certain that most of this book’s readership doesn’t live in San Francisco, or London or Paris, so naming all these streets is utterly useless and needless. In previous books, as I mentioned, these GPS-caliber directions didn’t bother me so much because the pacing kept the characters jumping from one action scene to another. However, in this book there are a couple of instances where the only objective of an entire chapter is to have a character walk from Point A to Point B. And to make things worse, Scott names the streets, specifies which direction, right or left, the characters take and why and which route is faster. It almost feels like the author is bragging that he had a map of the city open beside him as he wrote, and he marked every single path. If he had spent as much time developing characters as he did planning Nicholas Flamel’s Guidebook to California, the series would have been a lot better. Specific directions are fully useless even if you live in the city in question, because these directions are altogether unnecessary and irrelevant to the narrative, and serve as nothing but a waste of time.
Before going to the spoiler section, I will say that this book was unnecessarily long. The main plot kept getting derailed by pointless asides with characters that I cared so little about, I was very sorely tempted to skip their chapters altogether. Characters that were once prominent in the series wind up becoming part of the background, and yet the author keeps focusing on them even though they serve no real purpose to the narrative. Their small plotlines could be easily summed up in one or two chapters, with the remainder of the novel focusing on the two only characters who have any impact on the story anymore: Josh and Sophie.
Any and all passion seems to be gone from the series, the characters move just like figurines on a gameboard, moving from one place to another with very little investment or emotion or even necessity. They do what they do because the author wants them to and that’s the only thing driving them. The word “motivation” is beyond a joke by now. Allegiances have shifted at least three times for almost every character, and nobody, not even the villains, know what they want anymore.
Part Two: Detailed Analysis and SPOILERS
As it happens, the grand finale of this series involves Josh and Sophie going back in time to destroy the island of Danu Talis and to guide the surviving humans into building their own civilizations. One of the twins is meant to destroy the city and the other is meant to lead the survivors. However, as with every single time-travel story, there are many plot holes in the shape of paradoxes. The time travel in this book makes absolutely no sense. The twins must destroy Danu Talis for them to be able to even go back in time to begin with. But they still have the choice to let Danu Talis be, which would erase all of human history from day that onward…and this would render the twins as people out of time, incapable of affecting events which led to them even existing. The attempted explanation using time-streams doesn’t help, and if anything, makes the time-space travel all the more confusing. There were so many holes that I gave up trying to make sense of it and to even try to pinpoint them all.
At the end of The Warlock, it’s revealed that Josh and Sophie are the children of Isis and Osiris, who also happen to be John Dee’s masters. Near the end of The Enchantress, it is then revealed that Isis and Osiris are Earthlords who kidnapped Josh (a Neanderthal baby) and Sophie (a 10th century Russian steppe dweller infant) and placed them in a Shadowrealm that had no concept of time. Though it may make me seem all the more pretentious for it, I will praise the twist that Josh and Sophie are from different points in time, both kidnapped by the creatures who manipulated them (and of course there’s a but). But the manipulation of Isis and Osiris is half-baked at best. Osiris tells the twins that “We taught you history and mythology so that when you did discover the truth, it would not be such a terrifying revelation, and so you would have some familiarity with the characters and creatures you’d encounter.” Firstly, myths have absolutely nothing in common with whatever these Elders are supposed to be, as I already mentioned above. Secondly, these teachings in mythology and history clearly didn’t include even the names of Bastet, Anubis, Hecate, Odin, Coatlicue and only vaguely touched on the background for Mars. Some of these I could understand, like Odin who was a recluse and Coatlicue who was banished to a distant Shadowrealm. But how could Osiris not teach the twins about Bastet and Anubis, two of the most prominent Elders who would stand in the way of Isis’s and Osiris’s plan?
With that smooth segue, let me talk about Osiris’s and Isis’s plan. As I already said, they’re Earthlords, the oldest race mentioned in this series. And what do these uber-ancient beings of forgotten history look like? Dragons. Just plain, vanilla, generic dragons. At least I should be grateful that they don’t look like Komodo dragons. And their plan was to open a portal to the past to bring all the other Earthlords into Danu Talis and rule again. Their real plan was identical to their fake plan, which involved opening a portal to the past to bring something through. Not only is this plan colossally flawed, but it would also open another million plot holes in the story to add to those already made by the twins’ time travel. I must admit that I almost laughed out-loud at this unexpected, unfounded, so-called reveal that sprung entirely out of nowhere. There were no hints to this reveal. The best reveals are those which change the way we, the readers, see past events in the story. This changes absolutely nothing.
And for all their power, the Earthlords are very easily defeated with the four gladii-ex-machina, which come from nowhere and are never explained. But these swords are but some of the things that are never explained. Abraham the Mage was just some Elder. How could he see the future? Why could he see the future? Why did he choose to help the humans? Why did he write the Codex? How come he was forgotten in myth even though he was a fairly prominent Elder? What deal did he make with Chronos that gave him the power of foresight? Why did Chronos have this power? Where even was Chronos? And speaking of missing characters, where was the Witch of Endor during the events of this book? Sophie has her memories, and the Witch clearly remembers the Fall of Danu Talis, so why was she weirdly absent? And the most important question of all, how could Tsagaglalal, a mere human of literal clay, defeat the Spartoi, these legendary monsters of myth? We see her fight, and she’s amazing at it, and she’s revealed to be the teacher of both Scathach and Aoife. Her power doesn’t stretch only to her combat, but her aura is apparently strong enough to completely alter full sections of the Golden Gate Bridge, turning them to vapor, liquid, quicksand and heat the up. If this is the power that a mere clay human has, how were the ancient humans enslaved by the Elders? Of all we’ve seen, Elders have absolutely no mystical power whatsoever. They resort to claws or teeth or fists, because, apparently, they are nothing but weird-looking humans who are weaker than the real humans. These so-called Gods straight out of legend are as useless and weak as the human writing this review. The only difference, it seems, is that the Elders mutate at some point in their lives to make them conveniently match the myths of Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, Aztec and others.
Having read the whole series, I’ve developed a theory. The first half of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel follows a patter that is fairly familiar. Normal kids turn out to be special, an ancient prophecy talks about them, and they’re destined to save the world. Additionally, we have ancient myths and legends that are supposed to be magical. That’s not a bad setup. But then something happened. The Last Olympian, the final book in the Percy Jackson series, was published, and Scott found that he had been beaten to the finale he himself had been building up to. So, the last three books of his series were quickly rewritten so they would be different from Rick Riordan’s own series of modern-world-meets-myth. Scott made his myths lean more towards science fiction, introduced the madness of the Ancients and the Earthlords, added the concept of ancient aliens to fit his Elder Race, and shoehorned in time travel. The Last Olympian was published in 2009, the same year as The Sorceress (which is the last book in the series that has any structure or passion or drive). So, Scott, wanting to stand out, came up with a jumbled, roundabout second half of a series that makes little to no sense and that loses the small value that the first three books had. Of course, this is just a theory, but so far, it seems to hold up. Characters from the first three books become nothing more than an afterthought in the last three. Dee goes from being the main antagonist to just another name in a word jumble. Saint-Germain, Scathach, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Palamedes and even the titular Nicholas Flamel are tossed to the side in favor of the new characters of the last three books: Virginia Dare, Aten, Marethyu, Prometheus, Niten, Tsagaglalal, Isis and Osiris.
All in all, not a very good finale to a series that had quite a lot of potential. Apologies for the longer review than usual, but I wanted to provide my analysis on this book and on the series as a whole.
June 19, 2012
(CONTAINS SPOILERS)
After 6 intense and action packed books, I was really expecting the Enchantress to blow the series out of the water. Unfortunetly, it didn't. The book was incredible and enjoyable, but I expected a bit more because this ending had so much potential. But the good stuff first. I really did love what Scott did with Billy the Kid, Virginia Dare, and Machievelli. I just couldn't imagine Billy being evil, and Machievelli was heading towards the good side throughout the book. Virginia had a lot of character devolpment, and she was never really evil to begin with. It was awesome reading about them as the good guys. I wish there was a bit more time spent on Machievelli, but there was a lot on Billy and Virginia that I don't really mind. Hel and Odin were also interesting, and they had much bigger parts in this book than before. As always, Scatty, Shakespeare, Joan, Palamedes, and Saint Germain bring humour and depth to the book. The dialouge between Shakespeare and Palamedes and Joan and Saint Germain touches on the more serious themes of losing loved ones and conquering the fear of death. Isis and Osiris were interesting, until the whole Earthlord part where they got a bit pathetic. With so much of the 'bad' immortals turning 'good', iy would have been strange if Dee didn't follow as well. He had a pretty good ending too. But the 3 most important characters in the book were incredibly degraded. There were so many characters that it's understandable why their parts were shortened, but come on. The entire series is called NICHOLAS FLAMEL!! So why did he spend half of the book feedning his aura to Aerop-Enap? The beginning was a lot better, but Flamel should have been there with the twins at the end. Ah yes, the twins, or aparently, not twins. WHAT ARE THEY?? Really wished I had some answers there. But through the entire series, it's been Sophie and Josh, together. Saving the world and each other's butts pretty equally. But in Enchantress, Josh does most of the butt saving, and saves the world ENTIRELY on his own. That was disapointing. The prophesy did kind of split the two up to begin with, but Scott twisted the meaning around to prevent one of the twins from going evil. He could have tried a bit harder and made the two save the world and defeat Isis and Osiris together. Sophie had even less development than Flamel. With Isis and Osiris, they were pathetic and silly as Earthlords. A lot of the book had a rather childish theme going to it, and Scott could have made it a lot more serious.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, and a few disapointments, but overall, the book was fantastic. The character deaths seem to mainly be elders, and I guess that was to make it easier for readers. I was grief stricken when Niten died, but then he came back to life and that was a bit awkward. Hel and Odin's death was really good though, they were fierce to the very end. The book talked a lot about death and not being afraid to die. I loved this book and would reccomend it to anyone who loves mythology, fantasy, and a whole lot of action.
