The People of Sparks - by Jeanne DuPrau

This book was interesting, though a little bit disappointing after City of Ember. It's about a post-apocalyptic society trying to survive with pre-industrial revolution level of technology, but with pieces of stuff that still works from before the disaster - towing trucks with oxen, for example. The story is really about what happens when the people from Ember try to mix with those who survived the disaster, and the conflict that arises. The story is plausible, but to me the dialog and the emotions and interaction between characters seem simplified, as if written for a very young audience - maybe third grade level or so. I think that part of that, though, is due to the reading style of Wendy Dillon. Her voices are too diminuitive, and her intonations make it sound like she's reading to children. I haven't actually read this one - I was waiting to post a review until I had read the paper version to see if I got the same impression, but I gave up - haven't had much reading time lately.

I'm hopeful that the next book, the Diamond of Darkhold, will pull the series out of the slump I feel right now. Otherwise, I'll recommend that you stop after City of Ember and read the wikipedia synopsis of the others if you want to know what happens to Dune and Lina and the Ember crowd.

The Prophet of Yonwood, by Jeanne DuPrau

This book is a prequel to the City of Ember and the People of Sparks, though written afterwards. Honestly, I found the story to be a disappointment. It starts out looking as if it were to deal directly with the events that led the people to take refuge underground. Clues are given, things happen that seem important, and then they're dropped. Then it spends the rest of the book focusing on the events of a little town called Yonwod where a girl had a vision of the destruction of the world and the religious zealots in the town take advantage of it to promote their agenda. The story was OK, not great. Then in the afterword it deals more with the process of getting people to Ember and getting the world destroyed - the clues are picked up, explained, and resolved and it's all over. It left me feeling like the book that should have been written was missed and instead we have this less interesting story about a religions zealot and the town she opresses, and the girl who saves the town.

I don't see an anti-religion message so much as a use-your-brain-about-it message, which I think is great and all, but the story just wasn't worth the trouble in my opinion.

Thankfully this one is read by a different woman from the City of Ember and the People of Sparks. The reader does a fine job and doesn't detract from the story like the reader of the first two books. No objections there. I'd give the story 3 out of 10, the reading 7 out of ten, for a generally lackluster audiobook.

The Fire of the Covenant, by Gerald N. Lund

Just warning you before you get started: this book is not easy to read. If you've read the Work and the Glory series, also by Gerald Lund, then you know his style of historical fiction - to create a small number of fictional characters and then to place them in the middle of all the historical events that happen, and to do so with detail and realism that makes you feel like your best friends were there going through it while you looked on. That is true of this book as well, only the events that unfold are not pleasant, not pretty. The story has been described as the worst tragedy of the settling of the west, which I guess is up for debate, but as you go through the book and get to know these people, and then walk with them as they die of exposure to the cold, the whole time having faith that they're doing the will of the Lord, it's really tough.

I listened to this about a year ago, and didn't have the heart to listen to it again, though it was very very good, till just recently. I think the second time is harder than the first, since you know going into it which characters don't make it through. The parts that shake me up the most are two - one where the company has to continue on despite the fact that a 7-year old boy is missing, and the dad stays back to search the plains for his son while the wife and the rest of the family moves on with the handcart company, and two - as a six year old boy freezes to death while riding piggy back on a man's back as they hike through the cold. I can't help but picture my boys' faces who are the same age as these people. I had hoped that these were the fictional characters, but they weren't. And they seem so real. It drives home the lessons that the Prophet, Joseph Smith Jr. taught about trials and sacrafice:

"You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God, and (said he) God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God", and " a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation."

It makes me think - could I do it? Can I do it? What will my tests be? and do I have what it takes to pass? It's very, very humbling to me. I guess that's the point Gerald Lund wanted to drive home.

So, not that it has to be said, but excellent book, and the audiobook production of it is very good. It's hard to rate it up there with the fantasy books and scifi books that I read for entertainment only becasue it runs so much deeper, but if you're up for it, it's an excellent story that reaches into your heart in very personal ways if you let it. I think I need some more light-hearted fantasy now though.

The Chronicles of Narnia - by C. S. Lewis

I never read The Chronicles of Narnia as a kid. I'd heard of them, but honestly, my big sister liked them, and she also liked Little House on the Prarie, and so I wrote them off, being a cool boy and all. This meant that I was starting into them with no idea what to expect when I started reading them to my son a few years ago. I was blindsided by the religious allegory, and in a very nice way. I was very impressed with the book. The language and reading difficulty is targeted to late elementary school or early middle school reading level, but the story appeals to all ages. The books move quickly and can be read in 3-4 hours each if you read as fast as I do anyway. They're light and pleasant, engaging and fun. The audiobooks are read by professional actors and very nicely done, including consistent voices and appropriate intonation. I'd give the story 8 out of 10 only because it's not as complex and interwoven as books I rate higher, and the audiobooks 9 out of 10 for quality.

The Magician's Nephew is the first in the set chronologically and probably my least favorite in the series. It really is the back-story to the other books, most of which were written earlier. It deals mostly with characters not in the other books, which is probably why it doesn't seem as interesting to me, though it is still worth the read. One fun thing about this one - it's read by the same guy who plays Professor Lockhart in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the most widely known in the series, and for good reason. Great story, and they did a good job with the movie. The atonement allegory is all but impossible to miss, and there's plenty of peril, adventure, and fun. My son cried and cried when I read the chapter, the Triumph of the Witch, which blindsided me since I didn't know it was coming, but I did understand the allegory and it made a powerful teaching moment.

