Challenge of the Hordika

Bionicle Adventures #8

by Greg Farshtey

A new quest begins and new dangers await.
The start of an all-new BIONICLE saga!


Transformed into strange half-Toa, half-beast Toa Hordika, the heroes of Metru Nui must master new powers and skills while struggling against the power of their darker natures. Aided by the mysterious Rahaga, the Toa Hordika explore a ruined city of legends in their mission to save the Matoran.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Childrens, Science Fiction, Adventure

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

Greg Farshtey is the author of the popular BIONICLE chapter books and Level 3 readers, as well as the long-running BIONICLE comic book series. His day job is Editor-in-Chief and head writer for the LEGO Club Magazine and the LEGO BrickMaster Magazine.

Greg has been writing since fourth grade. After earning a degree in Communications from the State University of New York at Geneseo, he worked as a reporter, sports editor, game designer and editor, and copywriter before joining LEGO Company in 2000. Before becoming involved with BIONICLE, he wrote game material for such diverse properties as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Tales From the Crypt.

Greg is the author of more than 30 novels and guidebooks, as well as the author or co-author of more than 35 game sourcebooks and adventures.

He lives in West Hartford, Connecticut.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Far...

Reviews

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Greg’s calling is monster fights, but maybe I’m over-invested in this. This book is more a string of disparate plot-threads that converges onto a finale. It’s a vignette of the kind of action the Toa Hordika experience in Metru Nui as it is slowly conquered by the visorak hordes. In this way it is like the comics published alongside of the novels. However the plot of Roodaka revealing that it was the destiny of other Matoran to turn into the Toa Metru and not that of our heroes does read as, in hindsight, Greg doing his best to justify Vakama’s coming betrayal. Unfortunately it doesn’t come up at all in the flagship movie. What this book does do well is the Tahtorak and Krahka tag-teaming the Zivon. Great stuff.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

Continuing a trend in Greg Farshtey's writing, this book is just a string of action verbs with very little else in between. This happened, then this happened, then this happened--This children's book does not challenge the reader to empathize with characters, nor expand their vocabulary; it only challenges kids to remember where all 100 of the action heroes are on a map and what color their toy is. For those adults reading for the "deep lore" (as fans claim this franchise has), I have produced a summary you can skim through to see what is revealed in this book.

Lore tidbits:
- The Rahaga used to be Toa.
- Krakkah dies heroically in order to rescue the Hordika, fulfilling her destiny alluded to in earlier books.
- The Toa Hordika were not Lhikan's first choice. Lhikan originally intended to select the matoran with knowledge of the great disks back from Adventures #1-3. The Toa Hordika concluded that Lhikan's mind was under the influence of Makuta when he selected the current Toa.

[Sully Leier · Rating 3 out of 5]

rip Krahka u were a real one. the Zivon vs Tahtorak big kaiju fight was cool. Very action-focused which I think doesn't work very well in these books.

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Where are we going?”
“Where it’s going.”
“What if it’s going nowhere?”
“Then we will have a new experience,” said Bomonga.
“Oh good,” muttered Whenua. “Mata Nuia knows I haven’t any of those lately.”

—

AWWWW YEAAAAHTHIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES IN THIS SERIES

This book has very little effect on the actual ongoing 2005 storyline (although it DOES provide a canon explanation for one of the sets that year), but it’s an excellent installment that continued the Krahka’s story arc. I am very glad we didn’t leave that character hanging, because she’s awesome and she would obviously have to do something while her home was being overrun by evil spiders. It’s a little dumb how Roodaka is able to beat her with little effort, just to show how powerful she is. It IS effective though.

This one introduces the Plot point of “The Toa Metru actually *weren’t* destined to be Toa, it was a cosmic mistake,” which is an interesting idea, and one I think GregF introduced to help make the Plot of the movie make more sense. It gives Vakama more to angst about. That being said, it’s kind of retconned later on (in a way that’s cool but nonetheless feels like an obvious retcon).

The Krahka is awesome and I’m really bummed that we don’t see her ever be as versatile and cool as we do in these past two books that feature her. She does come back, but I don’t think she does much?

Still, I had lots of fun rereading this one.

[Ben Erentraut · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming to terms with their new bodies, the Toa must learn to control the rage of the Hordika in their first major battle against King Sidorak and his Visorak Hordes. Meanwhile Roodaka is scheming to her own ends in the background. A brilliant chapter in the saga.

[Ivan Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

nothing

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite series in elementary school

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining Bionicle tale of the Hordika’s struggle with the Visorak and with themselves.