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Shoshana, March 26, 2007

+ More plot advancement than in previous volumes
- The same problems of inadequate character development, coherent motives, and deus ex machina that plague the previous volumes in this series

On the one hand, this is a better book that the three of four that came before it. On the other hand, it still demonstrates why J. K. Rowling has had such phenomenal success not just with children but with adult readers as well.

I'm very puzzled about why Charlie has made so little exploration and use of his endowment. He is possibly the most uninquisitive protagonist I've encountered in young adult literature. However, this dullness may be explained by his community's lack of curiosity--all the animals disappear and the only notice they make of this is that it must have something to do with those weirdos at Bloor's Academy? One hopes they'd be more interested in where fried chicken comes from when there are no chickens.

As usual, story events are largely picaresque, un-prepared for or clumsily foreshadowed, and inconsistent. "Charlie's old enemy, Damian (sic) Smerk" appears briefly (p. 171), but previous mention of Damien is so scant that even online concordances by Charlie Bone devotees have nothing to say about him. Ezekiel claims he can "rearrange history" using Charlie's endowment; why would this work if the time-twister didn't (oh, except it did, after we were told that it couldn't). Hidden under a table, Charlie sees "an upside-down face" appear as someone looks under the table. Try this at home and discover that it is impossible unless the person climbed over the table and, laying upon it, looked over the opposite side--hardly likely to happen covertly at a major formal dinner. "Count Harken," a bit-player who married the Red King's daughter, evokes Count Olaf. Why did Miss Chrystal disguise her relationship to Joshua Tilpin? Uncle Patton: Too dumb to cancel his gourmet food baskets? "Charlie, I forgot to tell you. Tolly Twelve Bells has been stolen" (p. 289). Finally! The return of a plot element--but nothing further comes of this. The Mirror of Amoret only works for children of the Red King. Oops, but no, it works for the enchanter because "he is an enchanter" (p. 294). Okay, glad we got that straightened out. "Oh, I forgot" a mysterious communication from Skarpo, says Charlie (p. 326). Bodyguards are too stupid to stop a young girl from entering the exclusive suite of a powerful enchanter (p. 359 ff.). "The spell!...Idiot that I am. I forgot it" says Patton (p. 386). The moral of this paragraph is that the world is inexplicable when run by persons of average intelligence.

The one saving grace of this volume is the change of allegiance that occurs for one relatively important character. It inspires the only emotion I have experienced in this series to date.

In terms of printing issues, this book (in hardback, at least) does not have the misplaced preface about the Red King and his time-twister that appeared incorrectly in volumes 3 and 4. However, in the description of the series at the back of the book, it gives Henry Yewbeam's name as "Hart," which is inaccurate and puzzling. "Hart Noble" owns Kingdom's; Henry Yewbeam appears on the family tree as "Henry" and this is his name in the UK edition as well. Such sloppiness speaks to me of a book rushed into print without adequate attention to detail. This is a sign of the publisher treating the work as genre fiction, rather than giving it its due as literature. I usually think highly of Scholastic, but this series is causing me to re-evaluate that.

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