This is an odd one for me. I just finished KNIGHTMARE and I'm left feeling, well...nothing, really. I don't remember reading this one back in the day and I barely remember reading it a few minutes ago, so this should be an interesting review.
Basically, Mitchell (the main character shares my name!) Garrison steals a seal from a coat of armor at a museum and it causes him to have a bad "knightmare" in which he battles four creatures of evil: An ogre, a giant wild boar, a griffin, and the Count Deschaul, who takes the form of an emerald suit of armor. Then the nightmare begins to manifest itself in Mitchell's real life, threatening to obliterate him unless he returns the seal to its rightful place back on the armor in the museum.
This Strange Matter was definitely forgettable, and I'm not really sure why. The story was interesting enough, and it was nicely intricate for a middle-grade book. Maybe it's my mood, or maybe it was that the writing was a little confusing at times - I don't know. I just found myself loosing interest at random points in the story, through no real fault of the author, at least as far as I could tell.
There were some redeemable qualities, like how you get to hear about a few characters from other Strange Matter books - the bully Kyle Banner (who was in the last book as well) and Morgan Taylor (who happens to live next door to Mitchell). So that's always cool. This is one of the things I always loved about the series, how characters from other books would just randomly pop up at times. Also, there was a neat little puzzle that the griffin gives to Mitchell to solve, and the author actually put the picture of it in-between the text, which I liked. Which reminds me: In the last book, DEADLY DELIVERY, something similar was done, where a hand-drawn cartoon was pasted in amongst the text, and it broke things up and added a lot to the story's appeal.
I also liked the monsters that Mitchell had to fight. The description of the ogre near the beginning was really good, with all the talk about a goo that oozed out of his belly button. And the whole puzzle sequence with the griffin was also well-done. Plus, the book centers around dreams, a subject I've always been interested in.
Overall, a solid, but strangely forgettable entry in the Strange Matter series.
I give KNIGHTMARE a 3 out of 5.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Strange Matter #9: Deadly Delivery
There's nothing like a good old-fashioned ghost story, and I'm a complete sucker for anything to do with objects that move on their own, chilling apparitions, or disembodied voices. So back in the day (when I was nothing more than a book-wormy wee one), I freaked when saw the cover of DEADLY DELIVERY - a cackling, misty-blue, effervescent entity floating up out of an unlatched trunk. I was immediately drawn in, and who could blame me, a 5th grader utterly obsessed with all things that go bump in the night? Even today, when I look at this book, I still think it sports one of Strange Matter's cooler covers.
The ghostly image that I describe pretty much sums up the story (for the most part, anyways). Two siblings, Simon and Sarah White, are home alone during a freak Fairfield storm (this sounds awfully familiar...FROZEN DINNERS anyone?). There's a knock at the door and a ghastly-looking man leaves a mysterious package on the doorstep, which, upon opening, turns out to be a musty old green trunk. The kids open the trunk, and to their horror, a blue ghost escapes and begins to terrorize the house.
The story starts out strong, with a lot of cool poltergeist-style activities: all the kitchen chairs turned upside-down, smashed plates, and a lot of general disarray. Simon White likes to draw cartoons in his free time, ones in which he's getting the upper hand on his next-door-neighbor/bully, Kyle Banner. The ghost enters his drawings and brings them to life, proceeding to torture the cartoon Kyle Banner. When the baby-sitter shows up, the ghost swallows her whole and spits her out, turning her hair snow-white. This was the fun part of the story. And if the entire book had continued down this road, things would have been grand. But alas, it isn't so.
Halfway into the book, the ghost decides to turn the White's residence into a haunted castle. Now, this sounds pretty damn awesome (in theory at least) and one would think that the story would ramp up at such a point. Sadly, it doesn't. The story bogs down and the excitement is lost, and the reader is left to watching the main characters hang out in a library, trying to find out the history of their new castle home (okay, okay, this is just one particular scene, but come on!). There are some decent parts in the second half of the story, like when the kids get trapped in the torture room, in which a family was left to rot hundreds and hundreds of years ago - this is something they learn from a book they find (maybe the library scene WAS necessary, after all...). And there are hanging skeletons at one point, and the kids find that the castle Baron's deformed brother was kept chained and locked away from the world in a dark room with nothing more than a desk and a straw bed.
