Title: Pendragon : The Never WarAuthor: D. J. MacHale
ISBN: ISBN 0-7434-3733-0
A word of caution: spoilers ahead! It might not be much, but it may still ruin your enjoyment of the book.
As I mentioned in my previous post about Pendragon, this book series is definitely one of the best series for children and adults alike. Still not familiar with it? Well, it's about a boy who learned that he is a Traveler who can travel through time and space to different worlds or territories, and have to save them from destruction planned by the main antagonist of the series, the ever-changing shape-shifter, Saint Dane.
In the third book of the series, Bobby Pendragon had to travel to the territory of First Earth, which was Earth in 1973. Found himself in New York but in a time way before he was born, he teamed himself with the Traveler from First Earth, Vincent Van Dyke, or better known as Gunny. He also brought along the Traveler from Cloral (which he had previously explored in Book Two: The Lost City of Faar) Vo Spader, for this new adventure. So it seems like it will be the three of them against Saint Dane, sounds like a piece of cake right? Well, apparently not. They also had to deal with two rival gengster mobs and their leaders, Maximillian Rose and Winn Farrow.
At first, I thought I would not enjoy this book as much as I had with the first two books in the series since the book was set in 1973, and I'm not really a big fan of reading books that were set in the past. Fortunately, I was proven wrong. The plot was well-paced, enjoyable and it got me invested in the story and the characters. Even the action scenes for this book were interesting eventhough they were only fighting normal human beings (the gengsters) instead of fantasy creatures like in The Merchant of Death (Book 1) or The Lost City of Faar (Book 2).
The characters for this book were pretty well developed and I really like the new characters that were introduced like Gunny, the female pilot Nancy Olsen (or Jinx) and the gangster godfather Maximillian Rose. Gunny, for example, had that likeable and calm persona that were important in keeping the team together. He also served like a consultant to Bobby in giving his opinions about certain situations and events. In fact, he might actually be the one who saved the territories from destruction.
Bobby Pendragon, the main protagonist, was also developed well in this book. In fact, we can actually see the improvement in his role from being the newbie in the Traveler thing in Book 1 to begining to take his role as the future leader for Travelers very seriously. He still had a lot to learn though before he become the leader he was destined to be. Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde, Bobby friends back on Second Earth, on the other hand seems to be taking a backseat this time. I'm not sure whether it's because of their lack of character development or simply because they were overshadowed by the many great new characters in this book. Nevertheless, I'm sure they will have a greater role in future books in the series as they had always been so close to Bobby eventhough they were territories apart.
Overall, The Never War is another great addition to the book series and it was better than I expected it to be. Interesting plot, great action scenes and awesome new characters had helped to make this book a great continuition to the Travelers journey to save the territories. A must have for the book series fans while for new readers, I suggest to start with Book 1, The Merchant of Death, for better understanding of the overall plot.
Image source from Wikipedia.
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