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Raiders' Ransom (2009)

by Emily Diamand(Favorite Author)

3.61 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0545142970 (ISBN13: 9780545142977)

languge

English

genre

Fantasy

publisher

Chicken House

series

Raiders' Ransom

review 1: I've seen this one labeled quite a few times as dystopian. I wouldn't call it a dystopian so much as post-climate-change-apocalyptic. I was initially drawn in by the cover...a ship approaching a mostly submerged Big Ben! Nautical things and England, I'm in! It was a pretty fun read. Lilly is a plucky main character who doesn't sit around waiting to be rescued, but takes matters into her own hands. Zeph is pretty prickly at first but he has a good heart, despite his rough upbringing and I was rooting for him by the end. Oh, and Cat, the temperamental sea-cat, was my favorite!
review 2: Eh.Overall, not a bad children's adventure - the pace and the plot were okay - but just so... generic. Which something set in the far-future, after England's been flooded for a lo... moreng time, shouldn't really be, but other than the going-on about the evils of the lost technology and the use of rockets & mention of solar sails, the entire thing could have been set at any point between, dunno, the 9th and the 19th century, or something.I'd have appreciated some more background on the flood - just, what, was there some overnight flood that destroyed half of England or what? Without anyone noticing? Eh? Pretty soon in our current timeline?I liked Lilly well enough - almost enough to have added a third star. She's a stock character (and an orphan, of course), but resourceful, good at heart, courageous and determined even when scared, all that; not a bad sort of stock character to have in a kids' book.Zeph... Meh. Another stock character and one I liked a lot less: the uneducated son of a local raider boss who's been brought up to dream of being a mighty warrior and look down on slaves and lowborn people and foreigners and fishers and so on, and who through some trials and tribulations slowly starts realising that life ain't that simple and maybe there's more to things that that. Good message and all, but... I've seen this before. Over and over again. He just wasn't likeable enough for me to really care about his inner turmoil.It's really not a bad book by any means, and I've read children's adventures that are a lot more tedious and moralising, but I can't really bring myself to rate this one as more than "it was ok". less

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