After 6 intense and action packed books, I was really expecting the Enchantress to blow the series out of the water. Unfortunetly, it didn't. The book was incredible and enjoyable, but I expected a bit more because this ending had so much potential. But the good stuff first. I really did love what Scott did with Billy the Kid, Virginia Dare, and Machievelli. I just couldn't imagine Billy being evil, and Machievelli was heading towards the good side throughout the book. Virginia had a lot of character devolpment, and she was never really evil to begin with. It was awesome reading about them as the good guys. I wish there was a bit more time spent on Machievelli, but there was a lot on Billy and Virginia that I don't really mind. Hel and Odin were also interesting, and they had much bigger parts in this book than before. As always, Scatty, Shakespeare, Joan, Palamedes, and Saint Germain bring humour and depth to the book. The dialouge between Shakespeare and Palamedes and Joan and Saint Germain touches on the more serious themes of losing loved ones and conquering the fear of death. Isis and Osiris were interesting, until the whole Earthlord part where they got a bit pathetic. With so much of the 'bad' immortals turning 'good', iy would have been strange if Dee didn't follow as well. He had a pretty good ending too. But the 3 most important characters in the book were incredibly degraded. There were so many characters that it's understandable why their parts were shortened, but come on. The entire series is called NICHOLAS FLAMEL!! So why did he spend half of the book feedning his aura to Aerop-Enap? The beginning was a lot better, but Flamel should have been there with the twins at the end. Ah yes, the twins, or aparently, not twins. WHAT ARE THEY?? Really wished I had some answers there. But through the entire series, it's been Sophie and Josh, together. Saving the world and each other's butts pretty equally. But in Enchantress, Josh does most of the butt saving, and saves the world ENTIRELY on his own. That was disapointing. The prophesy did kind of split the two up to begin with, but Scott twisted the meaning around to prevent one of the twins from going evil. He could have tried a bit harder and made the two save the world and defeat Isis and Osiris together. Sophie had even less development than Flamel. With Isis and Osiris, they were pathetic and silly as Earthlords. A lot of the book had a rather childish theme going to it, and Scott could have made it a lot more serious.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, and a few disapointments, but overall, the book was fantastic. The character deaths seem to mainly be elders, and I guess that was to make it easier for readers. I was grief stricken when Niten died, but then he came back to life and that was a bit awkward. Hel and Odin's death was really good though, they were fierce to the very end. The book talked a lot about death and not being afraid to die. I loved this book and would reccomend it to anyone who loves mythology, fantasy, and a whole lot of action.
June 21, 2013
Spoilers*
The writing isn’t anything spectacular. Sometimes things are explained very simply and even childishly. The gods don’t really sound like gods. Sometimes they act like children or say something that just isn’t powerful enough for an immortal.
Sophie was getting on my nerves. She was touching Josh, talking to him and even gave John Dee her jacket. John Dee was the enemy, and this was after Josh had sided with him over her. She should have been mad at him.
This is the sixth book in the series, and I still can’t tell the distinction of immortal, archon, earthlord, human, and all the other types of people there are. Some people say they’re human, but they’re immortal. I don’t really understand.
I didn’t know how I felt about Death being the one that controlled Dee a lot of the time, and he was the reason that Dee found the Codex and ultimately lost.
“Tough” old Virginia was just getting on my nerves, and I didn’t like her character. The flute power was pretty cool, but it was childish when it came to making the dog creatures dance and do stupid things with their bodies.
It was getting really annoying how Josh and Sophie kept thinking Isis and Osiris were like their parents, and not like their parents. They looked the same, yet they didn’t act the same. The lines in their faces were the same, but the long teeth, black nails, and purple tongues were not. We get it. They’re different. Let’s move on.
Also, the twins’ confusion and shock and all that was also annoying. When they found their parents had manipulated them their whole lives and that their parents wanted them to fight against the very people who had awakened them I was expecting them to realize their parents were evil and leave. But no. They just stated there and let themselves be bossed around.
I didn’t know what to think about the legend being completely different than what I had thought.
One to save the world, one to destroy it really meant together, they’ll save a world, but destroy another.
I guess it’s good Josh isn’t the bad twin, and they won’t be fighting on opposite sides of the battlefield.
I was getting sick of Josh and Virginia, whatever was going on there. He’d blush and talk shyly about her and I was like wtf? There’s no room for love like that in here. There was also the matter of the characters coming off childishly, immature, stupid and wimpy.
“Earthquake,” Prometheus said. “I wonder if that means Ruaumoko has finally sided with the dark elders.”
“No, I’m afraid our fiery friend is trapped in a shadowrealm,” Niten said with a shy smile. “He had a little disagreement with Aoife and lost.”
This author got on a shy kick, and everything everybody did was shy. Niten shouldn’t do anything shyly. He’s too cool for that. And in this case it just didn’t make sense. Why would he smile shyly? Maybe bloodthirsty, wolfish or savagely, or just a plain grin would have been better.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Niten said, almost shyly.
“Of course, you are the master warrior. Here, you are the expert.”
“Lose the armor.”
Prometheus’s green eyes blinked in surprise. NIten breathed in. “I can smell your aura. And if I can, than so can they. Also, there is just the faintest hint of crimson around you, a smudge of red light. Against the gloom, you’ll stand out like a beacon.”
“Can I keep the swords?” Prometheus asked.
“One sword should be enough.”
“You have two,” the elder reminded him.
“I’m fast,” Niten said. “But you are strong. Keep the claymore.”
I liked the rest of the quote, but why in the hell did he say that shyly? That doesn’t make sense and it’s stupid. It’s making Niten come off as timid, and that isn’t good.
The author really couldn’t write that well overall. Every time someone said something it was to say they said it. That paragraph is a good example. Prometheus said. Niten said. I mean, come on. Switch it up every now and then or don’t write anything after it at all.
I hated how Nicholas and Perenelle were weak and couldn’t do much because they were reserving their strength, and as they’re turning the water to ice and making a bridge to Alcatraz the Nereids come to attack them. Nicholas has to call on the strength in the scarab that Perenelle gave him, and I’m like why is this happening? They needed their strength for the big fight, and every little thing is happening on the way and they’re using up their precious power for that.
When Niten made the little origami turtle out of his aura I was very curious to see what it would do, but it didn’t do anything. The Spartoi just ate it, and it was majorly disappointing. Also, the Spartoi and just about every other creature in this series is so not threatening. A crocodile-type monster is not scary in the least, it’s so pathetic it just inspires scorn and laughter. Niten’s fighting skills I thought were supposed to be a little better than how the author made him fight. The Spartoi breaks his ribs the first thing, then breaks his weapon. I was like wth? The legendary Niten can’t fight any better than that?
“I’m here,” Tsagaglalal said.
She was wearing the white ceramic armor her husband had given her, the matched kopesh sheaths across her back. Abraham the Mage stood tall and slender in a darkened room at the top of the Tor Ri. He was wrapped in shadow, facing away from her, so that she would not see the Change that had almost completely claimed his flesh, transforming it to solid gold.
“Let me look at you,” she whispered, turning him to the light. “Let me see you and remember this moment.”
“I would rather you remember me as I was.”
“I carry that image within me always,” she said. She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest. “But this is you also, and I will never forget this. I will never forget you, Abraham.”
She held him, pressing his flesh and metal against her skin, and wept on his shoulder. She looked up into his face and saw a single tear, a solid bead of gold, rolling down his cheek. Raising up on her toes, she kissed the tear off his face, swallowing it. Tsagaglalal pressed her hands to her stomach. “I will carry it within me always.”
“You are about to begin a journey that will last ten thousand years, Tsagaglalal.” Every one of Abraham’s breaths was a labored effort now. “I have seen your future, I know what lies ahead for you.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
Abraham pressed on. “Like any life, there is both sorrow and joy in it. Entire tribes and nations will rise and honor you. You will be known by a thousand names, and many songs will be sung and stories told about you. Your legend will endure.”
The tower was vibrating harder now, the top swaying from side to side, tiny featherlike cracks appearing in the crystal.
“If I have a wish for you, it is for you to have a companion, someone to share your life with,” he continued. “I do not want you to be lonely. But in all the years of your life to come, I do not see you with anyone.”
“There will never be anyone,” she said firmly. “By rights we should never have met. I was a statue of mud, brought to life by Prometheus’s aura. You are one of the Elders of Danu Talis. And yet the moment I saw you, I knew—with absolute conviction—that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I can say now, with the same conviction, that there will never be another.”
Abraham drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you have any regrets?” he asked.
“I would have liked to have had children,” she said.
“In the years to come, Tsagaglalal, you will be a mother to many children. You will foster and adopt thousands of humans. Untold numbers of children will call you mother and aunt and grandmother, and they will be as dear to you as if they were your own. And toward the end, in ten thousand years’ time, when you watch over the twins and protect and guide them, there will be joy. This I have seen: though you will exasperate and often infuriate them, they will love you with all their hearts, because they will instinctively understand that you love them unconditionally.”
“Ten thousand years,” she breathed. “Do I really have to live that long?”
“Yes. You must,” he rasped. “There are no unimportant players in this extraordinary plan Marethyu and I have constructed. Everyone—Elders, Next Generation and humankind—has their role to play. But Tsagaglalal, yours is the most critical of all. Without you, everything falls apart.”
“And if I fail . . .?” she whispered. She staggered as the tower shifted. The vibrations were becoming more intense.
“You will not fail. You are Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches. You know what you have to do.”
“I know. I don’t like it,” Tsagaglalal said fiercely, “but I know.”
“Yes. So do it,” he said with difficulty. “You have the Book?”
“Yes.”
