Friday 2 September 2016

D.J. MacHale: The Merchant of Death (2002)

    Bobby is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn't quite what he thought it was. And before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution (Goodreads).

    Although the final climax was actually fairly interesting, that's about the only positive note I can give this book. The cliche 'young teen finds new world he is destined to save while old man gives him really pointless information' storyline here is in no way made original. Bobby's narration is quite uninteresting and unrealistic, considering it is supposed to be a journal. Bobby's character itself is so brutally flawless (meaning he uninterestingly has no faults), however he puts himself down with such regularity to combat this. After a pointless first chapter, which I believe is supposed to make readers engaged with the characters (it does not), we find out the main antagonist almost right away, and yet we don't see much actual conflict from then on. One character who may actually have made this book the slightest bit better would have been Mark, however his parts in the book were also literally pointless, I mean, the only useful thing he did was give a backpack full of banned objects to Bobby, and Bobby, being who he is, doesn't bother letting Mark or his (also spoiled) love interest help him out at all. In the end, The Merchant of Death could have been a satisfying read, but lack of originality and dynamics spoiled it. 4.2/10

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