The storyline in DEADLY DELIVERY was much more involved than in other Strange Matter entries and could have definitely used another fifty or so pages to flesh things out. Unfortunately, a little too much time is spent on history lessons, but then again, it was necessary to tie all the loose ends together, so who knows. I think it all worked, but for some reason I felt that this Strange Matter didn't move fast enough, especially for middle-grade readers. I do however, respect how Marty Engle pulled everything together, and it shows that he knows how to craft a pretty cool story.
In the end, a middle-of-the-road entry for the series.
I give DEADLY DELIVERY a 3.5 out of 5.
The ghostly image that I describe pretty much sums up the story (for the most part, anyways). Two siblings, Simon and Sarah White, are home alone during a freak Fairfield storm (this sounds awfully familiar...FROZEN DINNERS anyone?). There's a knock at the door and a ghastly-looking man leaves a mysterious package on the doorstep, which, upon opening, turns out to be a musty old green trunk. The kids open the trunk, and to their horror, a blue ghost escapes and begins to terrorize the house.
The story starts out strong, with a lot of cool poltergeist-style activities: all the kitchen chairs turned upside-down, smashed plates, and a lot of general disarray. Simon White likes to draw cartoons in his free time, ones in which he's getting the upper hand on his next-door-neighbor/bully, Kyle Banner. The ghost enters his drawings and brings them to life, proceeding to torture the cartoon Kyle Banner. When the baby-sitter shows up, the ghost swallows her whole and spits her out, turning her hair snow-white. This was the fun part of the story. And if the entire book had continued down this road, things would have been grand. But alas, it isn't so.
Halfway into the book, the ghost decides to turn the White's residence into a haunted castle. Now, this sounds pretty damn awesome (in theory at least) and one would think that the story would ramp up at such a point. Sadly, it doesn't. The story bogs down and the excitement is lost, and the reader is left to watching the main characters hang out in a library, trying to find out the history of their new castle home (okay, okay, this is just one particular scene, but come on!). There are some decent parts in the second half of the story, like when the kids get trapped in the torture room, in which a family was left to rot hundreds and hundreds of years ago - this is something they learn from a book they find (maybe the library scene WAS necessary, after all...). And there are hanging skeletons at one point, and the kids find that the castle Baron's deformed brother was kept chained and locked away from the world in a dark room with nothing more than a desk and a straw bed.
The storyline in DEADLY DELIVERY was much more involved than in other Strange Matter entries and could have definitely used another fifty or so pages to flesh things out. Unfortunately, a little too much time is spent on history lessons, but then again, it was necessary to tie all the loose ends together, so who knows. I think it all worked, but for some reason I felt that this Strange Matter didn't move fast enough, especially for middle-grade readers. I do however, respect how Marty Engle pulled everything together, and it shows that he knows how to craft a pretty cool story.
In the end, a middle-of-the-road entry for the series.
I give DEADLY DELIVERY a 3.5 out of 5.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Strange Matter #8: Frozen Dinners
Who can resist a story about being trapped in a mountain cabin during a freak snow storm while abominable snowmen try to force their way in? I certainly can't! FROZEN DINNERS was one of my favorite Strange Matter books as a kid, and I think it still holds up pretty well today.
Like I mentioned above, the jist of the story is relatively simple: Three siblings, Max, Mark, and Teresa, are stuck inside their Uncle Shoe's cabin on Crier Mountain while a horrible snow storm rages outside. They're alone because Uncle Shoe left to get groceries right before the storm began, and they're left wondering what happened to him. It isn't long before the kids start to experience some odd things: a form walking back and forth out in the blinding whiteness, a huge footprint in the snow, and odd, un-locatable scratching noises. And then - the best part, as always - CHAOS!