“Go, then,” the Elder said, his breath the merest whisper. “Count down one hundred and thirty-two steps and wait there.”
The tower swayed and suddenly a huge chunk of the ancient crystal shattered. The sea below started to boil and foam.
“I love you, Tsagaglalal,” Abraham sighed. “The moment you came into my life, I realized I wanted for nothing.”
“I have loved you and I will continue to love you all the days of my life,” she said, and then turned and ran.
“I know,” he whispered.
Abraham listened to his wife running down the stairs, her metal heels pinging off the crystal. He counted her steps.
The tower groaned and lurched, glass shattering, enormous slabs breaking off to explode into the sea far below.
Fifty steps . . .
Abraham turned his eyes to the horizon. Even now, with death—the true death—just a moments away, he found he was still curious. He could just about make out the faintest lines of the polar ice cap in the distance, and the ragged tops of the Mountains of Madness. He had always planned to mount an expedition there, but there had never been time. He’d even spoken to Marethyu about his fascination with the arctic whiteness. The hook-handed man told him he had been there and had seen wonders.
One hundred steps . . .
Abraham had lived perhaps ten thousand years, and there was still so much he wanted to do.
One hundred and ten . . .
So much more he wanted to see. He was going to miss the joy of discovery.
One hundred and twenty . . .
But more than anything else . . .
One hundred and thirty . . .
. . . he was going to miss Tsagaglalal.
One hundred and thirty two.
The footsteps stopped.
“I love you,” he breathed.
It was over three quarters of the way through that I realized nothing had happened. Niten and Scathach talked about saving Aoife. John and Sophie kept saying over and over “They’re not our parents, are they?” But never made a move to leave or overthrow them, and it was just a complete waste. The only redeeming qualities were the brief moments where Niten talked about Aoife. There was some sweet stuff there, and I just wanted her to hurry up and come back to see where it would lead.
Scathach turned into the shadow that was her namesake. She all but fell flat and completely disappeared in this book.
It was all very confusing. I kept getting Prometheus confused, because in present time he was with Niten, but he was also with Scathach and Saint Germain on Danu Talis, which I was guessing was in the past. It was just highly confusing.
Scathach was going to the pyramid to save Aten and just stands there, letting Ard-Greimne give the call to kill the humans. Then Virginia does all the work, being the hero by using her aura and Dees’ to stop the arrows. I wanted Scathach to do something major. I was glad that she at least caught Aten as he was falling.
These hailed from Indian, and while they did have white bodies, they had bloodred heads, with deadly four-foot long tricolored horns spiraling from the center of their foreheads. Monokerata would impale their victims, then tilt their heads back and allow them to slide down the horn so that they could eat them.
That leaves me with a picture in my head, and let me tell you, it’s not cool. It’s just stupid.
Towards the last quarter of the book the author just started killing characters off like he hated them. And the way they died was disappointing and sad. Hel and Odin sacrificed themselves together, and I don’t like the good guys dying. I guess it’s necessary sometimes, but she leaked into the ground, and Odin turned to dust and seeped into the ground. Wtf?
Dee died, which was expected, but not how I wanted it to happen. He turned to dust and just crumbled. When Niten and Prometheus died fighting I was like wth is going on here? He took it way too far and that wasn’t supposed to happen. I consoled myself with the thought that they would both come back.
When I found out that Isis and Osiris weren’t there real parents, that wasn’t a huge revelation, but when I learned Josh and Sophie weren’t even related and that Josh was over 30,000 yrs older than her I didn’t like the story anymore. I’m usually all for plot twists, but this was taking the story somewhere I didn’t want to go. What a major disappointment to happen so close to the end. The whole book has been a disappointment.
Shakespeare got hurt, and I was majorly sick of ppl dying 1 after another.
It was so nice that there was the love between Niten and Aoife, and Joan and Saint-Germain, and Perenelle and Nicholas. But I should have known it was too much for a man to actually have a good love story. They just don’t know how to do it.
Billy the Kid gets stabbed, Machiavelli dramatically ages, Black Hawk gets tossed into the sea with the Nereids, Mars sacrifices himself, and his death was very pointless. And the way it was all described was all very morbid. I was beginning to hate the author. For ex:
And they all knew the Nereids were waiting in the water.
&: He barely made it before he exploded into a fine white ash. When his aura had consumed all his energy, it had fed off his flesh.
Wth is the matter with u? Are these your characters or ur enemies? Wtf? The whole self-sacrificial thing was getting on my nerves. I didn’t feel that any death contributed anything or was even necessary. I felt like it was all for nothing. When someone died battling a creature, more creatures would take its place. When someone died to give them more time, the creature immediately came after them, therefore no time was given. It took them 10 yrs 2 open that damn ball to get Old Spider out. It was ridiculous. I did not foresee the last grand fight to take place on an island with stupid creatures, while the immortals did nothing more than stab away at a mud casing for Aerop-Enap.
It was 1 more tragedy to go thru when Tsagaglalal cud bring them back 2 life, but she cud only save 1. When she picked Prometheus I was so heartbroken, but when he told her to choose Niten I was sad for him, but at least Niten was coming back.
When Josh said he’d have to carry the Codex for 10,000 yrs I was confused. The time thing just messed me up. I thought they were going back in time, and so this wud affect the present time on earth, but the author made it to where they were in the past and all this hadn’t happened yet. They’d have to go thru everything again.
The ending was confusing. 1 second Josh was combining the swords of power. The next it was a hook and he was Marethyu. At the end I realized Josh was Marethyu. Wth is up with that? Nothing makes sense and I’m so confused it isn’t even funny. Wtf is all I can say. I can barely wrap my mind around it. So, every time Death appeared it was really Josh. Wow, little innocent Josh turned into hook-handed Death who manipulated lives and controlled everyone. What a travesty.
I wanted to witness when Niten and Aoife met again, and I wanted to read when he asked her to marry him. But all I got was that they married, and Scathach was there, and everybody cried. Did the author think that was enough? Because it sure as hell wasn’t. They were what was keeping my interest, and I had to hear about it from a 3rd party. How fulfilling. I feel so cheated out of a good ending it isn’t even funny. I’m mad and upset as I write this. This is not the ending I wanted, and I think he just ruined the entire series.
The names were unpronounceable. Half of them I just had to run through and try not to spend too much time trying to sound it out. Tsagaglalal was the worst. It took extreme concentration to be able to spell it right, and when I was saying it in my head, well, it wasn’t too pretty. It sounded like a gargling, jumbled mess, like I was gargling water or something.
There were some good one-liners from the heroines, some funny comments they made and things like that, but nothing was just great.
Josh was a teenager, a 16 yr old kid who should not have been leaving letters to Sophie like he would never see her again. They were supposed to go back to life in San Francisco and live out their lives like that, not be separated and become these too-adult, mature ppl.
I felt a lot of it was unfinished. There were loose ties and plot holes and things that weren’t wrapped up enough. I don’t know who saved Aoife, I don’t know how she got out. I don’t know how her reuniting with Niten went.
This book has only convinced me further that the only way to read a truly good book is to write my own. I thought I’d found a good series, and then the author just completely loses it in the last book. I’m wondering if he didn’t suffer from some misfortune and then went totally berserk as he wrote this. Nothing else cud account for the total 360 he pulled on this book.
The writing isn’t anything spectacular. Sometimes things are explained very simply and even childishly. The gods don’t really sound like gods. Sometimes they act like children or say something that just isn’t powerful enough for an immortal.
Sophie was getting on my nerves. She was touching Josh, talking to him and even gave John Dee her jacket. John Dee was the enemy, and this was after Josh had sided with him over her. She should have been mad at him.
This is the sixth book in the series, and I still can’t tell the distinction of immortal, archon, earthlord, human, and all the other types of people there are. Some people say they’re human, but they’re immortal. I don’t really understand.
I didn’t know how I felt about Death being the one that controlled Dee a lot of the time, and he was the reason that Dee found the Codex and ultimately lost.
“Tough” old Virginia was just getting on my nerves, and I didn’t like her character. The flute power was pretty cool, but it was childish when it came to making the dog creatures dance and do stupid things with their bodies.
It was getting really annoying how Josh and Sophie kept thinking Isis and Osiris were like their parents, and not like their parents. They looked the same, yet they didn’t act the same. The lines in their faces were the same, but the long teeth, black nails, and purple tongues were not. We get it. They’re different. Let’s move on.
Also, the twins’ confusion and shock and all that was also annoying. When they found their parents had manipulated them their whole lives and that their parents wanted them to fight against the very people who had awakened them I was expecting them to realize their parents were evil and leave. But no. They just stated there and let themselves be bossed around.
I didn’t know what to think about the legend being completely different than what I had thought.
One to save the world, one to destroy it really meant together, they’ll save a world, but destroy another.
I guess it’s good Josh isn’t the bad twin, and they won’t be fighting on opposite sides of the battlefield.
I was getting sick of Josh and Virginia, whatever was going on there. He’d blush and talk shyly about her and I was like wtf? There’s no room for love like that in here. There was also the matter of the characters coming off childishly, immature, stupid and wimpy.
“Earthquake,” Prometheus said. “I wonder if that means Ruaumoko has finally sided with the dark elders.”
“No, I’m afraid our fiery friend is trapped in a shadowrealm,” Niten said with a shy smile. “He had a little disagreement with Aoife and lost.”
This author got on a shy kick, and everything everybody did was shy. Niten shouldn’t do anything shyly. He’s too cool for that. And in this case it just didn’t make sense. Why would he smile shyly? Maybe bloodthirsty, wolfish or savagely, or just a plain grin would have been better.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Niten said, almost shyly.
“Of course, you are the master warrior. Here, you are the expert.”
“Lose the armor.”
Prometheus’s green eyes blinked in surprise. NIten breathed in. “I can smell your aura. And if I can, than so can they. Also, there is just the faintest hint of crimson around you, a smudge of red light. Against the gloom, you’ll stand out like a beacon.”
