The Last Kids on Earth. By
Max Brallier. Illustrated by Douglas Holgate. Viking. $13.99.
TodHunter Moon, Book Two:
SandRider. By Angie Sage. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $17.99.
Let us stipulate at the
start that The Last Kids on Earth is
utterly ridiculous, ill-plotted (almost without plot), tremendously silly and,
oh yes, utterly ridiculous. It is nevertheless a delightfully goofy take on
end-of-the-world stories, zombie-and-monster novels, and all sorts of
post-apocalyptic fiction. Yes, “delightfully goofy.” The central character,
13-year-old Jack Sullivan, has survived the never-explained Monster Apocalypse
intact and has kept himself going by thinking of the end times in which he is
now living as a video game. He sets himself goals, attains them, and gives
himself points. The goals involve such typically disgusting characters as
zombies, Dozers (“straight-up GIANT MONSTERS”), Winged Wretches (which are sort
of like mutated pterodactyls), and the occasional Octo-Beast and Stone Tower
Monster. There is no explanation, zero, zilch, about how and why the Monster
Apocalypse occurred (42 days before the book starts), and there is almost
nothing about Jack’s response to it that makes an iota of sense. For example,
he uses a “Louisville Slicer,” a sharpened, broken baseball bat, to fight most
monsters, but a hockey stick to fight zombies because they used to be people
and the hockey stick is somehow a more humane weapon.
Jack is an orphan who has
lived in a series of foster homes, so it does make sense that he clings tightly
to his current living space, a treehouse he built and equipped (rather
miraculously and, again, without explanation) with all sorts of offensive and
defensive weaponry. But that is about as far as Max Brallier takes the logic of
this initial book of a series. Of course, being a book for preteens and young
teenagers, The Last Kids on Earth
must have a group of protagonists,
not just one, and they must be well-balanced ethnically and in gender to
accommodate political correctness and the expectations of book publishers. So to
the extent that it has a plot, this series opener is all about how the team
gets put together. Jack’s best friend, Quint, is an African-American genius and
science nerd who comes up with all sorts of neat anti-monster potions and
plans. The middle-school bully, Dirk, is dull-witted and super-strong and looks
like a bulked-up adult, but he has a change of heart about Jack and Quint after
the whole apocalypse thing and becomes one of the team. And then there is the
attractive Latina whom Jack considers “the love interest,” June Del Toro, who
turns out not to be any sort of
damsel in distress when the three boys finally locate her. And a team needs a
mascot, so of course there is one here: a monstrous dog (no explanation of why
it is the only non-dangerous monster) that Jack names (what else?) Rover.
What makes The Last Kids on Earth better than most
of the other utterly ridiculous books of its ilk is its Douglas Holgate
illustrations, which amplify what cleverness there is in Brallier’s writing and
introduce a lot more enjoyment. Brallier comes up with the idea of a “zombie
ball,” for example – a kind of squashed-together, round thing with zombie parts
sticking out all over – but it is Holgate’s picture that really makes the
concept work. When Jack first tries to communicate with Rover, the best part of
the scene is Holgate’s image of a five-armed Jack (that is, Jack gesturing all
over the place, as if he has five arms, in traditional comic-book style) while a
sort-of-smiling Rover stares out of the page and over Jack’s head as Jack yells
“Murgleblargleburghh!!!!” The chief monster, which Jack names Blarg (and,
later, Acid Blarg), is a 40-foot-tall terror because of the way Holgate depicts
him. And the way Holgate brings Jack’s imagination to life is wonderful: we see
“Quint Baker – The Best Friend” fully outfitted for the role, and Jack casting
himself as “The Hero,” and a scene in which Jack imagines June surrounded by
monsters and cowering while begging to be saved by “post-apocalyptic action
hero Jack Sullivan,” and much more. And then there are Jack’s photos – he was
the school newspaper photographer – which include, among other things, the
“Doin’-Dangerous-Stuff-in-the-School-Montage” and a closeup of Blarg’s eye that
provides a clue to the monster’s weakness. This is all, well, utterly
ridiculous, but the pacing is so good and the character interactions so much
better than usual in books of this type that The Last Kids on Earth manages to be pretty awesome, almost in
spite of itself. And that, not the
attempt at a damsel-in-distress rescue, is really, as Jack would say, “the
ULTIMATE Feat of Apocalyptic Success!”
Far more serious – although
it does have its moments of humor – is the second book in the TodHunter Moon trilogy, SandRider. This series is designed for
readers who longed for a return to the world of Septimus Heap, which Angie Sage
developed through seven books from 2005 to 2013. The new trilogy takes place
seven years after the earlier one and introduces numerous new characters while
bringing existing ones back. In the first book, PathFinder, Alice TodHunter Moon – known as
Tod – went on a mission to rescue her best friend, Ferdie, from the evil Lady.
Tod was assisted in her quest by Ferdie’s brother, Oskar; the two received help
from Septimus, now ExtraOrdinary Wizard, and from Septimus’ predecessor, Ex-ExtraOrdinary
Wizard Marcia Overstrand. Arrayed against them were the Lady and her brother,
the Darke Sorcerer Oraton-Marr; to succeed, Tod had to discover her own identity
and develop her abilities as a PathFinder, which specifically meant finding her
way through Magykal paths known as the Ancient Ways. Now, in SandRider, Tod is on assignment to get
the Egg of the Orm from the Desert of Singing Sands before the egg hatches and
the baby Orm imprints on Oraton-Marr and gives him so much Magyk that his evil
plans will be unstoppable. This is a fairly typical type of quest in fantasy
novels and is one in which Tod is, unsurprisingly, helped by Ferdie and Oskar. Sage
paces the book with her usual skill, but it is not a good entry point for
people unfamiliar with the world of Septimus Heap, and in fact the whole TodHunter Moon sequence seems intended
for people who not only remember the earlier series but also are glad to have
frequent references to it. For example, “The Queen, the Chief Hermetic Scribe
and the ExtraOrdinary Wizard looked at one another, each remembering times when
they were younger and had been in the middle of all kinds of trouble. Then all
things had seemed possible, but now that they were older, nothing seemed
possible. They weren’t sure if they liked being older very much.” This slight
hint of uncertainty, even melancholy, pervades SandRider in scenes featuring characters from the earlier series,
and actually gives the book more depth than it would have as a simple adventure
tale. But the adventure is its primary reason for being, and of course it ends
with Oraton-Marr and the Lady defeated – for now – and the baby Orm imprinting
on someone, or something, other than the evil wizard. The difficulties of the
search for the egg, and the twists after the Orm hatches, are not particularly surprising
– it is obvious from the start that the Orm is not going to be allowed to
imprint on Oraton-Marr – but the action is well handled by Sage, whose juggling
of characters and actions is as skillful as always. Nevertheless, SandRider is a (+++) book, fully
comprehensible only to readers who have already read PathFinder and completely enjoyable only for those well-versed in
the characters and Magyk of the Septimus Heap books. SandRider has its share of exciting moments, but like other middle
books of trilogies, it neither starts in an entirely engaging way nor ends
conclusively. Hopefully the third TodHunter
Moon book, which will be called StarCatcher,
will sum up both this series and its relationship to the earlier one well
enough so readers will be fully satisfied with the 10-book double-series total
and the adventures of the characters in Sage’s Magykal world.
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