Sting the Scorpion Man

Beast Quest #18

by Adam Blade

The good Beasts of Avantia are imprisoned in the kingdom of Malvel the evil wizard. Each is guarded by a terrible new Beast. Tom's quest to free the good Beasts takes him to the tunnels under Malvel's castle, where Sting the Scorpion Man is waiting...

Genres: Fantasy, Childrens, Fiction, Adventure

116 pages

First published October 2, 2008

About the author

Adam Blade is the house name for the Working Partners Ltd. ghostwriters who write the Beast Quest and Sea Quest series.

Adam Blade is in his late twenties, and was born in Kent, England. His parents were both history teachers and amateur artists, and Adam grew up surrounded by his father’s paintings of historic English battles – which left a lifelong mark on his imagination. He was also fascinated by the ancient sword and shield that hung in his father’s office. Adam’s father said they were a Blade family heirloom.

As a boy, Adam would spend days imagining who could have first owned the sword and shield. Eventually, he created a character – Tom, the bravest boy warrior of them all. The idea for Beast Quest was born.

When Adam grew up and decided that he wanted to be a writer, he was stuck for ideas – until he remembered the old sword and shield, and the imaginary boy he had created when he was young. Adam decided to bring Tom fully to life so that readers could go on the kind of adventures that he always wanted to when he was that age… And still does, even though he’s grown up!

When he’s not writing Beast Quest books, Adam enjoys visiting museums and ancient battle sites. His main hobbies are fencing and football. He also spends a lot of time at home running around after his two exotic pets – a tarantula named Ziggy, and a capuchin monkey named Omar. These little rascals were the inspiration for two of the Beasts that Tom faces on his Quest – Arachnid and Claw.

Sadly, Adam does not have his own Fire-Dragon or Horse-Man. But he really wishes he did!

Reviews

[Liana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stuff! As usual, Beast Quest delivers another page-turning story. Sting is obviously the highlight of it all, but not necessarily because he's on the book's front cover, it's because HE'S SETH!!! FREAKING SETH!!! He got turned into a beast! Like OMGGGGGGGG. THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. So much awesome.

So here ends another Beast Quest... The Dark Realm was pretty good, and def lives up to its name - the plot is dark. ;)

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 4 out of 5]

More battles for Tom and Elenna as they have to defeat Sting a scorpion man and free Arcta the mountain giant from a dungeon.

This book is set in the dark realm which is more violent and nasty than the first series. I am not giving it five stars because it mostly depends on strength and fighting rather than the wit and crafts or first aid seen in previous books. However, this is the last of the dark realm tales, so it is bound to be very dangerous.

Suitable for young readers of six upwards, with illustrations; better if you've read the earlier books but each of these is a separate part of the adventure.

[Libbie Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty crazy and pretty good! it opened up questions about how malvel made his other evil beasts, and what the heck was up with the townsfolk. anyways. amazing book, i hope they return to the dark realm again in the future.

[Dinomo · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW! It's the first time I knew how a human could be turned into a beast!

[Stephen Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book could be the best if the beast quest so far

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Scorpions were bad enough. A giant scorpion would be unstoppable.
-an actual quote from this novel.

Okay, so I ended up reading three Beast Quest books in one week to get a taste of this series. I wasn't really going by any logical order - I just picked books based on their covers and whether the premise of the monster seemed cool. And the scorpion man on this book seemed really cool for some reason, so Sting it was!

In this book an evil 15 year old turns into a scorpion man, the two main heroes go to an evil castle with an evil marketplace full of lizard people, and then they fight the scorpion man in a castle's burial chamber while trying to free a mountain giant. Then they win and the scorpion man drops an important purple gem and then the purple gem teleports them to a castle where a king goes "Good job, protagonist". Credits roll. Trading cards at the back of the book.

Sting the Scorpion Man seems to be different from the other monsters because he - and I'm judging this observation entirely from wikipedia entries and the Beast Quest wikia - seems to be the only monster that is magically created from a reoccurring human character and stays that way. This plot twist would make this book more of a memorable moment in the entire overarching series if Sting the Scorpion Man stuck around past this entry, and, spoiler alert, he doesn't.

Instead, the transformed Seth, a character that's been in the other books as a major antagonist, just kinda scurries away during the climax and never shows up again. His fate is entirely left up to you, the viewer, and that's such a disappointing send-off for one of the major characters of this franchise.

