Pendragon #10: Soldiers of Halla, by D.J. MacHale

I.......... AM.......... FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!

(10 dots for each ellipse and 10 exclamation points, all representing my triumph over the 10th and final Pendragon adventure! Also, this is the largest type I'm allowed to use. That's how excited I am. ^_^)

It's incredible! I can hardly wrap my mind around it! This was the moment I've been working towards for soooo long! And... now it's over. -,- That's just too bad. But I'm not going to dwell on that, because that would ruin my tirade of how truly awesome the last book was!

Honestly, it was much like reading the final book of Harry Potter, only... well, I can't say it was better, since I love Harry so much and would hate to see him topple off his perch in my number one spot of best loved series, but Bobby is too good to be content with second place. So let's just say that Potter and Pendragon are holding hands at the finish line of their stories. Because it's the finale of a series that makes a reader decide whether it had all been worth it. The suspense. The adventure. The romance. The slight humor that you can't help smiling at, maybe even laugh at. The heartaches. The turmoil. The challenges. The cliff-hangers. The victories. The surprises. The characters. The villains that emulate every spirit of evilness in the world in one persona. The heroes you would follow to the ends of their worlds, cheering them on every step of their way to make things right for their people, risking everything. And of course, the universes of the stories themselves, sprung from the imaginations of two wonderful people, which are filled with the most amazing, mind-blowing, unbelievable, and yes, even magical, worlds I could never have imagined on my own. This is why I love reading so much.

I cannot give enough praise to D. J. for what he's published for the whole world to see. It's just terrific. (Graham, I'm talking to you. If you weren't convinced before to get into Pendragon, you've absolutely got to get started now! This series is too exciting to miss!) It is sooo hard to believe that I started this "journey through time and space" less than a year ago. Now I'm done.

I'm so glad I decided to just finish it already. I had a feeling that all the other books I borrowed from the library could definitely wait for another time. I wouldn't mind if Pendragon would be the last book I reviewed this month. I need to get back to writing my own incredible tale. I shouldn't be distracted by the hopes of fictional worlds that will seem hollow for a while after what I've just read.

Yes, I know. I've managed to reveal absolutely nothing about the plot-line of The Soldiers of Halla. Well, as much as I loved this book, I'd sure hate to be the one to ruin it for those who haven't yet read it. Funny, I thought I'd have a much harder time keeping the story a secret. But you know what? 

...I can't resist. ^,^

Here's a few things you can expect from this book, without any worry of spoiling the story. Sorry to tease and torture you like this, but I think it'll be fun for me:

• You may have thought it was over from the end of the last book, but in reality, Bobby and his friends are so far from over that they're on the far side of Pluto, it's so far. ^,^ (No! Not literally! Shut up! They don't go to Pluto. *snort* It's in a metaphorical sense. Duh!)
• There is much jumping between territories. You'd never believe it. And you thought the flumes were destroyed, right? Well, the Travellers still have a way to travel...
• The stakes are higher than ever before. It's not just about saving Halla. It's saving the spirit of Halla... (I'll let you think on that. ^,*)
• The military-like planning and fighting scenes are awesome! Not to mention the final battle. So appropriate!
• All you really have to know is that all the other books were a prelude compared to this epic! I swear, I could never have predicted it would come to this when I first picked the series up. Not in a million years!

Okay, enough of those vagueties (if that's actually a word). I still have a couple things I'm dying to share about the final book. Please forgive me if these secrets spoil your reading experience:

• A few people you thought were dead? They're not. Doh! I'm so sorry! That's a big one to give away. But trust me. It'll still be a relief to find out why they're not dead.
• Saint Dane's demise is sooo cool! Yes, I'm sorry about not putting you through the suspense, but Saint Dane is beaten for good. He completely deserved what he got. It was almost cooler than reading about Lord Voldemort's final defeat. Almost. ^,~
• The last chapter, what I'd call the epilogue (even though it doesn't say "Epilogue," that's ultimately what it is), I'd have to say is just a mite better than Harry Potter's. It's honestly all worth it in the end. Yes, it takes place in Bobby's future. (Uh-huh, sorry to spoil it, but Bobby has a future.) And what a future it is! It's completely worth it in the end. It truly comes full circle. To the very... last... sentence.

If you have any comments to share, I hope they're long ones. Please don't play concise with me. If you've read the book, please tell me if you can add anything to MacHale's pile of compliments. I hope all my friends can enjoy what I've just enjoyed to the fullest.

So glad I decided to buy it and not wait for it to come in the library!!! ^,^

Flight 3 and Flight Explorer, plus Pendragon: Before the War #3, by Walter Sorrels

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I kind of forgot to say that I finished Flight #3 a couple days ago. I finished it so fast that I didn't think it meant anything. But it was really a good graphic collection. That fox cartoon on the other Flight post? That continued in this. That little guy is my favorite character! Now I'm all caught up with the Flight series and just have to wait until Flight 5 is in my sights.

In the meantime, yesterday I went to Borders (one of my favorite place in the world!) and read Flight Explorer. This is related to the Flight series, in that it's a collection of comics made by some of the same artists that contributed to the regular Flight books. I think it' supposed to get the kids into comics, because there's a lot fewer stories in it. Still, I liked it. This whole graphic series is definitely something to get into, I can tell you.

I was a little sad in Borders, because I'd been hoping to find James Dashner's Dark Infinity and read as much as I could of it straight out of the store. Only I didn't find it. You know, I don't even think they carry any of his Jimmy Fincher books? I'm really curious about this early series of James's, but they weren't there. Oh well.

I whiled away the rest of my bookstore stay reading almost the rest of the third Pendragon: Before the War book. I think if I'd been given enough time, like another half hour or something, I might've had a chance of finishing it, but we had to go. I read the first two stories, about Loor (Zadaa) and Siry Remudi (Ibara), and was well into Patrick Mac's story. I believe I'm on page 159. I don't want to lose my place. I'm not sure whether I've gotten a good impression of Third Earth thus far. It sounds more like a utopian Veelox so far. I really liked the Third Earth that MacHale described in Pendragon #3, the Never War. (You know, come to think of it, I wonder why it was called Never War in the first place?) Anyway, I quite enjoyed the book, but I don't think it's my favorite out of the prequel Pendragons. It's a very good thing #10 is just around the corner. I can barely wait for that! Now that book I would buy.

Pendragon: Before the War #2, by Walter Sorrells

Facts: I read this book in just one day. I think that's awesome because that's 1 day faster than I read the first book in this series. It was a super fun read. What else can you expect from a Pendragon novel? Even if D.J. MacHale didn't write it himself? Like the book before, it was just published this year. I consider myself very fortunate to have read this so recently after it came out. The only thing different about this book is that it's 230 pages-- 10 shorter than the first one. Maybe that's because this didn't have any sneak preview for book #3 at the end. Too bad. ~,~

The people you see on the front here are three more Travellers from the world of Halla. The first story in the sequence was Aja Killian's, the girl in the center with blond hair and tinted glasses. She looks so cool. Exactly as I had imagined her in the other Pendragon novels. The second story was about Elli Winter, the woman on the right. Then there was the one about Alder, the awkward looking guy on the left. I don't know about his looks. I already got a picture of him from reading the Pendragon graphic novel, and he doesn't look much like that here. But his story was still great.

My opinions: This Pendragon prequel makes me even more anxious to get back into the real story, the one where Bobby and all his friends left off. I have to wait a couple more agonizing months! It's unbearable!!! (Well, I guess I'm being a bit dramatic. It's only unbearable when Pendragon is on my mind, but when I'm not thinking about it, you can say it's bearable.) I hope that since reading my first review of the Pendragon series, some people have picked it up. That means you too, my curly friend between letters P and R. (She hasn't read any Pendragon. Can you believe it?) (Hehe, sorry about that, Curly.)

What was really cool about this collection of stories is that Press and Saint Dane have much more of a role in all of these travellers' adventures. Bobby's uncle appears directly in every tale, and Saint Dane is in disguise in two of them. You can tell quite clearly who he really is in both, though. Just look for the guy with pale, cold eyes in each story. Even if the main characters can't tell it's him, I sure could.

