Reviews

Released simultaneously, these two books demonstrate the difficulty of converting prose novels into graphic fiction, especially when a complicated backstory is involved. Bestselling Christian writer Dekker wrote the YA Lost Books series to fill a gap in the chronology of his adult Circle trilogy, which chronicles a long struggle between the forces of darkness and light in our Earth and a fantastic parallel world. At the beginning of the series, four young people are given the mission of finding the seven missing Books of History to secure the continuity of reality. In Renegade, the hotheaded Bilios uses a forbidden book to transport himself to a small Colorado town, where a dark stranger convinces him that the people aren't real so that it's okay to kill them. In Chaos, young Johnis and Silvie are transported to Las Vegas, into the middle of a scheme by a monstrous Shataiki bat to unite the books and bring his mate into this world so they can spawn. The dynamic but uncredited artwork is good, but these adaptations are too plot dense to be satisfying. Readers may turn to Dekker's novels if they're intrigued by this combination of C.S. Lewis and Stephen King. (June) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

Gr 9 Up-In this final installment, four young people from a parallel world of swords-and-sorcery travel to contemporary Earth to locate seven lost books and prevent a demonic catastrophe in both worlds. The high point of the book is the dramatic artwork, whether depicting vistas or the villainous bat-creature Alucard (that's Dracula backwards). Apart from that, several factors limit the volume's overall appeal. The story does not stand well on its own, relying heavily on backstory and exposition. There are some amusing fish-out-of-water moments when the heroes find themselves in our strange new world, but the plot is derivative and overly reliant on stock characters and deus ex machina.-Douglas P. Davey, Halton Hills Public Library, Ontario, Canada Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information