...that being said I am writing this as someone who's only read three out of the 100+ Beast Quest books, so it's not like I had a major attachment to Seth and only learned about him in the book where he turns into a horrible scorpion man and gets hilariously renamed by Malvel like he's a newly captured Pokemon.

My other gripe is "boy, sure kinda sucks that Tom is the only one that gets special object and beast-related powers throughout this franchise while Elenna the girl has to just kinda stand there and barely do anything beyond shoot an arrow occasionally" but I have a gut feeling that that's going to be a constant complaint of mine throughout this franchise should I choose to continue to read more of these.

The rest of the book is standard "hero needs to journey to an evil place and get object from evil castle and fight evil monster to save a captured good guy", but at least this book changes it up a bit by having the captured damsel in distress be a one-eyed giant this time. The one-eyed giant is named Arcta and he's been put in a giant stone tomb, where his fate was to slowly suffocate to death. Children's books rule.

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MONSTER SCORE

NAME: Listen. There's no way around it. Naming a giant scorpion man "Sting" is just goofy. However, while the name "Sting the Scorpion Man" is completely underwhelming and just calling him Seth would've actually been better (if completely spoiling the book's twist by putting it in the title) the naming scene with Malvel almost makes it worth it because the name now feels like a punishment, especially when coupled with the illustration of Seth grovelling in despair.
Score: 1/5 but the story acknowledges it's a lame name.

DESIGN: Now *this* is where this monster stands out. Sting is very cool! He's an awful bug man that's uncanny and weird with cool arm pincers. He has almost a centaur-like quality to him and the way the human features almost completely meld into bug is really great. He has a tragic quality to him with the way he keeps his human face but now has snarling monster teeth and slitted reptile eyes. I will, however, have to dock points for his little feets, even if they are scientifically accurate. Look at them. They are hilarious.
Score: 4/5 good bug.

POWERS/ABILITIES: Like his terrible, wimpy little name, I assume that his transformation into a giant scorpion is meant to be a punishment for sucking so hard in the previous books because Sting the Scorpion Man...really has no actual powers to speak of beyond "has claws" and "has tail", and one of these gets removed during a fight. Sure, he's strong, but by now, Tom has faced dragons, sea monsters, and mountain giants. A scorpion man that's just a little taller and a little faster than your average human isn't too impressive, and it's doubly not impressive when, at one point, the scorpion man picks up a sword rather than use his scary scorpion claws. He's more like a mob that you find in the middle of a disc 2 Final Fantasy dungeon than an actual boss.
Score: 1/5.

DEFEAT/DEATH SCENE: Dude just scampers away with his proverbial and literal tail tucked between his legs and proceeds to never show up again in the novels. We get a tiny hint that maybe he's alive but he certainly doesn't do much with it. Maybe he's really into knitting now, who knows.
Score: 1/5. Not your finest moment, Seth.

FINAL RESULTS A "Tragic In More Ways Than One" out of 10.

[Alexander Draganov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Тази книжка е добре написана, макар идеята за злодея да е почти 1:1 открадната от комиксите за “Спайдър-мен”. Въпреки това историята е драматична, а описанията на Малвеловата крепост и атмосферата на ужас в нея са много добре направени, особено предвид, че книгата е за деца. Резултатът е сносно фентъзи, което ще зарадва почитателите на жанра, зажаднели за нещо динамично и приключенско.
Цялата ми рецензия е в Цитаделата:
https://citadelata.com/sting-the-scor...

[T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

kinda disappointed ending to the series

[Vaibhav Bhatia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a good book that ends the series on a good note. The beginning confuses the readers, but I think the author intentionally did this to catch the readers' attention. The book ends the series in a good way, where Tom defeats two of his most powerful enemies.

[Sam Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is the last book in the beast quest series (with finding a gem). I loved this book because the ending was really good by... I also loved this book because the characters were so well described and really easy to imagine.

[Tiffiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brings The Dark Realm to a close... of course Ryan loved it

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

My 13-year-old son loves these books. (Never mind that he =-can-=read at a college level...)

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

So another 'Beast Quest' is over. And Tom and Elenna, Silver and Storm have finished their adventures in 'The Dark Realm'. Another job well done!!

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although my 13 year old son loves reading much harder books, he loves beast quest.

[Elisia Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great series for my son... he loves to read and the series was a hit for him!

[Jonah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best part was when Sting died and when Tom got another medal. I would like to read it 600 times.

[Keane Smallwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read it. I really like it!

[Mandy Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom and Elenna are battling again. this time it's a scorpion man ( Seth) while they try to find and free cypher the giant. my kids still love beast quest