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Rights of Passage #3
Shadowland
Book three of the Borderland trilogy. After the excitement of Borderland and Outland, the adventures continue for the world-travelling teenagers. Alex and Morgan have been sent back to Earth in disgrace. Can they be reunited with their friends, and disaster averted?
Paperback
Published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Rhiannon Lassiter
32 books76 followersRhiannon Lassiter began writing when she was still at school. The first agent to see her work encouraged her to finish Hex, which was accepted when she was nineteen by the first publisher to read it (Macmillan).
Rhiannon graduated from Oxford University and has written eight best selling novels, several short stories and one non-fiction title for children and teenagers. She has edited an anthology of poetry and prose. Alongside her writing she works with her mother, the well known author Mary Hoffman, editing the children's review magazine, Armadillo.
Rhiannon graduated from Oxford University and has written eight best selling novels, several short stories and one non-fiction title for children and teenagers. She has edited an anthology of poetry and prose. Alongside her writing she works with her mother, the well known author Mary Hoffman, editing the children's review magazine, Armadillo.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 23, 2011
This book was given to me as part of LibraryThing's Early Reviewers programme.
This is a continuation of the storyline started in Outland. The two groups have had their differences officially settled by the court and the punishment is then meted out. For Morgan and Alex, this means being returned to their home world although the twins say they will transport them, and we know straight off this will not happen. So no surprise when it doesn't and the twins take them off to a different world entirely. The others decide to go looking for a character who was briefly introduced at the start of the first book and has been briefly alluded to since. This involved them going off to a different world in order to access the character's home world. And as before, just as the plot started to get interesting, the book finished.
I said of Outland that there were a lot of characters and now there's even more. As before, they're all very flat and each one is reduced to one characteristic which is repeated ad nauseum. It just meant that I didn't really care about any of them. A lot of the characters actually annoy me, especially the twins. There's obviously something strange about them, which we've had drummed into us since they first appeared in book 1, but there's no further information on that coming even after 3 books. The details provided by the author is strange. The information I want to know is not forthcoming, while the information I already know is repeated over and over again. I know that Laura can't see, I know that she manipulates people for her own aims and these are the things that I'm constantly being reminded of, rather than being told more about her background, her family, her history or more of her personality. All of the characters act in a very black and white way which perhaps makes it easier for the author to keep a handle on them all.
There's also too many locations and worlds. There's been no further information about how they all fit together within the Library, how the Library works or anything like that. There was a tiny teaser of some of the Library's past in this book, we learned that there were previous groups who have since disappeared, but it's just not enough to keep it interesting. There's only so long I'm happy to read while not having a clue what's going on. I think the author has overstretched herself and made the world too big to be contained in such short books and such a short series. This is book 3 of 5, by now I expected to have some answers but there haven't been any.
This is a continuation of the storyline started in Outland. The two groups have had their differences officially settled by the court and the punishment is then meted out. For Morgan and Alex, this means being returned to their home world although the twins say they will transport them, and we know straight off this will not happen. So no surprise when it doesn't and the twins take them off to a different world entirely. The others decide to go looking for a character who was briefly introduced at the start of the first book and has been briefly alluded to since. This involved them going off to a different world in order to access the character's home world. And as before, just as the plot started to get interesting, the book finished.
I said of Outland that there were a lot of characters and now there's even more. As before, they're all very flat and each one is reduced to one characteristic which is repeated ad nauseum. It just meant that I didn't really care about any of them. A lot of the characters actually annoy me, especially the twins. There's obviously something strange about them, which we've had drummed into us since they first appeared in book 1, but there's no further information on that coming even after 3 books. The details provided by the author is strange. The information I want to know is not forthcoming, while the information I already know is repeated over and over again. I know that Laura can't see, I know that she manipulates people for her own aims and these are the things that I'm constantly being reminded of, rather than being told more about her background, her family, her history or more of her personality. All of the characters act in a very black and white way which perhaps makes it easier for the author to keep a handle on them all.
There's also too many locations and worlds. There's been no further information about how they all fit together within the Library, how the Library works or anything like that. There was a tiny teaser of some of the Library's past in this book, we learned that there were previous groups who have since disappeared, but it's just not enough to keep it interesting. There's only so long I'm happy to read while not having a clue what's going on. I think the author has overstretched herself and made the world too big to be contained in such short books and such a short series. This is book 3 of 5, by now I expected to have some answers but there haven't been any.
March 19, 2011
After reading 'Shadowland' I reconsidered the title as a possible clue to what was going on in this, the third novel in a linked narrative sequence. Because, at first sight, this is a walking-and-talking tale, with only a couple of action-filled episodes traditionally associated with this genre: the first a rather sudden and unexpected burst of violence, the second the more usual swords and sorcery climax. 'Shadowlands' feels transitional in that most of the protagonists, with back-stories in the first two titles, are going through a process of re-evaluation, re-assessing themselves, their colleagues and their relationships. This state of uncertainty may hint at the choice of title; as it stands, I find I'm being slowly drawn into their worlds by wondering what will become of them.
