Evil Speaks: Warriors and Watchers Saga
If there is a Bechdel Test for ableism, it would pass.
This is an interesting story written for youthful readers (see publisher’s summary below) that is well written and mostly devoid of the usual plot holes we find in this genre, but where the characters represent a range of non normative persona.
Benny, fifteen, is solitary by circumstance more than choice: he counts each move to a new town as “a life.” He’s on Life Number Seven. His last! He plans to run away from his paranoid mother, who’s been on the run since the disappearance of his father when he was three. Benny has no memory of it, except for weird dreams of a firestorm and a hideous dragon. After a fight with his mother, Benny packs his bags. Boom! The house explodes, catapulting Benny into a world he never imagined existed. The trail leads him to a gated Neoclassical building in the woods and to six teens he vaguely remembers: Kami is deaf, Amir is blind, Zuma is overweight, Layla is gorgeous but lazy, Chaz is in a wheelchair and Raj is as angry as the purple dagger-shaped birthmark running down the side of her face. These unlikely heroes share a common thread: Benny lost his father and they lost their mothers on the same day. The only clue to the mystery is Benny’s grandfather, Domenico H. Adez, a strange and dangerous man. “In my last years at Harcourt, I can’t remember reading one single fantasy MG or YA that was half as interesting as the world you have created. . . It really was a cool discovery that you had linked these modern-day misfits to Greek mythology and Greek history! So brilliant! Between the fight scenes and the stories and people and creatures of Greek mythology coming to life, it was truly a roller-coaster adventure. And the ending—now THAT is how you leave us wanting for more!” –Editor, Evil Speaks
Evil Speaks
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These “SciFi-fantasy” books are a great bridge to the meeting of kindred spirits. Just now I had to transfer from the #73 Jurassic Park bus to my local coach and I asked the driver if anybody else had told him he looked like the film actor Kevin Costner. Yes, one other person had told him the same thing. There was no place to sit except orthogonal to an exotic beauty and un femme d’un certain age. I started to ask, “Miss, does the bus driver look to you like Kevin Costner?” but the Audrey Hepburn look-alike would have nothing of it, so I corrected my science-blog-divertissement spiel to address the entire ridership, “Do you guys think the bus driver looks like Kevin Costner?” Everybuddy agreed there was a resemblance. I said he was in the movie about, “If you build it, they will come,” and one lady sharp-shooted me with “Field of Dreams.” I countered with “Dances with Wolves.” Then the lady of a certain age left Miss Hepburn’s side and DeBussy’ed or de-bussed, leaving Audrey to express her disdain by walking all the way to the back and opening up a book to read. “Dilettanten!” thought to himself Yours Truly, who opened up his Russian-language novel and commenced Clockwork-Oranging the situation — there were now a total of two passengers reading suum cuique librum. Blogreader here would have left it at that, but a gray-haired old guy pushing a walker got on and needed Rosenkavalier’s seat, so son-of-Strauss here had to walk to the back and sit orthogonal to Audrey Hepburn again, she reading her crime-thriller and moi, ich lese mein russisches Buch. “Excuse me, miss, could you ring that bell for me?” Hesitation on Audrey’s part, followed by compliance with the request of a favor. Asked if it was a good book, Breakfast At Tiffanny’s replied, “I just started reading it.” Asked if I might see the cover, she held up, “Criminal” by Terra Elan McVoy, which our field agents report is at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1442421630 on Amazon. Strangers when we meet the next time, “How did that ‘Criminal’ book turn out to be?” So thanks for the carte blanche d’ecrivir cette reverie, and please delete this EYES ONLY post before my shrink finds out about it.
I made $42,538 per hour doing the same job the late Frederik Pohl once held: specimen collection specialist — AND YOU CAN TOO! Simply hook your browser to www-fetched-far-com…
Judging by their silhouettes, none of the three women is overweight. But of course the cover illustration does not always reflect the contents of the book (or the plot of the movie.)
For evidence, I present this link to the DVD of Tobor the Great. Trust me: there is a woman in this 1954 flick, but she never finds herself draped across the arms of the giant menacing metal man.