I like this Strange Matter book because it's almost pure action from beginning to end, just as any good middle-grade fiction book should be (at least I think so,). The premise is interesting and pretty foolproof, allowing for lots of scares and suspense. The story isn't so scary to me now, but I remember really getting a kick out of it when I was in 5th/6th grade, really imagining how a yeti would burst through a barricaded window.
It's interesting to me how the writing is getting better as I continue on through the Strange Matter series. It seems Engle and Barnes were getting the hang of things as the entries approached double digits. There was only ONE typo in this book, and it was on the LAST PAGE! Oh no! Haha! The intended word was "whole" and it came out as "who" instead. Bummer!
In the end, I still love this book and it was nice to re-read it.
I give FROZEN DINNERS a 4.5 out of 5.
Like I mentioned above, the jist of the story is relatively simple: Three siblings, Max, Mark, and Teresa, are stuck inside their Uncle Shoe's cabin on Crier Mountain while a horrible snow storm rages outside. They're alone because Uncle Shoe left to get groceries right before the storm began, and they're left wondering what happened to him. It isn't long before the kids start to experience some odd things: a form walking back and forth out in the blinding whiteness, a huge footprint in the snow, and odd, un-locatable scratching noises. And then - the best part, as always - CHAOS!
I like this Strange Matter book because it's almost pure action from beginning to end, just as any good middle-grade fiction book should be (at least I think so,). The premise is interesting and pretty foolproof, allowing for lots of scares and suspense. The story isn't so scary to me now, but I remember really getting a kick out of it when I was in 5th/6th grade, really imagining how a yeti would burst through a barricaded window.
It's interesting to me how the writing is getting better as I continue on through the Strange Matter series. It seems Engle and Barnes were getting the hang of things as the entries approached double digits. There was only ONE typo in this book, and it was on the LAST PAGE! Oh no! Haha! The intended word was "whole" and it came out as "who" instead. Bummer!
In the end, I still love this book and it was nice to re-read it.
I give FROZEN DINNERS a 4.5 out of 5.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Strange Matter #7: Fly the Unfriendly Skies
Let me preface this review by saying that I have a signed copy of Fly the Unfriendly Skies. Pretty wild, huh? I vaguely remember sending in one of those order forms that were in the back of Strange Matter books; apparently the authors were signing mail-order merchandise back in the day. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I flipped to the title page and found Engle and Barnes’ signatures!
On to business: Fly the Unfriendly Skies is the seventh entry in the Strange Matter series, and I believe it’s the first Strange Matter book to feature the “From the Files of” section in the back of the book. The authors started including CG depictions of scenes from the story, and these images add a nice little extra dimension to the whole Strange Matter package/universe. Fly the Unfriendly Skies introduces Morgan Taylor, a sci-fi nut who loves anything UFO-related, and his bossy, popular sister Kelly, who never passes up a chance to one-up her brother. Their plane gets hijacked by aliens and the siblings get dragged onto the mother ship, kicking and screaming. So begins their fight to survive among warring races of extraterrestrials and their harrowing battle to return home.
I had mixed feelings about big number seven. On one hand, the concept was cool and the story was almost pure action. Lots of aliens, lots of lasers, lots of explosions. And the plot wasn’t bad. It was good to see some flashbacks – they definitely added to the complexity of the plot. The rivalry between the grey aliens and the Cepheid was an interesting idea, even if it wasn’t explored thoroughly enough. But despite everything that this book had going for it, Fly the Unfriendly Skies felt a bit…disjointed. It was too much of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened”. The prose was just too blunt in many areas and I yearned for more delicate and potent passages of text. The opportunity for rich description is temptingly ripe when dealing with otherworldly creatures, and I feel that the author played it much too safe in this area.
