Book #57 of 2024: Book of Reality by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #9) It’s finally Pixel’s turn to revisit his original homeworld, and just like Score in Book #5 and Helaine in Book #7, the protagonist’s reentry into the wreckage of his previous life offers certain immediate stakes and pre-existing relationships to help …
Continue reading “Book Review: Book of Reality by John Peel”
Book #51 of 2024: Book of Oceans by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #8) Unfortunately the weakest Diadem title yet. This next sequel finds Pixel’s new girlfriend Jenna still squabbling with Helaine, despite six months having passed since they left their homeworld’s rigid class system behind them at the end of the previous volume. …
Book #45 of 2024: Book of War by John Peel (Diadem: Worlds of Magic #7) The Diadem series had its ups and downs, but when it ended its initial six-book run with Scholastic in 1998, there weren’t really any major lingering plot threads that made its continuation seem likely or at all necessary from a …
Book #39 of 2024: Book of Nightmares by John Peel (Diadem #6) This was the last of the original six Diadem books published by Scholastic from 1997 to 1998, after which the middle-grade fantasy series would lie dormant for almost a decade until getting revived under another publisher. Presumably that’s also why it’s the first …
Continue reading “Book Review: Book of Nightmares by John Peel”
Book #33 of 2024: Book of Earth by John Peel (Diadem #5) This is by far the best of the original six Diadem novels published by Scholastic from 1997 to 1998 (and perhaps of the entire series, which resumed many years later under Llewellyn). It picks up on the cliffhanger ending of the volume before, …
Book #27 of 2024: Book of Thunder by John Peel (Diadem #4) The third Diadem story wrapped up the major plot arcs that had been driving the action thus far, which means that this next volume has to function as a bit of a proof-of-concept for the saga moving forward. What are these books about, …
Continue reading “Book Review: Book of Thunder by John Peel”
Book #21 of 2024: Book of Magic by John Peel (Diadem #3) Somewhat surprisingly, this third Diadem novel wraps up the major plot arc that’s been driving the action thus far, and from what I can recall, things are pretty episodic from here on out. One wonders if the series was originally planned as a …
Book #15 of 2024: Book of Signs by John Peel (Diadem #2) This sequel retains the juvenile feel befitting its middle-grade audience, but it’s enough of an improvement over the previous volume that I’ll bump my rating up from three stars to four. The story is more straightforward, with a minimum degree of recap for …
Book #9 of 2024: Book of Names by John Peel (Diadem #1) A solid launch to a fun middle-grade fantasy series about a trio of kids drawn from separate worlds into a magical mystery linking them together. The worst thing about this first title is that it burns through so many of its ideas so …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more