“Can I keep the swords?” Prometheus asked.
“One sword should be enough.”
“You have two,” the elder reminded him.
“I’m fast,” Niten said. “But you are strong. Keep the claymore.”
I liked the rest of the quote, but why in the hell did he say that shyly? That doesn’t make sense and it’s stupid. It’s making Niten come off as timid, and that isn’t good.
The author really couldn’t write that well overall. Every time someone said something it was to say they said it. That paragraph is a good example. Prometheus said. Niten said. I mean, come on. Switch it up every now and then or don’t write anything after it at all.
I hated how Nicholas and Perenelle were weak and couldn’t do much because they were reserving their strength, and as they’re turning the water to ice and making a bridge to Alcatraz the Nereids come to attack them. Nicholas has to call on the strength in the scarab that Perenelle gave him, and I’m like why is this happening? They needed their strength for the big fight, and every little thing is happening on the way and they’re using up their precious power for that.
When Niten made the little origami turtle out of his aura I was very curious to see what it would do, but it didn’t do anything. The Spartoi just ate it, and it was majorly disappointing. Also, the Spartoi and just about every other creature in this series is so not threatening. A crocodile-type monster is not scary in the least, it’s so pathetic it just inspires scorn and laughter. Niten’s fighting skills I thought were supposed to be a little better than how the author made him fight. The Spartoi breaks his ribs the first thing, then breaks his weapon. I was like wth? The legendary Niten can’t fight any better than that?
“I’m here,” Tsagaglalal said.
She was wearing the white ceramic armor her husband had given her, the matched kopesh sheaths across her back. Abraham the Mage stood tall and slender in a darkened room at the top of the Tor Ri. He was wrapped in shadow, facing away from her, so that she would not see the Change that had almost completely claimed his flesh, transforming it to solid gold.
“Let me look at you,” she whispered, turning him to the light. “Let me see you and remember this moment.”
“I would rather you remember me as I was.”
“I carry that image within me always,” she said. She pressed the palm of her hand against his chest. “But this is you also, and I will never forget this. I will never forget you, Abraham.”
She held him, pressing his flesh and metal against her skin, and wept on his shoulder. She looked up into his face and saw a single tear, a solid bead of gold, rolling down his cheek. Raising up on her toes, she kissed the tear off his face, swallowing it. Tsagaglalal pressed her hands to her stomach. “I will carry it within me always.”
“You are about to begin a journey that will last ten thousand years, Tsagaglalal.” Every one of Abraham’s breaths was a labored effort now. “I have seen your future, I know what lies ahead for you.”
“Don’t tell me,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
Abraham pressed on. “Like any life, there is both sorrow and joy in it. Entire tribes and nations will rise and honor you. You will be known by a thousand names, and many songs will be sung and stories told about you. Your legend will endure.”
The tower was vibrating harder now, the top swaying from side to side, tiny featherlike cracks appearing in the crystal.
“If I have a wish for you, it is for you to have a companion, someone to share your life with,” he continued. “I do not want you to be lonely. But in all the years of your life to come, I do not see you with anyone.”
“There will never be anyone,” she said firmly. “By rights we should never have met. I was a statue of mud, brought to life by Prometheus’s aura. You are one of the Elders of Danu Talis. And yet the moment I saw you, I knew—with absolute conviction—that we would be together for the rest of our lives. I can say now, with the same conviction, that there will never be another.”
Abraham drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you have any regrets?” he asked.
“I would have liked to have had children,” she said.
“In the years to come, Tsagaglalal, you will be a mother to many children. You will foster and adopt thousands of humans. Untold numbers of children will call you mother and aunt and grandmother, and they will be as dear to you as if they were your own. And toward the end, in ten thousand years’ time, when you watch over the twins and protect and guide them, there will be joy. This I have seen: though you will exasperate and often infuriate them, they will love you with all their hearts, because they will instinctively understand that you love them unconditionally.”
“Ten thousand years,” she breathed. “Do I really have to live that long?”
“Yes. You must,” he rasped. “There are no unimportant players in this extraordinary plan Marethyu and I have constructed. Everyone—Elders, Next Generation and humankind—has their role to play. But Tsagaglalal, yours is the most critical of all. Without you, everything falls apart.”
“And if I fail . . .?” she whispered. She staggered as the tower shifted. The vibrations were becoming more intense.
“You will not fail. You are Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches. You know what you have to do.”
“I know. I don’t like it,” Tsagaglalal said fiercely, “but I know.”
“Yes. So do it,” he said with difficulty. “You have the Book?”
“Yes.”
“Go, then,” the Elder said, his breath the merest whisper. “Count down one hundred and thirty-two steps and wait there.”
The tower swayed and suddenly a huge chunk of the ancient crystal shattered. The sea below started to boil and foam.
“I love you, Tsagaglalal,” Abraham sighed. “The moment you came into my life, I realized I wanted for nothing.”
“I have loved you and I will continue to love you all the days of my life,” she said, and then turned and ran.
“I know,” he whispered.
Abraham listened to his wife running down the stairs, her metal heels pinging off the crystal. He counted her steps.
The tower groaned and lurched, glass shattering, enormous slabs breaking off to explode into the sea far below.
Fifty steps . . .
Abraham turned his eyes to the horizon. Even now, with death—the true death—just a moments away, he found he was still curious. He could just about make out the faintest lines of the polar ice cap in the distance, and the ragged tops of the Mountains of Madness. He had always planned to mount an expedition there, but there had never been time. He’d even spoken to Marethyu about his fascination with the arctic whiteness. The hook-handed man told him he had been there and had seen wonders.
One hundred steps . . .
Abraham had lived perhaps ten thousand years, and there was still so much he wanted to do.
One hundred and ten . . .
So much more he wanted to see. He was going to miss the joy of discovery.
One hundred and twenty . . .
But more than anything else . . .
One hundred and thirty . . .
. . . he was going to miss Tsagaglalal.
One hundred and thirty two.
The footsteps stopped.
“I love you,” he breathed.
It was over three quarters of the way through that I realized nothing had happened. Niten and Scathach talked about saving Aoife. John and Sophie kept saying over and over “They’re not our parents, are they?” But never made a move to leave or overthrow them, and it was just a complete waste. The only redeeming qualities were the brief moments where Niten talked about Aoife. There was some sweet stuff there, and I just wanted her to hurry up and come back to see where it would lead.
Scathach turned into the shadow that was her namesake. She all but fell flat and completely disappeared in this book.
It was all very confusing. I kept getting Prometheus confused, because in present time he was with Niten, but he was also with Scathach and Saint Germain on Danu Talis, which I was guessing was in the past. It was just highly confusing.
Scathach was going to the pyramid to save Aten and just stands there, letting Ard-Greimne give the call to kill the humans. Then Virginia does all the work, being the hero by using her aura and Dees’ to stop the arrows. I wanted Scathach to do something major. I was glad that she at least caught Aten as he was falling.
These hailed from Indian, and while they did have white bodies, they had bloodred heads, with deadly four-foot long tricolored horns spiraling from the center of their foreheads. Monokerata would impale their victims, then tilt their heads back and allow them to slide down the horn so that they could eat them.
That leaves me with a picture in my head, and let me tell you, it’s not cool. It’s just stupid.
Towards the last quarter of the book the author just started killing characters off like he hated them. And the way they died was disappointing and sad. Hel and Odin sacrificed themselves together, and I don’t like the good guys dying. I guess it’s necessary sometimes, but she leaked into the ground, and Odin turned to dust and seeped into the ground. Wtf?
Dee died, which was expected, but not how I wanted it to happen. He turned to dust and just crumbled. When Niten and Prometheus died fighting I was like wth is going on here? He took it way too far and that wasn’t supposed to happen. I consoled myself with the thought that they would both come back.
When I found out that Isis and Osiris weren’t there real parents, that wasn’t a huge revelation, but when I learned Josh and Sophie weren’t even related and that Josh was over 30,000 yrs older than her I didn’t like the story anymore. I’m usually all for plot twists, but this was taking the story somewhere I didn’t want to go. What a major disappointment to happen so close to the end. The whole book has been a disappointment.
Shakespeare got hurt, and I was majorly sick of ppl dying 1 after another.
It was so nice that there was the love between Niten and Aoife, and Joan and Saint-Germain, and Perenelle and Nicholas. But I should have known it was too much for a man to actually have a good love story. They just don’t know how to do it.
Billy the Kid gets stabbed, Machiavelli dramatically ages, Black Hawk gets tossed into the sea with the Nereids, Mars sacrifices himself, and his death was very pointless. And the way it was all described was all very morbid. I was beginning to hate the author. For ex:
And they all knew the Nereids were waiting in the water.
&: He barely made it before he exploded into a fine white ash. When his aura had consumed all his energy, it had fed off his flesh.
Wth is the matter with u? Are these your characters or ur enemies? Wtf? The whole self-sacrificial thing was getting on my nerves. I didn’t feel that any death contributed anything or was even necessary. I felt like it was all for nothing. When someone died battling a creature, more creatures would take its place. When someone died to give them more time, the creature immediately came after them, therefore no time was given. It took them 10 yrs 2 open that damn ball to get Old Spider out. It was ridiculous. I did not foresee the last grand fight to take place on an island with stupid creatures, while the immortals did nothing more than stab away at a mud casing for Aerop-Enap.
It was 1 more tragedy to go thru when Tsagaglalal cud bring them back 2 life, but she cud only save 1. When she picked Prometheus I was so heartbroken, but when he told her to choose Niten I was sad for him, but at least Niten was coming back.
When Josh said he’d have to carry the Codex for 10,000 yrs I was confused. The time thing just messed me up. I thought they were going back in time, and so this wud affect the present time on earth, but the author made it to where they were in the past and all this hadn’t happened yet. They’d have to go thru everything again.