In a wonderful change of editorial quality, Fly the Unfriendly Skies is the first Strange Matter book that I’ve read that didn’t have typos in it (at least any that I could find )! This book also referenced several characters from other Strange Matter books, which was neat. Also, in the final UFO chase/battle scene, the aliens and the kids fly over the lake from an earlier Strange Matter book, The Last One In (I’m only assuming this – I gave that book away so I can’t be sure). They see the hump of the lake creature disappear under the water as they zoom by.
Charming blast from the past: At one point in the story, Morgan is waiting for a file to download from the Internet on his dial-up modem, and it takes forever. Remember dial-up modems? Those dinosaurs? Fudge they were slow! But it made the prize at the end of the download totally sweet because you had to wait like four days for it finish.
ANYways...
Could have been more, could have been less, this Strange Matter entry ended up just being “okay”.
I give Fly the Unfriendly Skies a 3.5 out of 5.
On to business: Fly the Unfriendly Skies is the seventh entry in the Strange Matter series, and I believe it’s the first Strange Matter book to feature the “From the Files of” section in the back of the book. The authors started including CG depictions of scenes from the story, and these images add a nice little extra dimension to the whole Strange Matter package/universe. Fly the Unfriendly Skies introduces Morgan Taylor, a sci-fi nut who loves anything UFO-related, and his bossy, popular sister Kelly, who never passes up a chance to one-up her brother. Their plane gets hijacked by aliens and the siblings get dragged onto the mother ship, kicking and screaming. So begins their fight to survive among warring races of extraterrestrials and their harrowing battle to return home.
I had mixed feelings about big number seven. On one hand, the concept was cool and the story was almost pure action. Lots of aliens, lots of lasers, lots of explosions. And the plot wasn’t bad. It was good to see some flashbacks – they definitely added to the complexity of the plot. The rivalry between the grey aliens and the Cepheid was an interesting idea, even if it wasn’t explored thoroughly enough. But despite everything that this book had going for it, Fly the Unfriendly Skies felt a bit…disjointed. It was too much of “this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened”. The prose was just too blunt in many areas and I yearned for more delicate and potent passages of text. The opportunity for rich description is temptingly ripe when dealing with otherworldly creatures, and I feel that the author played it much too safe in this area.
In a wonderful change of editorial quality, Fly the Unfriendly Skies is the first Strange Matter book that I’ve read that didn’t have typos in it (at least any that I could find )! This book also referenced several characters from other Strange Matter books, which was neat. Also, in the final UFO chase/battle scene, the aliens and the kids fly over the lake from an earlier Strange Matter book, The Last One In (I’m only assuming this – I gave that book away so I can’t be sure). They see the hump of the lake creature disappear under the water as they zoom by.
Charming blast from the past: At one point in the story, Morgan is waiting for a file to download from the Internet on his dial-up modem, and it takes forever. Remember dial-up modems? Those dinosaurs? Fudge they were slow! But it made the prize at the end of the download totally sweet because you had to wait like four days for it finish.
ANYways...
Could have been more, could have been less, this Strange Matter entry ended up just being “okay”.
I give Fly the Unfriendly Skies a 3.5 out of 5.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Strange Matter #6: Bad Circuits
It's looking like I may have given away the fourth and fifth Strange Matter books, so we're jumping to the sixth entry in the series. If I remember correctly, this was one of the first Strange Matter stories that I acquired, so it was a real treat to read through this again, even if I recalled almost none of it. The mind is a mystery wrapped in an enigma! Or maybe I just have a horrible long term memory. I'm thinking it's the latter.
Anyways...Bad Circuits is a classic tale of technology-gone-wrong. Stephanie Meeker is our narrator, and she tells the reader about her cousin Daniel, who she happens to live with because her parents died in a boating accident years ago (at least that's what she tells us...). Daniel is a really smart guy, and he always enters the annual Fairfield Junior Science Competition. This year he's created a computer that can learn and think for itself, and Daniel is confident that he's going to win this year against his arch nemesis, Frank Dunk, who has taken first place for five years running. While the computer, which is given the name Brian later on in the story, starts out benign enough, it soon begins to crave more and more information and will stop at nothing to acquire it.
