The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1) by Rick Riordan
Title: The Maze of Bones
Series: The 39 Clues, #1
Author: Rick Riordan
Published: Scholastic Inc.; 2008
220 pages, hardcover
Source: My brother owns a copy
Description (from Goodreads):
A million dollars... or a clue?
What would happen if you discovered that your family was one of the most powerful in human history? What if you were told that the source of the family's power was hidden around the world in the form of 39 clues? What if you were given a choice — take a million dollars and walk away... or get the first Clue? If you're Amy and Dan Cahill, you take the Clue — and begin a very dangerous race.
My Thoughts:
2 stars
2 stars
Wow, this is nothing but another money-grabbing scheme with a bunch of well-loved and popular authors such as Rick Riordan pulled into to writing a ridiculously long and overdramatised series. Its another nightmare version of the Conspiracy 365 and the Last Thirteen series expect this has four entire spin-off series and an online game too!
The plotline in The Maze of Bones tried so desperately to be like an epic treasure-hunting adventure, reminiscent of the movie series National Treasure, yet it fell so far below them that it was almost comical. The mystery and the clues were surprisingly well thought out, so well done to Rick Riordan for that, but the execution was terrible. Amy and Dan made the connections between the clues and Benjamin Franklin so damn fast it was unbelievable! The clues were very abstract and yet they were able to make all these very clever distinctions. Dan is eleven. Eleven. My brother just turned thirteen yet he wouldn't be able to even comprehend half of what Dan was able to spontaneously do. It was simply ridiculous!
The action made cry - it was that bad! I have always had that problem with Rick Riordan, even in his Percy Jackson series. In this Dan and Amy managed to weed themselves out of numerous implausible situations such being buried alive in concrete and being blown up in a museum. How the heck a bomb could have been smuggled so quickly into such a famous museum is beside me in the first place!? They always managed to get saved at the last possible second by a stranger or a forgotten object in a pocket... something ridiculously unbelievable.
The characters then? Well, don't even get me started on the characters. They were shallow, pointless and simply pathetic. Cardboard cut-outs of all your typical clichés without a scrap of common sense and stupidly reckless. I couldn't relate to a single one of them which is sad because I am not that much older than Amy. (Two years?)
I think that Rick Riordan took too many liberties in assuming the intelligence levels of the younger audience that this is targeted at. Yes, they mostly would younger than your Percy Jackson fans but that doesn't mean that they are stupid! In the end, this was dull, underdeveloped and downright lame. I didn't enjoy it very much and I am not looking forward to the rest of the series, especially since it is a multi-authored series.
The plotline in The Maze of Bones tried so desperately to be like an epic treasure-hunting adventure, reminiscent of the movie series National Treasure, yet it fell so far below them that it was almost comical. The mystery and the clues were surprisingly well thought out, so well done to Rick Riordan for that, but the execution was terrible. Amy and Dan made the connections between the clues and Benjamin Franklin so damn fast it was unbelievable! The clues were very abstract and yet they were able to make all these very clever distinctions. Dan is eleven. Eleven. My brother just turned thirteen yet he wouldn't be able to even comprehend half of what Dan was able to spontaneously do. It was simply ridiculous!
The action made cry - it was that bad! I have always had that problem with Rick Riordan, even in his Percy Jackson series. In this Dan and Amy managed to weed themselves out of numerous implausible situations such being buried alive in concrete and being blown up in a museum. How the heck a bomb could have been smuggled so quickly into such a famous museum is beside me in the first place!? They always managed to get saved at the last possible second by a stranger or a forgotten object in a pocket... something ridiculously unbelievable.
The characters then? Well, don't even get me started on the characters. They were shallow, pointless and simply pathetic. Cardboard cut-outs of all your typical clichés without a scrap of common sense and stupidly reckless. I couldn't relate to a single one of them which is sad because I am not that much older than Amy. (Two years?)
I think that Rick Riordan took too many liberties in assuming the intelligence levels of the younger audience that this is targeted at. Yes, they mostly would younger than your Percy Jackson fans but that doesn't mean that they are stupid! In the end, this was dull, underdeveloped and downright lame. I didn't enjoy it very much and I am not looking forward to the rest of the series, especially since it is a multi-authored series.
No comments:
Post a Comment