Friday, November 13, 2009

Mini Review: Peter and the Starcatchers

Somehow, I had never quite gotten around to Peter and the Starcatchers from the combined minds of Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry. See, I've always loved Peter Pan, so this prequel seemed like something I would like.

The book finds Peter being sent from London on ship to a far away land where he and a few other orphans will become the servant of the wicked king there. But along the way, he meets a girl with a secret about star stuff. Soon, he's fighting off pirates and a horrid storm to protect it from falling into the wrong hands.

By the time the book is over, all the elements from the classic tale are in place. And, frankly, that was part of the fun for me, seeing how it all comes together.

But the story itself was rather fun and suspenseful. I always had a hard time putting the book down.

As much as I love the story, I've got to admit that Peter is a rather horrid character. Here, he's actually a very good character. I appreciated that change.

My only real complaint is the multiple view points. While that can work well to tell a story, for the final third of this book, the changes between view points were so quick it was more a distraction than an aid to the storytelling.

5 comments:

The Never Fairy said...

It's a prety fun adventure on its own... but I didn't think it a very good prequel to Peter Pan. Pan already had a backstory. Which they completely ignored. And then there are a LOT of mistakes in it as compared to Barrie's original. If it's supposed to be a Disney-only prequel, they contradict that, too.
I just don't get how the authors can be so disrespectful of another author's work.

There's a faithful Pan book, based on Barrie's own idea for more. My name's a link to it.

BELIEVE!

Mark Baker said...

So let me get this straight. You spammed my blog (with in half an hour of me posting) and were disrespectful of another author's work to plug your own.

Thanks. You've now helped me wipe one book off my to be read list.

hopeinbrazil said...

Hi! I'm a huge Peter Pan fan and found this prequel difficult to read. I love Barrie's tongue-in-cheek humor, but I thought Dave Barry's humor was much more over the top. It was downright distracting. Maybe I'm just too loyal to the original.

Mark Baker said...

I guess I need to read the original to judge for myself how good this book really is.

Susansuth said...

I've wanted to read that book for a while. I own one of the Peter Pan books by those two. I've always been a big fan of Barry's work.

I'll have to find some time to sit down and read!