Out of the first batch of Strange Matter books, this one is definitely a strong contender, if not the best in show. The plot allows for lots of twists and turns, and the author does a great job making Brian out to be a scary piece of circuitry. One of the ways in which an ominous tone is acquired is through the use of all capitals when the super-computer speaks, and it makes the entity seem cold and malicious. Brian gets smarter and smarter throughout the story and it's cool to see him advance from a simple science project to a town-terrorizing Ken model (he steals the form of a manequin that Stephanie's Aunt uses to make clothes for Daniel - kind of explains the book cover art). The rivalry between Frank Dunk and Daniel Meeker drives the plot forward and gives the reader something to look forward to as tensions rise and the date for the competition creeps closer. There were a few little gems in the text - One of the tiny details that made me chuckle was how Brian acquired a British accent by consuming old tapes of Masterpiece Theater. It was stuff like this that made this Strange Matter shine a little brighter than earlier books.
As always, this Strange Matter book has its share of typos, but it isn't nearly as bad as some of the initial entries. Mostly just missing words here and there, so nothing too serious. I think the story could have used another twenty or thirty pages to flesh out the general buildup and the action in the last major scene, which is a showdown with Brian in a junk yard, but it seems that Strange Matter books have around a 120 page cap, probably for publishing reasons. It's unfortunate though, because a story like this could have really been expanded upon. On a final note, I really liked the twist at the end of this book. I didn't expect it at all, and I won't talk about it in this review. You'll have to read it for yourself to find out!
I'd venture to say that this is my favorite Strange Matter book so far. We'll see if this changes as I continue on through the series.
I give Bad Circuits a 4 out of 5.
Anyways...Bad Circuits is a classic tale of technology-gone-wrong. Stephanie Meeker is our narrator, and she tells the reader about her cousin Daniel, who she happens to live with because her parents died in a boating accident years ago (at least that's what she tells us...). Daniel is a really smart guy, and he always enters the annual Fairfield Junior Science Competition. This year he's created a computer that can learn and think for itself, and Daniel is confident that he's going to win this year against his arch nemesis, Frank Dunk, who has taken first place for five years running. While the computer, which is given the name Brian later on in the story, starts out benign enough, it soon begins to crave more and more information and will stop at nothing to acquire it.
Out of the first batch of Strange Matter books, this one is definitely a strong contender, if not the best in show. The plot allows for lots of twists and turns, and the author does a great job making Brian out to be a scary piece of circuitry. One of the ways in which an ominous tone is acquired is through the use of all capitals when the super-computer speaks, and it makes the entity seem cold and malicious. Brian gets smarter and smarter throughout the story and it's cool to see him advance from a simple science project to a town-terrorizing Ken model (he steals the form of a manequin that Stephanie's Aunt uses to make clothes for Daniel - kind of explains the book cover art). The rivalry between Frank Dunk and Daniel Meeker drives the plot forward and gives the reader something to look forward to as tensions rise and the date for the competition creeps closer. There were a few little gems in the text - One of the tiny details that made me chuckle was how Brian acquired a British accent by consuming old tapes of Masterpiece Theater. It was stuff like this that made this Strange Matter shine a little brighter than earlier books.
As always, this Strange Matter book has its share of typos, but it isn't nearly as bad as some of the initial entries. Mostly just missing words here and there, so nothing too serious. I think the story could have used another twenty or thirty pages to flesh out the general buildup and the action in the last major scene, which is a showdown with Brian in a junk yard, but it seems that Strange Matter books have around a 120 page cap, probably for publishing reasons. It's unfortunate though, because a story like this could have really been expanded upon. On a final note, I really liked the twist at the end of this book. I didn't expect it at all, and I won't talk about it in this review. You'll have to read it for yourself to find out!
I'd venture to say that this is my favorite Strange Matter book so far. We'll see if this changes as I continue on through the series.
I give Bad Circuits a 4 out of 5.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Strange Matter #3: Driven to Death
The third book in the Strange Matter series and the second one written by Marty M. Engle, Driven to Death is a terror-filled tale about two brothers, Darren and David Donaldson, who get mixed up with some malicious supernatural forces.
The story begins with Darren and David going to the video store with their dad. It's in a shopping center that happens to house a McDonald's, a place where all the local high school kids hang out (Mr. Engle's first Strange Matter book, No Substitutions, also had a scene that took place at a McDonald's...Maybe he was hungry when he was writing these books?). David, the older brother, is quite embarrassed as they drive by, hoping that no one sees him with his "lame" father. Later on that night he sneaks out of the house and drives the family Celica back to the fast food joint, sans parental baggage. Around 3AM, younger brother Darren starts getting nervous because David isn't back yet. Suddenly he sees his brother pushing the car down the street, struggling to out-run a ghostly car that's tailing him.
The mist-covered ghost car finds its way into the Donaldson household and the boys end up coming face-to-face with the three ghost/undead teenagers inside. Apparently, David slammed into their car during his midnight joyride and now they want the Celica as collateral. It gets switched out with the ghost car and the brothers are kidnapped and taken to a ghost pirate ship (yes, you heard that right) to talk to the undead teenagers' father, to offer an explanation for the car accident.
As strange as the concept is, I actually had a fun time with this book. Mr. Engle kicks off the story with a description of Darren's model pirate ship in the Donaldson garage, which kind of foreshadows the whole pirate subplot. Tidbits of pirate trivia are sprinkled throughout the text, like what it means to shanghai someone, and it made for some cool reading. There was a lot of action, probably more than the first two Strange Matter books combined, and that's always a good thing. I did think that there were two stories here, and they fit together a bit awkwardly to say the least. The adventure starts off with the whole ghost car/supernatural joyride thing, and then abruptly shifts to a pirate ship. It seems that Mr. Engle wanted to go too many different directions with the book, and it could have easily been expanded into two separate manuscripts. Or maybe he didn't have enough of a plot with just the ghost car stuff and decided to fatten it up with the pirate shananegans.
And in what seems to be an irksome trend with the Strange Matter books, this story has a jarring number of typos. I'm beginning to think that Engle and Barnes didn't send their manuscripts to editors before having them mass-produced. What gives, you guys? It just comes off as tacky and messy.
This book was much better than the preceding Strange Matter book, The Midnight Game. Even with its convoluted plot, it still manages to entertain.
I give Driven to Death a 3.5 out of 5.
The story begins with Darren and David going to the video store with their dad. It's in a shopping center that happens to house a McDonald's, a place where all the local high school kids hang out (Mr. Engle's first Strange Matter book, No Substitutions, also had a scene that took place at a McDonald's...Maybe he was hungry when he was writing these books?). David, the older brother, is quite embarrassed as they drive by, hoping that no one sees him with his "lame" father. Later on that night he sneaks out of the house and drives the family Celica back to the fast food joint, sans parental baggage. Around 3AM, younger brother Darren starts getting nervous because David isn't back yet. Suddenly he sees his brother pushing the car down the street, struggling to out-run a ghostly car that's tailing him.
The mist-covered ghost car finds its way into the Donaldson household and the boys end up coming face-to-face with the three ghost/undead teenagers inside. Apparently, David slammed into their car during his midnight joyride and now they want the Celica as collateral. It gets switched out with the ghost car and the brothers are kidnapped and taken to a ghost pirate ship (yes, you heard that right) to talk to the undead teenagers' father, to offer an explanation for the car accident.