The concept of the Doors leading to many worlds is not new of course, but the idea of a Library providing some of the gateways to these worlds is neat if not poetic, while the differing strength of magic in the various worlds must owe much to Diana Wynne Jones, one of Lassiter's favourite authors. It's hard to judge a series by just one link in the chain, but assuming that 'Shadowland' reflects a deliberately insubstantial and transitory section of the whole narrative I would ignore the relatively slow pace and incomplete characterisations and give the remainder of the promising series a chance to develop fully before passing absolute judgement. But after that slow start I warmed to the characters and became intrigued by the worlds they found themselves in.
A final word: Lassiter enjoys words, and names and titles are clearly not chosen at random. Protagonists like Alex and Morgan and places like Fenrisnacht have their roots in ancient history and mythology, and while the reader can enjoy the story without being an etymologist such considerations add immeasurably the pleasure of the experience; I often find that, in affirmation of Life imitating Art, individuals consciously or unconsciously start to live up to their given names.
The concept of the Doors leading to many worlds is not new of course, but the idea of a Library providing some of the gateways to these worlds is neat if not poetic, while the differing strength of magic in the various worlds must owe much to Diana Wynne Jones, one of Lassiter's favourite authors. It's hard to judge a series by just one link in the chain, but assuming that 'Shadowland' reflects a deliberately insubstantial and transitory section of the whole narrative I would ignore the relatively slow pace and incomplete characterisations and give the remainder of the promising series a chance to develop fully before passing absolute judgement. But after that slow start I warmed to the characters and became intrigued by the worlds they found themselves in.
A final word: Lassiter enjoys words, and names and titles are clearly not chosen at random. Protagonists like Alex and Morgan and places like Fenrisnacht have their roots in ancient history and mythology, and while the reader can enjoy the story without being an etymologist such considerations add immeasurably the pleasure of the experience; I often find that, in affirmation of Life imitating Art, individuals consciously or unconsciously start to live up to their given names.
October 8, 2011
In the interests of fairness, I should probably mention that this is the third in a series of five. If my objectivity fails me, just remind me of that fact! So, on to my thoughts...
I've tried to think of this book from two different perspectives when formulating my opinions: as part of a series I'm familiar with and; as part of a series I'm new to. The conclusion I keep coming back to is that it doesn't quite work as either. Nearly the whole of the first half of this book is recapping the events of the previous two. I know how I feel when a series does this and I already know the characters and back stories - I find it a little bit annoying so I can say with some confidence that this recap would be a little too exhaustive. Now looking from the perspective of someone who was new to the series (as I actually was), the recap was still a tad too much - I found that because it took up so much of the book, I couldn't get into the story or characters as much and the 'action' was stalled for too long.
That said, what I did see of the characters I liked and the worlds in which our lead characters are stuck are interesting. The worlds all centre around the 'Great Library' where Doors lead off to different worlds controlled by different factions - personal favourites of mine were the faction who believed in idolising books but NEVER reading them and the faction who was obsessed with making lists and cataloguing books!
There is a nice mixture of politics and magic - Morgan, who was a 'Goth' on Earth is now a powerful witch and Laura aspires to be a manipulative politician (and that isn't an indictment on politicians but on Laura!). The contrast makes for a good range of interpretations of the same characters. I really liked the premise of the book but felt that, as soon as I started to get invested in the story, it was over...
Overall: This would be suited to a younger reader looking for a mild-mannered introduction to fantasy fiction with some 'mild peril' or possibly to someone looking to try out science fiction without investing too much time.
I've tried to think of this book from two different perspectives when formulating my opinions: as part of a series I'm familiar with and; as part of a series I'm new to. The conclusion I keep coming back to is that it doesn't quite work as either. Nearly the whole of the first half of this book is recapping the events of the previous two. I know how I feel when a series does this and I already know the characters and back stories - I find it a little bit annoying so I can say with some confidence that this recap would be a little too exhaustive. Now looking from the perspective of someone who was new to the series (as I actually was), the recap was still a tad too much - I found that because it took up so much of the book, I couldn't get into the story or characters as much and the 'action' was stalled for too long.
That said, what I did see of the characters I liked and the worlds in which our lead characters are stuck are interesting. The worlds all centre around the 'Great Library' where Doors lead off to different worlds controlled by different factions - personal favourites of mine were the faction who believed in idolising books but NEVER reading them and the faction who was obsessed with making lists and cataloguing books!
There is a nice mixture of politics and magic - Morgan, who was a 'Goth' on Earth is now a powerful witch and Laura aspires to be a manipulative politician (and that isn't an indictment on politicians but on Laura!). The contrast makes for a good range of interpretations of the same characters. I really liked the premise of the book but felt that, as soon as I started to get invested in the story, it was over...
Overall: This would be suited to a younger reader looking for a mild-mannered introduction to fantasy fiction with some 'mild peril' or possibly to someone looking to try out science fiction without investing too much time.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews