Facts:
Date finished: 8-31-08
Author: R.K. Mortenson
Category: Children’s fantasy
Published: 2005
Pages: 223
Rating: 2/5
Basic Plot:
On the eve of his 11th birthday, Landon’s dream stone opens a new world to him, one with talking books, a riddle to solve and a chess board of potential death. Can Landon get out of this strange world alive, solve the riddle and return to his family?
My assessment:
OK, I picked this up because of the cover – it looked like a promising fantasy story. Instead, I got relatively lame writing, insipid characters and a rehashed story. (Seriously, could Mortenson have taken more ideas from Harry Potter?) Add to that some really unsubtle pushing of creationism (which I believe in, but found distracting in the hamhanded way in which it was dealt with here) and you’ve got a really unsatisfactory book. Someone must have liked it though since there are more in this series. The only character I liked really was the little Odd girl, whom we barely saw. And I’m fairly easy to please. Fortunately it was short.
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