Pendragon - The Lost City of Faar
Style: Poor
Attitude: Unobjectionable
Series: Pendragon
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published in: 2003
Age Range: Young Teens
Period: Contemporary
Setting: Earth / Cloral
Genres: Fantasy
Characters:
- Bobby Pendragon is a 14-year-old Traveller, one of a group of people destined to guard time and space.
- Mark is Bobby's best friend who receives Bobby's diary by instalments through an interdimensional portal.
- Courtney is Bobby's feisty girlfriend, better than the boys at most sports. Bobby's Uncle Press is one of the Travellers and Bobby's mentor.
- Saint Dane (try saying it quickly) is a Traveller who has gone to the bad.
- Loor is the Traveller from Zadaa and Bobby's friend.
- Spader is a native of Cloral, whose father is the Traveller for that territory.
Synopsis:
Bobby & Press have followed Saint Dane to Cloral, a world covered completely by water, to prevent him from pushing as many worlds as he can to the point of chaos. They soon reach one of the floating habitats which supply the world's food just before it is attacked by raiders led by their old enemy. To save this world they must find the fabled lost city of Faar sunk beneath the waves for centuries.
Notes:
General: Waterworld meets the Abyss meets Atlantis. Once again this author has delivered a mixture of not-terribly-original ideas and original plot turns but in a package which fails to convince. Maybe it's just my own circumstances, but I find Bobby Pendragon's character more irritating than engaging, and his friends are emotional cardboard cutouts.
A slight shame, because some of the twists and turns of the plot are appealing enough to deserve better delivery: the fate of Faar and Mark's dilemma when the school bully discovers Bobby's diaries are two examples. The impression, however, is rather like reading a film novelisation: everyone just runs around and issues their lines at emotional extremes.
There's nothing in the content which I would expect anyone to consider objectionable.
I guess to someone from another territory that didn't have aeroplanes, the power of flight was pretty amazing. I was almost as amazing as being able breathe underwater with plastic globes that moulded to your head. Every territory was unique in its own way and believe it or not, I was beginning to like the idea that I was going to see more of them.
“You know something, Pendragon?”
“What?”
“I believe Press,” he said with confidence. “We're going to see them again. But not before some amazing adventures come our way.”
I had to smile. Maybe he was beginning to accept our fate.
Saturday 6th December 2003