The ending was confusing. 1 second Josh was combining the swords of power. The next it was a hook and he was Marethyu. At the end I realized Josh was Marethyu. Wth is up with that? Nothing makes sense and I’m so confused it isn’t even funny. Wtf is all I can say. I can barely wrap my mind around it. So, every time Death appeared it was really Josh. Wow, little innocent Josh turned into hook-handed Death who manipulated lives and controlled everyone. What a travesty.
I wanted to witness when Niten and Aoife met again, and I wanted to read when he asked her to marry him. But all I got was that they married, and Scathach was there, and everybody cried. Did the author think that was enough? Because it sure as hell wasn’t. They were what was keeping my interest, and I had to hear about it from a 3rd party. How fulfilling. I feel so cheated out of a good ending it isn’t even funny. I’m mad and upset as I write this. This is not the ending I wanted, and I think he just ruined the entire series.
The names were unpronounceable. Half of them I just had to run through and try not to spend too much time trying to sound it out. Tsagaglalal was the worst. It took extreme concentration to be able to spell it right, and when I was saying it in my head, well, it wasn’t too pretty. It sounded like a gargling, jumbled mess, like I was gargling water or something.
There were some good one-liners from the heroines, some funny comments they made and things like that, but nothing was just great.
Josh was a teenager, a 16 yr old kid who should not have been leaving letters to Sophie like he would never see her again. They were supposed to go back to life in San Francisco and live out their lives like that, not be separated and become these too-adult, mature ppl.
I felt a lot of it was unfinished. There were loose ties and plot holes and things that weren’t wrapped up enough. I don’t know who saved Aoife, I don’t know how she got out. I don’t know how her reuniting with Niten went.
This book has only convinced me further that the only way to read a truly good book is to write my own. I thought I’d found a good series, and then the author just completely loses it in the last book. I’m wondering if he didn’t suffer from some misfortune and then went totally berserk as he wrote this. Nothing else cud account for the total 360 he pulled on this book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2012
SPOILERS:
I am thoroughly confused. I started this series a few weeks ago and just finished tonight, so my heart goes out to those of you who had to wait a year...solely because it's impossible to remember what's going on and who's who.
I'm not going to outright criticize his writing (these are YA books), but:
Main Entry: gossamer [gos-uh-mer] Show IPA
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: gauzy, thin
Synonyms: airy, cobweb, delicate, diaphanous, fibrous, fine, flimsy, light, sheer, silky, tiffany, translucent, transparent
Main Entry: wink [wingk] Show IPA
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: flutter, flick
Synonyms: bat, blink, flash, gleam, glimmer, glitter, nictate, nictitate, sparkle, squinch, squint, twinkle
There, Michael Scott. You're welcome. Please use ANY other word to describe their auras except "gossamer" and "winked on." My sister and I actually started keeping a running tally of how many times he said it.
Also, as someone already pointed out, some of the quotes and even whole paragraphs were lifted from either other parts of the book or a previous book, even when they weren't just summarizing or recapping a previous book in the beginning of a new book (sorry for the confusion, but my brain is still befuddled from these books). Doing this made me feel confused and unsure whether I had lost my page or was even in the right book!
So, the ending. Um, what? I just don't get it. I thought I was a relatively intelligent person, but maybe I'm missing something? Why did he mention Isis and Osiris running through Paris with sunglasses on in a previous book, and how does that relate to the ending of this book? Did Josh/Maretheyu somehow persuade Machiavelli to alter that leygate in Paris so that Scatty would go back to his Shadowrealm? How did the Flamels "send their love" from Niten and Aoife's wedding if they were taken to Paris to die by Maretheyu? Does the whole cycle keep repeating because of all of the time travel and paradoxes?
Are these stupid questions? I'm just so confused! I went from hating Josh and finding him to be in intolerable character to cursing the author instead. Is Josh's idiocy what leads him to become Death?
Gah, I'm lost.
I gave it two stars because, as other reviewers mentioned, they felt they had to finish the series because it was engaging at first, but by itself, this book gets -1 star.
I am thoroughly confused. I started this series a few weeks ago and just finished tonight, so my heart goes out to those of you who had to wait a year...solely because it's impossible to remember what's going on and who's who.
I'm not going to outright criticize his writing (these are YA books), but:
Main Entry: gossamer [gos-uh-mer] Show IPA
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: gauzy, thin
Synonyms: airy, cobweb, delicate, diaphanous, fibrous, fine, flimsy, light, sheer, silky, tiffany, translucent, transparent
Main Entry: wink [wingk] Show IPA
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: flutter, flick
Synonyms: bat, blink, flash, gleam, glimmer, glitter, nictate, nictitate, sparkle, squinch, squint, twinkle
There, Michael Scott. You're welcome. Please use ANY other word to describe their auras except "gossamer" and "winked on." My sister and I actually started keeping a running tally of how many times he said it.
Also, as someone already pointed out, some of the quotes and even whole paragraphs were lifted from either other parts of the book or a previous book, even when they weren't just summarizing or recapping a previous book in the beginning of a new book (sorry for the confusion, but my brain is still befuddled from these books). Doing this made me feel confused and unsure whether I had lost my page or was even in the right book!
So, the ending. Um, what? I just don't get it. I thought I was a relatively intelligent person, but maybe I'm missing something? Why did he mention Isis and Osiris running through Paris with sunglasses on in a previous book, and how does that relate to the ending of this book? Did Josh/Maretheyu somehow persuade Machiavelli to alter that leygate in Paris so that Scatty would go back to his Shadowrealm? How did the Flamels "send their love" from Niten and Aoife's wedding if they were taken to Paris to die by Maretheyu? Does the whole cycle keep repeating because of all of the time travel and paradoxes?
Are these stupid questions? I'm just so confused! I went from hating Josh and finding him to be in intolerable character to cursing the author instead. Is Josh's idiocy what leads him to become Death?
Gah, I'm lost.
I gave it two stars because, as other reviewers mentioned, they felt they had to finish the series because it was engaging at first, but by itself, this book gets -1 star.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 22, 2015
সিরিজের ছয় নম্বর কোন বই এর সম্পর্কে রিভিউ দেয়া কঠিন ই । কারণ অনেক স্পয়লার হয়ত দেয়া হয়ে যাবে । কিন্তু তারপর ও এত বড় একটা সিরিজ পড়ে ফেলার পর কিছু না লিখলে লেখকের প্রতি অসম্মান জানানো হবে । এটা আসলে পুরো সিরিজ সম্পর্কেই কিছু একটা । :)
প্রথমেই লেখককে ধন্যবাদ এত সুন্দর ভাবে সবকিছু শেষ করার জন্যে । অন্যান্য ইয়াং এডাল্ট সিরিজ গুলোর সাথে এই সিরিজের বড় পার্থক্য হল যে , যেখানে রোমান্স ই বেশীর ভাগ সিরিজগুলোর মূল উপাদান সেখানে এখানে কোন রোমান্টিক ডেভেলপমেন্ট নেই । মূল দুই প্রোটাগোনিস্ট দুই যমজ ভাইবোন সোফি আর জোশ । ছয়টা বই ধরেই তাদের ক্যারেক্টার ডেভেলপমেন্ট অনেক সুন্দর করে তুলে ধরা হয়েছে। ছয়টা বই এ মাত্র দশ দিনে যা ঘটে তার বর্ণনা দেয়া হয়েছে- এদিক থেকে লেখকের লেখার প্রতিভার মহত্বটা স্বীকার করতেই হবে ।
সিরিজ এর যে জিনিসটা আমার সবচেয়ে ভালো লেগেছে তা হল, এখানে মিথোলজির বিভিন্ন ক্যারেক্টার রা পুরো বই জুড়ে যেমন ছিল ঠিক তেমন ভাবেই ছিল ইতিহাসের বিচিন্ন নামকরা চরিত্র । যেমন এই বই এ শুরু থেকেই দেখা যাবেবপ্রমিথিউস, ওডিন, হেল, বাস্ট , আনুবিস, আইসিস, অসিরিস এর মত দেব দেবীদের, ঠিক তাদের সাথেই থাকবে নিকোলাস ফ্ল্যামেল, মাকিয়েভ্যালী, শেক্সপীয়ার , রাজা গিলগামেশ, জোয়ান অফ আর্ক , সেইন্ট জারমেই এর মত সব ঐতিহাসিক চরিত্র ।
পুরো সিরিজ জুড়ে একের পর এক টুইস্ট আর টুইস্ট । প্লট আর সাবপ্লট এ ভর্তি । তবে সেগুলো শেষে গিয়ে খুবই দক্ষ ভাবে সামলেছেন মাইকেল স্কট । ফিনিশিং টা যদিও একটু বেশীই তাড়াহুড়ো করে মনে হয়েছে কিন্তু সিরিজ আরো বাড়ালে হয়ত ভালো লাগত না। আমি খুশী ।
যারা এরকম মিথলোজি আর ইতিহাস নির্ভর সিরিজ এ আগ্রহী তারা পড়ে ফেলতে পারেন । :)
প্রথমেই লেখককে ধন্যবাদ এত সুন্দর ভাবে সবকিছু শেষ করার জন্যে । অন্যান্য ইয়াং এডাল্ট সিরিজ গুলোর সাথে এই সিরিজের বড় পার্থক্য হল যে , যেখানে রোমান্স ই বেশীর ভাগ সিরিজগুলোর মূল উপাদান সেখানে এখানে কোন রোমান্টিক ডেভেলপমেন্ট নেই । মূল দুই প্রোটাগোনিস্ট দুই যমজ ভাইবোন সোফি আর জোশ । ছয়টা বই ধরেই তাদের ক্যারেক্টার ডেভেলপমেন্ট অনেক সুন্দর করে তুলে ধরা হয়েছে। ছয়টা বই এ মাত্র দশ দিনে যা ঘটে তার বর্ণনা দেয়া হয়েছে- এদিক থেকে লেখকের লেখার প্রতিভার মহত্বটা স্বীকার করতেই হবে ।
সিরিজ এর যে জিনিসটা আমার সবচেয়ে ভালো লেগেছে তা হল, এখানে মিথোলজির বিভিন্ন ক্যারেক্টার রা পুরো বই জুড়ে যেমন ছিল ঠিক তেমন ভাবেই ছিল ইতিহাসের বিচিন্ন নামকরা চরিত্র । যেমন এই বই এ শুরু থেকেই দেখা যাবেবপ্রমিথিউস, ওডিন, হেল, বাস্ট , আনুবিস, আইসিস, অসিরিস এর মত দেব দেবীদের, ঠিক তাদের সাথেই থাকবে নিকোলাস ফ্ল্যামেল, মাকিয়েভ্যালী, শেক্সপীয়ার , রাজা গিলগামেশ, জোয়ান অফ আর্ক , সেইন্ট জারমেই এর মত সব ঐতিহাসিক চরিত্র ।
পুরো সিরিজ জুড়ে একের পর এক টুইস্ট আর টুইস্ট । প্লট আর সাবপ্লট এ ভর্তি । তবে সেগুলো শেষে গিয়ে খুবই দক্ষ ভাবে সামলেছেন মাইকেল স্কট । ফিনিশিং টা যদিও একটু বেশীই তাড়াহুড়ো করে মনে হয়েছে কিন্তু সিরিজ আরো বাড়ালে হয়ত ভালো লাগত না। আমি খুশী ।
যারা এরকম মিথলোজি আর ইতিহাস নির্ভর সিরিজ এ আগ্রহী তারা পড়ে ফেলতে পারেন । :)
Read
July 31, 2012So I just finished reading The Warlock, and what a cliffhanger. Now, I have to wait a year for this. Can't wait.