As strange as the concept is, I actually had a fun time with this book. Mr. Engle kicks off the story with a description of Darren's model pirate ship in the Donaldson garage, which kind of foreshadows the whole pirate subplot. Tidbits of pirate trivia are sprinkled throughout the text, like what it means to shanghai someone, and it made for some cool reading. There was a lot of action, probably more than the first two Strange Matter books combined, and that's always a good thing. I did think that there were two stories here, and they fit together a bit awkwardly to say the least. The adventure starts off with the whole ghost car/supernatural joyride thing, and then abruptly shifts to a pirate ship. It seems that Mr. Engle wanted to go too many different directions with the book, and it could have easily been expanded into two separate manuscripts. Or maybe he didn't have enough of a plot with just the ghost car stuff and decided to fatten it up with the pirate shananegans.
And in what seems to be an irksome trend with the Strange Matter books, this story has a jarring number of typos. I'm beginning to think that Engle and Barnes didn't send their manuscripts to editors before having them mass-produced. What gives, you guys? It just comes off as tacky and messy.
This book was much better than the preceding Strange Matter book, The Midnight Game. Even with its convoluted plot, it still manages to entertain.
I give Driven to Death a 3.5 out of 5.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Strange Matter #2: The Midnight Game
The second installment in the Strange Matter series is about a boy named Tyler Webb who finds a ticket to a midnight football game. The event is between two old teams from a historic Fairfield (the town where all the Strange Matter stories take place) and when Tyler arrives at the field, the players begin to unearth themselves for their unfinished business. That's right - a football game between two undead, zombie teams.
Tyler and his friend Libb, who happens to be extremely knowledgeable about football, go on to discover that the Green Devils, Fairfield's premier football team, lost the championship game when Tom Maul, the star player, botched everything in the last quarter. The team is then doomed to rise up from the grave and replay the game again and again for all eternity, unless something or someone can break the cycle.
Compared to No Substitutions, the first Strange Matter book, I thought The Midnight Game was a bit weak. The story was uninteresting and slightly confusing at times. I'm still trying to piece together all the details and I'm 23 years old! The concept was cool, but I think more could have been done in regards to story-building, maybe hanging around in certain scenes for longer. Also, there were a few glaring editorial errors. One in particular comes to mind in the second chapter. An entire paragraph is more or less repeated within the same page, looking like some text was moved around, but the original text wasn't deleted after the change was made. Yikes! How did this sneak by?!
Additionally, there just wasn't a whole lot of character development. Now I know this stuff is for middle-grade readers, but I'm beginning to think that these books could have benefitted from another 5,000 words or so. I would have loved to see the kids' encounters with the undead football players stretched out and filled with more detail. There was a lot of missed opportunity for expansion here, most notably during the supernatural bits. I also would have liked to get to know the main characters more. They just seemed too cookie-cutter.
Overall, a below-average entry in the Strange Matter series.
I give The Midnight Game a 2.5 out of 5.
Tyler and his friend Libb, who happens to be extremely knowledgeable about football, go on to discover that the Green Devils, Fairfield's premier football team, lost the championship game when Tom Maul, the star player, botched everything in the last quarter. The team is then doomed to rise up from the grave and replay the game again and again for all eternity, unless something or someone can break the cycle.
Compared to No Substitutions, the first Strange Matter book, I thought The Midnight Game was a bit weak. The story was uninteresting and slightly confusing at times. I'm still trying to piece together all the details and I'm 23 years old! The concept was cool, but I think more could have been done in regards to story-building, maybe hanging around in certain scenes for longer. Also, there were a few glaring editorial errors. One in particular comes to mind in the second chapter. An entire paragraph is more or less repeated within the same page, looking like some text was moved around, but the original text wasn't deleted after the change was made. Yikes! How did this sneak by?!
Additionally, there just wasn't a whole lot of character development. Now I know this stuff is for middle-grade readers, but I'm beginning to think that these books could have benefitted from another 5,000 words or so. I would have loved to see the kids' encounters with the undead football players stretched out and filled with more detail. There was a lot of missed opportunity for expansion here, most notably during the supernatural bits. I also would have liked to get to know the main characters more. They just seemed too cookie-cutter.
Overall, a below-average entry in the Strange Matter series.
I give The Midnight Game a 2.5 out of 5.
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