Sunday 11 April 2010

Review: The Prophecy - Gill James

Kaleem Malkendy is different - and, on Terrestra, different is no way to be.

Everything about Kaleem marks him out from the rest: the blond hair and dark skin, the humble cave where he lives and the fact that he doesn't know his father.  He's used to unwelcome attention, but even so, he'd feel better if some strange old man didn't keep following him around.

The the man introduces himself and begins to explain the Babel Prophecy - and everything in Kaleem's life changes forever.

The Peace Child Trilogy:
The Prophecy
I don't have details for the next 2 books in the series or their release dates at this time

For more information visit Gill James' website

Review:
The Prophecy is set over 1000 years in the future.  The people of Terrestra (Earth) have been forced to live underground because of a poison cloud in the atmosphere.  Although in the past people from Terestra have travelled to many other planets and even started other settlements now they are living underground they no longer allow planetary travel.  Even though the poison cloud has started to lift they have become predjudiced against people who live on other worlds who they believe are different from themselves. 

Kaleem has always been different from others - his looks, his homelife and the lack of a father have all lead to teasing from his peers.  He is more different than he had imagined though and his life will change drastically when he finds out about the Babel Prophecy and his role in it.

I found the premise of this story really interesting and was looking forward to reading it but unfortunately I found it a really difficult read.  This was partly due to the names of some of the main characters which were difficult to pronounce and made reading a struggle but it was also due to the lack of explanation of some of the major events that happen.  I still have no idea what caused the poison cloud that meant everyone on the planet was forced underground and would have liked a better explanation of this.  I also found it wasn't clear how some of the technology they had actually worked which caused some confusion for me.

Having said that I did find that Kaleem was a likeable character, he made mistakes but learnt from them and that made him more believable.  I found the story idea interesting and when I got into the flow of reading I did want to carry on and find out how it would end.  I'm not sure if I'd pick up further books in the series though.

Source: Thanks to Red Telephone Books for sending me this book to review

Other Reviews:
So Many Books, So Little Time
I Was A Teenage Book Geek
If you have reviewed this book on your blog please leave a link to your review in the comments & I'll add the link here.

2 comments:

  1. Is this one of the books you mentioned you struggled with on twitter? I think some negative things about books in a series is that some questions are really left unanswered - perhaps that's why? But I do agree with you and think important events such as how the poison cloud came to be should be explained as they are relevant to the plot. :)

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  2. Hi Dwayne, yes this is one of the ones I mentioned LOL. There were some questions left unanswered at the end but I actually thought the story wrapped up pretty well considering it's a trilogy - it wasn't left on a major cliff hanger like some books are! I had more confusion about things that are supposed to have already happened & how things worked.

    I liked part of it but I just found it a hard read, I started reading it 2 weeks ago & had to read it in small chunks which is very unlike me. I hate trying to read more than one book at a time LOL

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