December 16, 2015
Me propongo a reseñar libros que leí antes de usar GR con frecuencia. Muy probablemente mi pensamiento ahora sea muy diferente del que tuve cuando los leí, pero procuraré ser lo más fiel posible respecto de lo que sentía en su momento.
Esta es una reseña general de la saga completa. Puntaje total: 4.5/5.
Este libro...
...me mató.
AMÉ AMÉ AMÉ esta saga. Más allá de las portadas (QUE SON HERMOSAS Y CONTIENEN SÍMBOLOS Y COSAS QUE PASAN EN LAS NOVELAS), me sumergí en las vidas de Sophie y Josh Newman, dos mellizos de 15 años que, en tan solo unos días, sus vidas dan un giro de 128932122190193102190° (probablemente más grados) y, para el final de la semana, podríamos decir que están bien fucked up, con todo, TODO un mundo nuevo descubierto y unas nuevas vidas por delante.
Michael Scott ama el folclore de su país, Irlanda, y qué mejor que meter mitología celta en sus libros. Pero no solo hay mitología celta, sino también egipcia, griega, nórdica. Basta de Zeus: hablemos de Hécate, de Cernunnos, de Bast, Morrigan, Prometeo, incluso aparece Shakespeare, sí, leyeron bien.
Cada persona posee un aura de un color, que expide cierto aroma característico, y depende de este color también las habilidades que tendrá la persona (más o menos poderoso).
La sociedad se divide en mágica y no mágica; dentro de la mágica, existen los Inmemoriales, los Arcontes, y aquellos humanos cuyas vidas se vieron bendecidas por las manos de algún dios y lograron la inmortalidad. Este es el caso del famoso alquimista Nicholas Flamel y su esposa Perenelle, cuyas historias (verdaderas) cuentan que sus cuerpos nunca fueron hallados. Esta pareja anduvo por los siglos de los siglos buscando a un par de mellizos que cumplieran con los siguientes requisitos: un hombre y una mujer, de auras doradas y plateadas respectivamente, las auras más poderosas. A lo largo de su larga búsqueda se toparon con varios intentos fallidos, fracasando y sintiéndose culpables por el destino de aquellos mellizos que vieron caer, hasta que, en el mundo actual, se topan con Sophie y Josh Newman.
Sí, obvio, esos son los mellizos que buscaban.
Pero la profecía dice que un mellizo salvará el mundo, mientras que el otro lo hará caer. Al principio no tenemos idea de quién será quién, puesto que además nos encariñamos con ambos mellizos (y no podríamos concebir la idea de que uno de ellos sea malvado en el fondo, ¿no?), pero a medida que avanzan los libros sus personalidades se van definiendo, sus decisiones los van marcando, y sus caminos se van separando.
Esta saga es una de las más originales que leí. Combina elementos que pensé jamás vería juntos. Trae a colación leyendas urbanas e historias que en la actualidad no tienen explicación científica, como la desaparición de la isla de Creta (Atlántida para los íntimos), el mito del matrimonio Flamel, qué sucede realmente en Alcatraz, y Shakespeare, no se olviden de Shakespeare (o sea que si quieren ver a luchar a Shakespeare, tienen que leer estos libros). Revive a personajes históricos conocidos, como al dramaturgo ya mencionado, a Maquiavelo, Billy The Kid, Juana de Arco, Gilgamésh, y el enigmático y malvado mago John Dee. De una forma u otra todas esas personas se verán involucradas en el camino de Sophie y Josh hacia el cumplimiento de esa profecía.
oseañ par favar revivieron a Maquiavelo creo que es el mejor personaje habido y por haber soyñ suñ fanñññ
El final es emotivo, lloré como una perra. Fue horrible porque no sabía cómo parar. En tan solo unas líneas, el libro logró resumir todo lo que había sentido en seis libros.
Lo que más rescato de estos libros es la relación entre Sophie y Josh. Soy hija única y normalmente los personajes que son hermanos no me mueven ni un pelo, más que nada porque en la mayoría de los casos, para agregar drama, estos hermanos se odian por competencia familiar, o -lo que está de moda ahora- se enamoran. Pero acá es diferente: Josh y Sophie crecieron juntos, se apoyan, se aman, y son lo único que tienen en este nuevo mundo de locos.Por eso el final me dejó FATALITY, KNOCK OUT, FINISH HIM. Fueron los primeros libros que me hicieron sentir lo que sería tener un hermano, y lo que sentiría si me apartaran de él. El desgarro que ambos sienten cuando están separados en varias partes de los libros es visceral y los compadecí más de una vez.
Los libros son muy seguidos unos de otros. En cada libro suceden dos días de lapso de tiempo (no podés creer que en 600 páginas solo pasen dos días, es de locos), por lo que en total debió ser poco más de una semana en la vida de estos personajes. Pero, Dios Santo, esos días fueron ajetreados. Sophie y Josh deben despertar sus poderes y aprender los principios de los cuatro elementos antes de que John Dee llegue y les arrebate el libro de magia que Nicholas Flamel tan celosamente guardó durante años. Sí, suena simplón, pero no creerán la cantidad de cosas que pueden salir mal en tan solo esa premisa.
Sinceramente, una de las mejores sagas que leí durante mi adolescencia. Tengo ganas de releerla y meterme en esta carrera mágica contra el tiempo una vez más. El último libro no tiene desperdicio, mi favorito de la saga lejos.
Ahora me voy a stalkear al autor a Wikipedia porque tiene más de 100 libros publicados y para todas las edades. Cannot miss it.
Leída la saga entera desde 2011 a 2013.
Esta es una reseña general de la saga completa. Puntaje total: 4.5/5.
Este libro...
...me mató.
AMÉ AMÉ AMÉ esta saga. Más allá de las portadas (QUE SON HERMOSAS Y CONTIENEN SÍMBOLOS Y COSAS QUE PASAN EN LAS NOVELAS), me sumergí en las vidas de Sophie y Josh Newman, dos mellizos de 15 años que, en tan solo unos días, sus vidas dan un giro de 128932122190193102190° (probablemente más grados) y, para el final de la semana, podríamos decir que están bien fucked up, con todo, TODO un mundo nuevo descubierto y unas nuevas vidas por delante.
Michael Scott ama el folclore de su país, Irlanda, y qué mejor que meter mitología celta en sus libros. Pero no solo hay mitología celta, sino también egipcia, griega, nórdica. Basta de Zeus: hablemos de Hécate, de Cernunnos, de Bast, Morrigan, Prometeo, incluso aparece Shakespeare, sí, leyeron bien.
Cada persona posee un aura de un color, que expide cierto aroma característico, y depende de este color también las habilidades que tendrá la persona (más o menos poderoso).
La sociedad se divide en mágica y no mágica; dentro de la mágica, existen los Inmemoriales, los Arcontes, y aquellos humanos cuyas vidas se vieron bendecidas por las manos de algún dios y lograron la inmortalidad. Este es el caso del famoso alquimista Nicholas Flamel y su esposa Perenelle, cuyas historias (verdaderas) cuentan que sus cuerpos nunca fueron hallados. Esta pareja anduvo por los siglos de los siglos buscando a un par de mellizos que cumplieran con los siguientes requisitos: un hombre y una mujer, de auras doradas y plateadas respectivamente, las auras más poderosas. A lo largo de su larga búsqueda se toparon con varios intentos fallidos, fracasando y sintiéndose culpables por el destino de aquellos mellizos que vieron caer, hasta que, en el mundo actual, se topan con Sophie y Josh Newman.
Sí, obvio, esos son los mellizos que buscaban.
Pero la profecía dice que un mellizo salvará el mundo, mientras que el otro lo hará caer. Al principio no tenemos idea de quién será quién, puesto que además nos encariñamos con ambos mellizos (y no podríamos concebir la idea de que uno de ellos sea malvado en el fondo, ¿no?), pero a medida que avanzan los libros sus personalidades se van definiendo, sus decisiones los van marcando, y sus caminos se van separando.
