Sunday, October 5, 2008

Book Review: The Emerald Tablet by PJ Hoover

Benjamin Holt is not a normal preteen and his summer will be anything but normal. He’s a telegen with powers mere humans don’t have and he has to go to summer school to hone his special abilities on the sunken continent of Lemuria, a sort of sister continent to Atlantis. And while there, a talking Emerald Tablet tells him only he can save the world as we know it.

Eleanor did a guest review of this book for me back in July (read it here) and she loved it. Now that I’ve read it I can see why. Although the dialogue (especially in the beginning chapters) is decidedly juvenile, the clever ideas are not. In addition to all the skills the characters have (telepathy, telekinesis, telegnosis, and regeneration, among others), PJ introduces some cool items like Geodines (a globe that can show you the entire history of the earth) and the Universal travel agent teleporter (wish I had one!). The school lecture scenes are fun, especially the one where a professor reveals a few historical figures as secret agents from Lemuria.

I may not have gotten to know the characters as much as I would have liked to, but the plot zips along so nicely, I hardly noticed. And besides, I’ll get to hang out with them some more in at least two more books in the series.

The Emerald Tablet comes out on October 21st.

7 comments:

Steph said...

Ooo I have this one on my list! It's coming up... =)

Steph

PJ Hoover said...

Thanks for the review, Lenore!

Marie Cloutier said...

Sounds fun, like a good series volume one. :-)

Em said...

I added you to my blogroll. Thanks for catching my mistake! :-)

Ladytink_534 said...

I don't know what it is about Atlantis that has always intrigued me but I feel the same way about faeries lol. Even though it's not exactly about Atlantis it still sounds cool!

Lenore Appelhans said...

Actually it does have quite a bit more about Atlantis in it, but those details are kind of spoilery...

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a great one to keep my eye out for!