STARRED REVIEW This exciting sequel’s concept explodes far beyond Epic, its 2007 predecessor. Give this to fans of video games and readers of James Patterson's 'Maximum Ride' series (Little, Brown). Despite these flaws, readers will find the adventures of anarchic teens on floating skateboards compelling. The moral conflict between Erik's peaceful society and Ghost's violent one has the potential to be an interesting examination of how the worlds function, but this idea is never fully addressed. The plot elements of this complicated, fast-paced novel are not fully integrated, and readers who have not read Epic will be puzzled by the importance of Cindella/Erik. Erik and Ghost must each find their own way to defeat the Queen. She will only release them if Erik makes her children immortal, but if he complies, the people of Saga will suffer. Saga's characters are now sentient beings, and the Queen has enslaved Erik's world with a drug that forces them to play or die. Saga is a virtual-reality game and Cindella is the avatar of Erik Haraldson, the winner of the previous iteration of the game. Her clothes, her mannerisms, and her magical abilities are absurdly out of place. When they meet the swashbuckler Cindella Dragonslayer, first introduced in Epic (Viking, 2007), they are perplexed. To survive, Ghost and her friends raid malls, ride airboards, and try to subvert the class-driven system. Grade 9 Up-Living under the oppressive rule of a 2000-year-old Dark Queen, the inhabitants of the violent world of Saga are downtrodden. Another sequel is planned, and it will definitely be interesting to see where Kostick goes from here. Though this adventure sustains the suspense of its predecessor, the replacement of magical Epic (with its strong resemblance to real-world computer games) with the more mundane Saga may disappoint some returning readers. When Eric arrives in Saga as his avatar Cindella Dragonslayer, he joins forces with Ghost and her gang to stop the Dark Queen from destroying New Earth. Strange things have been happening in Saga-strangers are appearing, then disappearing into thin air-and Ghost’s gang eventually learns what readers already know: Saga is not a real world but a sentient computer game. In Saga, Ghost, a 15-year-old girl with no memory of her first 9 years, is part of an anarcho-punk airboard gang. It’s replaced with Saga, designed to enslave New Earth’s populace.

In the sequel to Epic (2007), a Booklist Top 10 Fantasy for Youth, the Dark Queen infiltrates New Earth’s central computer system, erasing the role-playing game called Epic. This exciting sequel's concept explodes far beyond Epic.Clean prose, remarkable story.

Saga conor kostick