Esta saga es una de las más originales que leí. Combina elementos que pensé jamás vería juntos. Trae a colación leyendas urbanas e historias que en la actualidad no tienen explicación científica, como la desaparición de la isla de Creta (Atlántida para los íntimos), el mito del matrimonio Flamel, qué sucede realmente en Alcatraz, y Shakespeare, no se olviden de Shakespeare (o sea que si quieren ver a luchar a Shakespeare, tienen que leer estos libros). Revive a personajes históricos conocidos, como al dramaturgo ya mencionado, a Maquiavelo, Billy The Kid, Juana de Arco, Gilgamésh, y el enigmático y malvado mago John Dee. De una forma u otra todas esas personas se verán involucradas en el camino de Sophie y Josh hacia el cumplimiento de esa profecía.
El final es emotivo, lloré como una perra. Fue horrible porque no sabía cómo parar. En tan solo unas líneas, el libro logró resumir todo lo que había sentido en seis libros.
Lo que más rescato de estos libros es la relación entre Sophie y Josh. Soy hija única y normalmente los personajes que son hermanos no me mueven ni un pelo, más que nada porque en la mayoría de los casos, para agregar drama, estos hermanos se odian por competencia familiar, o -lo que está de moda ahora- se enamoran. Pero acá es diferente: Josh y Sophie crecieron juntos, se apoyan, se aman, y son lo único que tienen en este nuevo mundo de locos.
Los libros son muy seguidos unos de otros. En cada libro suceden dos días de lapso de tiempo (no podés creer que en 600 páginas solo pasen dos días, es de locos), por lo que en total debió ser poco más de una semana en la vida de estos personajes. Pero, Dios Santo, esos días fueron ajetreados. Sophie y Josh deben despertar sus poderes y aprender los principios de los cuatro elementos antes de que John Dee llegue y les arrebate el libro de magia que Nicholas Flamel tan celosamente guardó durante años. Sí, suena simplón, pero no creerán la cantidad de cosas que pueden salir mal en tan solo esa premisa.
Sinceramente, una de las mejores sagas que leí durante mi adolescencia. Tengo ganas de releerla y meterme en esta carrera mágica contra el tiempo una vez más. El último libro no tiene desperdicio, mi favorito de la saga lejos.
Sometimes, emotion won more battles than logic.
February 13, 2013
First of all, Michael Scott can not write. If he had written one book, it wouldn't have been such a problem. But as he is writing a series, all his little things he does (his repetition for effect has no effect and it painfully obvious, his imagery drags on and is unhelpful, and his details clash) are incredibly obnoxious. So first of all, bad writing. Yuck.
Second of all (not everyone finds this a problem, but I do) he gets a lot of things wrong. Historical facts, geographical facts, etc. It's clear he did a lot of mythology research, but First of all, I LIVE in San Francisco. He gets the geography wrong. Additionally, anything that isn't mythology, he gets wrong. For example, how old something is, how he calls Semitic characters "Aramaic" (Aramaic is a language that combines Arabic and Hebrew. He would write that Nicholas would write in Aramaic characters, when he should have said Semitic or Hebrew characters.) So not getting stuff right is another point off.
Third, there were way too many characters. Like honestly, you know why the New York Times complimented the first book? Because it had a small and intimate cast, and got into everyone's head. This book had a giant cast, and it was confusing, and I mixed up families and names and people and animals and sides and it was just a bad situation. I did like how small the first book was, the characters were more dimensional. For example, we would see John Dee's past, and why he is the way he is, making him more human. This book lacked that completely, which leads to
The Fourth problem is that there is no character development. At. All. Like, hello? Sophie? I don't know who she is as a character at all. We had the slightest view of Virginia, but not really. We lost Machiavelli and John Dee completely, and I wish Billy could have been more than a comic. All the characters were incredibly one-dimensional.
Honestly, I think I could have written the book better, and I am not good of a writer. But I would literally stop because of all these stupid impediments that would drive me crazy, especially the bad writing. Trust me on that matter - I'm a Literature major, and my Senior Thesis is on strong Fantasy writing in the 21st century. This series started off as a pleasure reading, and once I realized how badly it was done, I figured I could use it for research.
So a point of for lack of character development, a point off for lack of research/incorrect facts/confusing plot, a point off for lots of extraneous characters and details, and a point off for bad writing.
Thats without me commenting on how bad the story is.
So the only reason you should read this book? You must be very young/be unable to see what makes literature bad, or need to finish the series because you started it and now you have to finish it.
Second of all (not everyone finds this a problem, but I do) he gets a lot of things wrong. Historical facts, geographical facts, etc. It's clear he did a lot of mythology research, but First of all, I LIVE in San Francisco. He gets the geography wrong. Additionally, anything that isn't mythology, he gets wrong. For example, how old something is, how he calls Semitic characters "Aramaic" (Aramaic is a language that combines Arabic and Hebrew. He would write that Nicholas would write in Aramaic characters, when he should have said Semitic or Hebrew characters.) So not getting stuff right is another point off.
Third, there were way too many characters. Like honestly, you know why the New York Times complimented the first book? Because it had a small and intimate cast, and got into everyone's head. This book had a giant cast, and it was confusing, and I mixed up families and names and people and animals and sides and it was just a bad situation. I did like how small the first book was, the characters were more dimensional. For example, we would see John Dee's past, and why he is the way he is, making him more human. This book lacked that completely, which leads to
The Fourth problem is that there is no character development. At. All. Like, hello? Sophie? I don't know who she is as a character at all. We had the slightest view of Virginia, but not really. We lost Machiavelli and John Dee completely, and I wish Billy could have been more than a comic. All the characters were incredibly one-dimensional.
Honestly, I think I could have written the book better, and I am not good of a writer. But I would literally stop because of all these stupid impediments that would drive me crazy, especially the bad writing. Trust me on that matter - I'm a Literature major, and my Senior Thesis is on strong Fantasy writing in the 21st century. This series started off as a pleasure reading, and once I realized how badly it was done, I figured I could use it for research.
So a point of for lack of character development, a point off for lack of research/incorrect facts/confusing plot, a point off for lots of extraneous characters and details, and a point off for bad writing.
Thats without me commenting on how bad the story is.
So the only reason you should read this book? You must be very young/be unable to see what makes literature bad, or need to finish the series because you started it and now you have to finish it.
January 27, 2013
"When in doubt, we follow our hearts. Words can be false, images and sounds can be manipulated. But this...' He tapped his chest, over his heart. 'This is always true”
Michael Scott. YOU ARE A FREAKING GENIUS!
I cannot BELIEVE what I have just read. I would have never imagined ending the series with that! From the final battle to the end, waves of continuous chills swept through me. It left me breathless. IT WAS THAT EPIC.
If you haven't read this or the 5th book (Matt, Ashley, Stella: I'm looking at you), YOU BETTER START READING IT NOW. It's an ending you wouldn't want to miss.
Michael Scott. YOU ARE A FREAKING GENIUS!
I cannot BELIEVE what I have just read. I would have never imagined ending the series with that! From the final battle to the end, waves of continuous chills swept through me. It left me breathless. IT WAS THAT EPIC.
If you haven't read this or the 5th book (Matt, Ashley, Stella: I'm looking at you), YOU BETTER START READING IT NOW. It's an ending you wouldn't want to miss.
September 20, 2024
Ein grandioser Abschlussband voller Action, Spannung und berührenden Momenten! Der Autor bringt die vielen Fäden zusammen, die sich nach und nach ausgebreitet haben und führt die komplexen Zusammenhänge zu einem stimmigen und berührenden Bild, wie das Schicksal hier die Zukunft und die Vergangenheit verbindet. Großartig!
December 20, 2020
My beloved Immortal , though not in this Shadowrealm now, Suzy..
Remember this epic.. we've started reading last February. about a very strange week in the life of a twin "Josh & Sophie" and the immortal Nicolas Flamel, with bunch of other real life historical and mythology characters such as Shakespeare, Machiavelli and Dr. John Dee...that we've read 3 books of together
well, after you left me I read the rest of the 6 and it wasn't as great as the first 3 ones... but the main story still good and enjoyable... though the last book, the conclusion and twist and how it all going to end was supposed to be "faster paced" than this yet it's nice way to end this strange story, playing with Time is always my favorite and here it was so perfect by the last 50 pages of this 500 pages book. have to say it didn't deserve to be in 500 pages, half the pages would make it an excellent book actually.
It should have been much shorter to keep the effect high yet I can't rate it less than 4 stars for this mind blowing ending that really play with Time perfectly. so I love the ending and these last 50 pages deserve full 5 stars.. and makes re-reading the series in future after knowing the twist is even more fun,
Till we meet again I'll tell the whole tale for you,
Miss you, my immortal Suzy.
From the Day Book of Mohammed Arabey, former reviewer.
Writ this day, Sunday, 20th December 2020
in Alexandria, my birth City.
Remember this epic.. we've started reading last February. about a very strange week in the life of a twin "Josh & Sophie" and the immortal Nicolas Flamel, with bunch of other real life historical and mythology characters such as Shakespeare, Machiavelli and Dr. John Dee...that we've read 3 books of together
well, after you left me I read the rest of the 6 and it wasn't as great as the first 3 ones... but the main story still good and enjoyable... though the last book, the conclusion and twist and how it all going to end was supposed to be "faster paced" than this yet it's nice way to end this strange story, playing with Time is always my favorite and here it was so perfect by the last 50 pages of this 500 pages book. have to say it didn't deserve to be in 500 pages, half the pages would make it an excellent book actually.
It should have been much shorter to keep the effect high yet I can't rate it less than 4 stars for this mind blowing ending that really play with Time perfectly. so I love the ending and these last 50 pages deserve full 5 stars.. and makes re-reading the series in future after knowing the twist is even more fun,
Till we meet again I'll tell the whole tale for you,
Miss you, my immortal Suzy.