Aja's world is amazing. The one where people can go into a virtual reality? I'd love to be there. And Aja is so super smart. I like her. She can memorize and calculate mathamatical programs like no one's business. I could've used her to tutor me in SAT math! Press is quite helpful to her in the "game" she gets into and she learns that logic alone doesn't always solve problems. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut feeling...

Elli Winter seems like a nice, polite middle-aged woman. When Press meets up with her, she doesn't exactly feel like she's the Traveller type. But after reading about what she does on Qullian, I think she was wrong. I especially think she didn't make a good choice with letting her daughter Nevva become Traveller instead of her. Us fans know how that turned out in the end...

Alder, the Bedoowan knight, makes quite the transformation in his journey to knighthood. I was pretty amazed at how far he went in such a short time. I'm not sure how to talk about it anymore so I don't reveal anything, but in this story you can really tell which character Saint Dane is. It sure is funny knowing something that Alder plainly doesn't. But he finds out soon enough, when Bobby comes around...

Haha. I ended each segment about the Travellers with an elipse... Thanks for teaching me that word. Before then, all I used to call them was dot-dot-dot. Elipse sounds a lot fancier.

I really feel sorry for all the Travellers in this book. The ones from Book 1 had it a lot better than these guys. I mean, you can tell that the territories of Veelox and Quillian are already doomed, with the direction you know they're going in, and the situation on Denduron sure didn't sound good. But, when I remember that these are only fictional worlds, I feel a lot better. This book (and the author who wrote it) did the job it was meant to do. It entertained me. And made me wish I had the next adventure in my hands right away.

Pendragon: Before the War #1, by Carla Jablonski

Facts: I finished this book in 2 days. It was published in 2009, most likely some time in January, because the second book was just published in February. (How exciting! This is the first book from this year that I've read!) It was 240 pages long.
As Pendragon fans should know, this book (and the two that will follow) is broken up into 3 stories about separate Travelers before Bobby Pendragon ever made the scene in their territory. The story about Kasha, the cat-like "klee" on the left, came first, with 8 chapters; the one about Vincent "Gunny" Van Dyke, the guy on the right, came next and was 15 chapters long, plus a prologue; and the last tale, about Vo Spader, the kid in center, was 13 chapters. Also there was a sneak peek for the second book, about the Traveler Alder, but I'm not going to count that. So in total I suppose there were 37 chapters in the book.

My opinion: Well, it's Pendragon, so what can I say? I really liked all the adventures I read. Even the fact that it was not written by D. J. MacHale doesn't take away much pleasure out of reading about the Halla universe. These prequels to the Pendragon series are meant to keep fans at bay while they wait for #10, Soldiers of Halla. I'd like to think this first book did its job. Now I can't wait for the next bundle of adventures.
I think I liked Spader's part the best. Cloral is my favorite territory, with all the water gadgets and funny expressions the locals use, like the words tum-tigger (meaning trouble) or spiff (a word synonymous to cool), and especially the catch-phrase "Hobey-Ho, let's go!" I love that. Spader's a fun character too, though I think the picture of him on the cover makes him look too young.
Kasha's life in Eelong comes in at my second favorite. Klees are awesome. They're powerful jungle cats that have humanoid intelligence, including the powers of speech and scientific thought. Plus they have a sense of humor and fun. It's a dangerous life, though, with dinosaur like tangs lurking around.
Gunny's story is okay, but since he lives in a regular world (although it is a past world) I wouldn't call it as exciting as the others. However, he does solve an interesting mystery with gangsters in it, so that was cool.

Well, I've thoroughly succeeded in not giving a lot away about these stories, haven't I? Now you guys have to read this and see what the excitement is all about. Of course, if you've never heard of the Pendragon series, (where have you been?) I advise you start from the beginning, with The Merchant of Death, before you start reading the prequels. Otherwise you probably won't understand. But please, Pendragon fans, feel free to comment and start a discussion with me. Have you read this book? What do you think about it? Remember, this is a book club, people!