| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: Low Violence level: Medium Back Cover: “Spirit White and her friends Burke, Loch, and Addie have escaped from Oakhurst Academy. But their freedom has come at a terrible cost—a dear friend sacrificed her life to save theirs. In the wake of Muirin's death, they are forced to confront the terrifying truth behind the facade of Oakhurst Academy: all of the legends are true. Queen Guinevere, King Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table really existed. With the magic of Merlin, they were able to imprison their greatest foe, Mordred, before he could plunge the world back into the Dark Ages. But Mordred is now free, in charge of Oakhurst Academy, and determined to finish what he started so long ago. Pursued by Shadow Knights, the reincarnated remnants of Mordred's original army, Spirit's small band undertakes a quest to recover the Four Hallows, objects of immeasurable power. Memories of a past life have begun to surface, one in which Spirit wields a legendary sword. Can Spirit and her friends manage to recapture the magic of Camelot in time to save their fellow students and prevent the end of the world?" |
However, moving past all that, things are finally moving very quickly in the overall plot of the series. They finally know who their enemy really is, what he’s planning, and how to stop him. Not only that, but he’s made it really easy to know who is on which side. Basically, if they’re not actively working for Breakthrough, they’re locked up in Oakhurst. Guess which ones are on the side of our heroes? (I held out hope through to the end that there might be some kind of double agent on one side or the other, or possibly both, but no dice. Oh well.) That means that this is a lot less about slowly building suspense, and a lot more about action and fighting and running away, than the previous three installments. And it’s pretty darn good action too, almost reminiscent of a fantasy-based video game. It helps that the humans on the Dark Side mostly end up sitting on the sidelines for the whole thing, so our heroes are fighting and killing hellish monsters rather than real people. No doubt the hellish monsters aren’t too happy about that, but since our heroes are more or less normal American teenagers who are appalled at the thought of killing anybody (well, they’re half that and half reincarnated Arthurians who are sort of used to it), it makes things that much easier to stomach. Incidentally, I do love when they suddenly remember their former Arthurian selves and start speaking in “High Olde Forsoothly,” to use the phrase from the book, especially because they are still American teens as well and realize just how odd it sounds, but can’t seem to help themselves. And I also love the occasional geek references, quoting Monty Python and so forth.
Basically, once you get past finding the Hallows, it’s a really fun and entertaining story. It’s just that first part that keeps bugging me.