The Horse and His Boy is my favorite of the books. It occurs after the main events of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but before the end of the book, and involves in a minor way the major characters from the story, focusing instead on a storyline and characters independent of the other books. It has a very powerful scene, in which the hand of Aslan (who represents Jesus) in the life of the main character that gives me the chills. It also has two of my favorite quotes: "He had not yet learned that if you do one good deed your reward usually is to be set to do another harder and better one," and "Years later, when they were grown up, they were so used to quarrelling and making it up again that they got married so as to go on doing it more conveniently."

Prince Caspian is another popular one, the second made into a movie (although they took some big liberties in how they cut and pasted the plot together for the screen play), it has the same kids as the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and makes a great story.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is another personal favorite - close runner to the Horse and His Boy. Lucy and Edmund are back from the last two books, as is Caspian and Reepicheep, one of my favorite characters. This book will make an odd movie since it's more like a series of adventures along the voyage rather than a single building plot. Makes a great book though. My favorite thing about this is Eustace's experience with Aslan, and its allegory in the christian world of losing yourself to find yourself, and of putting to death the natural man and being born again. And the dark island where dreams come true - that part of the story to me is bone chillingly frightening, which of course makes it another favorite part of the books.

The Silver Chair kind of gets lost in the middle in my mind, but I find when I read it (or listen to it) I love the story. I love how it shows that the daily hum drum can distract us from remembering what's really important, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Puddleglum is another of my favorite characters too.

The Last Battle is an interesting story. In this book, the religious allegory is impossible to miss. I wonder how they'll make it a movie without it being highly religious. Read by Patrick Stewart, otherwise known to me as Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise.

Fablehaven III - The Grip of the Shadow Plague

Way to Go Brandon Mull! This one is my favorite in the series so far, and has me chomping at the bit (no reference to the centaur on the cover) to read book 4 due out in a couple of months. In this book, it becomes apparent just how involved and interwoven the plot is. Back story is introduced and interwoven in the plot in a way that I think is very original, and is actually my favorite thing about this book. I want a prequel that goes way back before the Sorensens were caretakers now!! More Patton! Of course, with how the backstory has become significant, I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about it in the upcoming books. Maybe when he's done with the series he can go back and write some prequels? Also In this book we get a look at other organizations, preserves, etc, with more mythical creatures that are appropriate to the culture where the preserves are, which I thought was great - Jackalopes, Kachinas, etc. Awesome. Plus the characters really seem to have come in to their personalities in this one - in the first book, Seth seemed flat and shallow, for example. You see other sides to his personality in this book and he becomes a real person to me, and this is true across the board. Really this book leaves me with no complaints.

As far as the audiobook is concerned, the reader also seems to have come in to his element in this one. Maybe it's because by now I'm so used to him that I don't notice him at all, or maybe he's doing a better job. There are numerous character voices and accents introduced in this book and he's believable and consistent. So all around I'd give this one a 10 - giving Harry Potter a serious run for his money (or Jim Dale and JKR since Harry doesn't actually get paid)

Nice job Brandon Mull!

Fablehaven II - The Rise of the Evening Star, by Brandon Mull

I figured this would be the book that would make or break the series for me - the first book was fun, and original, but either Brandon Mull would get stuck in a rut and run out of new ideas, and become trite and run-of-the-mill, or he would pull another great story out of his mind with new ideas and more excitement. Turns out that not only did he pull it off, he did it with splendor. His original fantasy world is more believable, more rich, more complex and interconnected than I had hoped, with rich characters, interwoven plot threads, and a greater story than just the plot of each book, and yet each book stands alone as a great story too. I especially liked the inverted tower part of the book - I've had a recurring dream that I wanted to make into a story where I had to go up against evil creatures to overthrow the big bad guy at the end of several challenges, each more life threatening, and each deeper under ground in an inverted tower, and thought to myself that it would make a great story. Thanks, Brandon Mull, for writing the story for me!

As far as the audiobook is concerned, the reader's performance leaves less to be desired than the first book - more voices, more characters, more accents, and less overblown enthusiasm. If you're not hooked on the series after the first book, you should be after this one. I think it's great. 9 out of 10 all around!

Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. It was published through Deseret Book-affiliated companies, so I figured it wasn't good enough to get picked up by a larger, national publisher. My son read the series, as far as it has been released, and was nuts about it, so to be honest, I kind of wrote it off as a kids' story. Then Liz read it and said it was good so I gave it a go. It was much better than I was expecting. I was expecting characters with no depth and a contrived plot that just follows archetypes of fantasy literature, and what I got instead was a unique fantasy world that, thought it has your normal mythical creatures in it, does it in a fresh, new way, and with characters who are pleasant, believable, and interesting. I give the story a 9 out of 10.

The audiobook is not quite up to what I would like. The narrator puts a little too much enthusiasm into his inflection, making it feel every now and then like he's reading to young children. His voices, though, are good, and for the most part, doesn't detract from the story. I'd give his narration a 7 out of 10, for a combined score of 8 out of 10 for this audiobook. It's worth the money.