From the Day Book of Mohammed Arabey, former reviewer.
Writ this day, Sunday, 20th December 2020
in Alexandria, my birth City.
June 9, 2012
The series is finally over. I was so excited to see the final ending and how it would all come together. At the end of The Warlock, I was concerned that Josh was going to be a bad kid and try to destroy the world, while Sophie would have to stop him in order to save it. But in The Enchantress, that changes. Warning: spoilers ahead!
The story was interesting and engaging until nearly the end. I thought it was interesting that so many elders die in the last book. I thought those guys were suppose to difficult to kill! There were also several other deaths (or assumed deaths - more on that later) that just seemed a bit senseless to me. Some I could see as essential. But there were just several that didn't make sense.
Near the ending, there were several stories that didn't get completely wrapped up. We didn't find out the fate of Black Hawk, Billy the Kid or even Machiavelli after the action was all cleared up. There was also a rather vague description of what happened with other characters like Sophie, Scatty, Joan and Virginia.
I also had a few little things that just bugged me. I also understand that I am a completely nerd and would only overthink these kind of things. Although I assume that the Flamels died in Paris, how then could they have attended the wedding? If Josh destroyed Isis and Osiris, wouldn't that change the future and have both Josh and Sophie not being found and raised by them, thus making their existence end? Only, I think about such weird things!
On another note I did love the series and thought that the ending with Josh! And looking back through the series, I can see how it turned out that way! I also loved the ending with John Dee. Overall, I did like the story, just not the details of the ending. Still love the series though!
The story was interesting and engaging until nearly the end. I thought it was interesting that so many elders die in the last book. I thought those guys were suppose to difficult to kill! There were also several other deaths (or assumed deaths - more on that later) that just seemed a bit senseless to me. Some I could see as essential. But there were just several that didn't make sense.
Near the ending, there were several stories that didn't get completely wrapped up. We didn't find out the fate of Black Hawk, Billy the Kid or even Machiavelli after the action was all cleared up. There was also a rather vague description of what happened with other characters like Sophie, Scatty, Joan and Virginia.
I also had a few little things that just bugged me. I also understand that I am a completely nerd and would only overthink these kind of things. Although I assume that the Flamels died in Paris, how then could they have attended the wedding? If Josh destroyed Isis and Osiris, wouldn't that change the future and have both Josh and Sophie not being found and raised by them, thus making their existence end? Only, I think about such weird things!
On another note I did love the series and thought that the ending with Josh! And looking back through the series, I can see how it turned out that way! I also loved the ending with John Dee. Overall, I did like the story, just not the details of the ending. Still love the series though!
August 5, 2016
Compared to the rest of the books in the series, this was a definite improvement. In fact, after reading "The Enchantress", I realised that the downfall of this series was in its editing. What could have been finished in three books, was unnecessarily dragged on for six and a lot of the lure of these books was lost on the way.
A whole host of superfluous characters and unnecessary diagloue could have been done away with, and this series would have been among the top books in recent fantasy. But alas and alack, it was not to be, so, instead, when I began this book, I found myself in the annoying position wherein I realised that I cared for none of the characters within it, and it took superhuman effort on my part (Mild exaggeration. Mild.) to continue AND finish the book.
Disappointingly, the ending didn't make sense to me. I have no idea what happened and how the things that happened came about. Also, throughout the series, we've been told, time and again, how powerful Sophie and Josh, together, are and how they are capable of untold magic. Bull. Not once, in all of the six, 300-odd pages long, books, have we once been shown that. How many times must I say it - SHOW, DON'T TELL.
All in all, if you have already read the other books, then go ahead with this one - it's a decent enough end to the series. But if not, give it a definite miss.
A whole host of superfluous characters and unnecessary diagloue could have been done away with, and this series would have been among the top books in recent fantasy. But alas and alack, it was not to be, so, instead, when I began this book, I found myself in the annoying position wherein I realised that I cared for none of the characters within it, and it took superhuman effort on my part (Mild exaggeration. Mild.) to continue AND finish the book.
Disappointingly, the ending didn't make sense to me. I have no idea what happened and how the things that happened came about. Also, throughout the series, we've been told, time and again, how powerful Sophie and Josh, together, are and how they are capable of untold magic. Bull. Not once, in all of the six, 300-odd pages long, books, have we once been shown that. How many times must I say it - SHOW, DON'T TELL.
All in all, if you have already read the other books, then go ahead with this one - it's a decent enough end to the series. But if not, give it a definite miss.
September 20, 2017
Ok this last book of this series was:
And the previous books of this serie were very good also.. But this one,the last book... oh... it was too good..
+the combination of fantasy with reality,the real historical people and all the magic it has is just WOW!!
+many fast action scenes
+well-written (and it had some funny nice dialogues :) )
+Short chapters
-many details to describe some actions
-at parts i was confused because one chapter it was that team of people who did something and then another chapter we are going to the next team of people who did something and goes on..
*All in all i will miss this series and this book..I hope i will read it again because it's worth it...I recommend this book and the whole series to the people who want magic and real action and adventure with a big amount of fantasy..it will get you addicted believe me... :p
And the previous books of this serie were very good also.. But this one,the last book... oh... it was too good..
+the combination of fantasy with reality,the real historical people and all the magic it has is just WOW!!
+many fast action scenes
+well-written (and it had some funny nice dialogues :) )
+Short chapters
-many details to describe some actions
-at parts i was confused because one chapter it was that team of people who did something and then another chapter we are going to the next team of people who did something and goes on..
*All in all i will miss this series and this book..I hope i will read it again because it's worth it...I recommend this book and the whole series to the people who want magic and real action and adventure with a big amount of fantasy..it will get you addicted believe me... :p
May 25, 2012
Seeing as how this is the last book in the series, Michael Scott was probably under a lot of pressure to make it end with a BANG. He probably felt that he had to do a GRRM and knock out a whole cast of characters, which he did. It was a fucking massacre. The whole process practically screams "I'm trying too hard!" Perhaps he was just trying to induce some sense of emotional response to the characters' deaths, but meh, I didn't feel anything. Especially considering how cheap he made them feel to me. It's like they were introduced into the story solely to be used as cannon fodder. Those are people's lives you're messing with! (not real ones but still =P)
Even though the characters were dropping like flies, the story did manage to be halfway decent. It finally answered the question regarding the role of the twins of legend and the identity of their parents. The book answered a lot of questions that readers may have had about the series as a whole, but along the way it stumbled by inducing several logic fails and deus ex machinas that were just mind-boggling to read. C'mon Michael, dude. The series is gonna end and you come up with this bullshit?!
It finally provided me with closure after all this while. I like to see my series through until the end and Michael Scott provided me with a satisfactory ending that was good enough even though it wasn't great. If you're a fan of the series, you'll definitely enjoy reading this book.
More reviews like this can be found at Lanun Reviews
Even though the characters were dropping like flies, the story did manage to be halfway decent. It finally answered the question regarding the role of the twins of legend and the identity of their parents. The book answered a lot of questions that readers may have had about the series as a whole, but along the way it stumbled by inducing several logic fails and deus ex machinas that were just mind-boggling to read. C'mon Michael, dude. The series is gonna end and you come up with this bullshit?!
It finally provided me with closure after all this while. I like to see my series through until the end and Michael Scott provided me with a satisfactory ending that was good enough even though it wasn't great. If you're a fan of the series, you'll definitely enjoy reading this book.
More reviews like this can be found at Lanun Reviews
September 17, 2017
1.5 stars . tldr: so much of this book (this series, really) was just unnecessary filler, predictable, and underwhelming.
the toll of battle is maddeningly inconsistent - 2 earthlords, the most ancient people known to exist (and therefore implied to be the very most powerful who ever lived ever etc) are defeated with literally one hit each (admittedly with a powerful weapon). but some random giant crab takes out 3 people (all of whom are very powerful themselves)? 1 monster might be easily defeated in less than a page, but something equally as powerful might take the same person chapters to beat. all of the characters are 100s of years old already (they brag about taking on entire armies at a time) - if they were going to be defeated as easily as one hit from one monster, wouldn't they have died a long time ago??????
also there was some messy stuff with egyptian gods being described as just 'deeply tanned' (and then later 'pale'??) and almost all of them being villains. the racial representation in this series is just generally messy
that said, there was one big twist at the end i TOTALLY didnt see coming (that actually made sense and mattered to the story, something that cant be said about a lot of reveals/twists in this series) and i did appreciate that. (thats the half star)
i loved this series when i was a kid (ive usually seen it marked ya but despite the length i would say its middle grade) so i have some nostalgic fondness for the first couple books, but other than that, i wouldnt recommend this series
the toll of battle is maddeningly inconsistent - 2 earthlords, the most ancient people known to exist (and therefore implied to be the very most powerful who ever lived ever etc) are defeated with literally one hit each (admittedly with a powerful weapon). but some random giant crab takes out 3 people (all of whom are very powerful themselves)? 1 monster might be easily defeated in less than a page, but something equally as powerful might take the same person chapters to beat. all of the characters are 100s of years old already (they brag about taking on entire armies at a time) - if they were going to be defeated as easily as one hit from one monster, wouldn't they have died a long time ago??????
also there was some messy stuff with egyptian gods being described as just 'deeply tanned' (and then later 'pale'??) and almost all of them being villains. the racial representation in this series is just generally messy
that said, there was one big twist at the end i TOTALLY didnt see coming (that actually made sense and mattered to the story, something that cant be said about a lot of reveals/twists in this series) and i did appreciate that. (thats the half star)
i loved this series when i was a kid (ive usually seen it marked ya but despite the length i would say its middle grade) so i have some nostalgic fondness for the first couple books, but other than that, i wouldnt recommend this series
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