Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague
No. 3 in the Fablehaven series
by Brandon Mull
illustrated by Brandon Dorman
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Shadow Mountain (Salt Lake City): 12 April 2008. Hardcover: 480 pages. ISBN-10: 1-59038-898-4 ISBN-13: 978-1590388983 Suggested retail price: $18.95 (US) Tags: magic; battles; centaurs; demons; dungeons; fairies; Fantasy; good vs. evil; grandparents; monsters; satyrs; Youth Tactical strength: [7/10] |
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Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague picks up right where the second book, Rise of the Evening Star left off -- no summer vacation for Kendra and Seth. The characters start out with a lot of doubts about who they can trust. Clearly, the Sphinx, once the most respected advisor to the preserve keepers, has demonstrated some unusual behavior that could originate with his alignment with the Society of the Evening Star.
The Fablehaven crew doesn't get to much time to mull over the fact that they don't really know anything. The Knights of the Dawn have decided to induct Kendra based on the help she provided in retrieving one of the fiveartifacts from the Inverted Tower hidden at Fablehaven. At the induction, Kendra meets Gavin, the seventeen-year-old son of a famous dragon handler. The scenes with Kendra and Gavin clearly signal "future love interest" as strong as if the words appeared in neon lights.
Kendra, Devin, and several others receive a mission from the Knights to retrieve one of the artifacts hidden at a preserve called Lost Mesa in Arizona. For several chapters, we get almost a repeat of the assault on the Inverted Tower in book two, just with different creatures and traps to avoid. I found this section quite dull and had a hard time pushing through these chapters. You do learn some important information -- so much that you know Mull has started to plant more and more seeds that he can pick up in future books.
Back at Fablehaven, a dark plague has started turning the light magical creatures into dark creatures. And these dark creatures seem to have one motivation: make more dark magical creatures. As the plague spreads, Seth discovers that he has some powers of his own. He can see the dark magic of the plague as a palpable shadow in the air, and he no longer reacts to magically induced fear. The lack of fear comes comes in hand when interrogating one ofFablehaven's resident demons for information about the plague.
Humans infected with the plague turn into shadow creatures that only Seth can see. I expect that in a future volume, Seth's dark abilities will place him in direct conflict with the light side of Kendra. Like I said, Mull just keeps sowing tons of seeds for future works.
Not until Kendra returns to Fablehaven and it seems quite obvious that the humans don't have a chance of saving the preserve does the book get interesting. About halfway through the book, the the pace picks up, and you feel like you've returned to the tightly controlled suspense that Mull demonstrated so well in the first two volumes. From this point on, interesting things happen in every chapter that lead logically to the next surprising and suspense filled event. By the climax, Mull has us back to the same level of tension he developed in the previous books. So you get a satisfying ending, but the effort needed to push through the first half of the book leaves an impression and makes Grip of the Shadow Plague inferior to the previous books.
Mull still impresses me with his pull-no-punches plot. Too many youth books these days seem to place a magical cocoon of indestructibility around the main characters. Even when the characters go through dire circumstances, you never really believe that anything bad will happen to the protagonists. On the other hand,Mull's main characters have declared war against the Society, and we clearly understand that the adults aligned with the Society would kill Kendra, Seth, and anyone else associated withFablehaven if they got the opportunity. In Grip of the Shadow Plague, people and magical creatures on both sides recive dire wounds and occasionally die.
At this point in the series, I would have to say that I highly favor Seth over Kendra. Mull does an excellent job walking us through the thought patterns of an adventure-seeking thirteen year old. Through previous experience, Seth knows that he could just as easily die as any one else, but he has learned that sometimes you have to take risks in order to produce positive outcomes. He has grown from a boy who flaunted rules to serve selfish ends to a contemplative teen whocarefully weighs the risks of various options -- still discounting any rules -- before choosing his plan of action. With Seth's new maturity, he demonstrates that he has matured far beyond the need for a rule like "stay in the yard."
In contrast to Seth's development, Kendra seems somewhat stagnant. Kendra does learn some more about the abilities she attained as the handmaiden of the Fairy Queen. For example, she can command thefairies , and they must obey her. But even though Kendra willingly participates in dangerous missions, she doesn't really seem to have developed any grit. She goes through the motions of the adventures out of necessity and doesn't find a way to enjoy her experiences.
The slow-moving first half of the book disappointed me, but I still find the Fablehaven books one of the most interesting and well-written adventure series around.
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