The Beyonders: A world Without Heroes

Friday I went to see The Hobbit (part one) with a very pretty friend from college. We sat Lux level at the Showcase In Randolph and when we picked up the tickets they gave us 3D glasses, a mini poster of Gollum and a book. The book, the first in the Beyonders series by Brandon Mull, was the odd item out in this situation. I told my "pretty friend" that I was going to read the book and post it on a blog I contributed to. She laughed and I informed her I was serious. She said "I know." So without further adieu here is my post for the book, and yes I am going to send her a link to this post.

This book, in typical fantasy fashion, reminded me of almost every other fantasy book I have read in some fashion. At its core its mostly an amalgamation of LOTR, The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Percy Jackson and Harry Potter. It's the story of an angst filled teenage boy, Jason, who accidentally stumbles upon a portal to another world (much like lion the witch and the wardrobe). The other world has some magical properties and an evil wizard king who rules with an iron fist. While trying to find a portal home Jason stumbles upon a forbidden book that contains the first syllable of a word that will unmake the wizard King, Maldor. The book turns out to be a spy for Maldor so now that Jason has read the passage he is forced to find the rest of the word as Maldor now assumes he is an enemy and is hunting him. The rest of the book focuses on Jason trying to find the rest of the word.

I wont spoil the ending but I will say that this book is the first of a trilogy. Once again I wish I had done some research before starting this book. Now that I have started this series I have to know how it ends. The second book is in stores now and the third wont come out for another couple months.  I should have expected that a free book would be part of a series. It's a smart move to trick you into reading the first one so you will buy the rest of the series. Expect a follow up post with the second book by the end of the year. I have a lot of things to log but its the end of the year so I want to finish strong and clear some stuff out before Christmas gifts add to my BackLog.