Rich and strange (and kitted out with an eye-catching cover), but stronger in the set pieces than the internal logic. At this point, readers are likely to feel suddenly left behind, as, thanks to summary deus ex machina resolutions, everything turns out swell(ish). This leads up to a vicious climactic fight that sees Good and Evil repeatedly switching sides. Growing into their true natures amid revelations and marked physical changes, the two spark escalating rivalry between the wings of the school.

Gradually-too gradually, as the author strings out hundreds of pages of Hogwarts-style pranks, classroom mishaps and competitions both academic and romantic-it becomes clear that the placement wasn’t a mistake at all. When it happens to sweet, Disney princess–like Sophie and her friend Agatha, plain of features, sour of disposition and low of self-esteem, they are both horrified to discover that they’ve been dropped not where they expect but at Evil and at Good respectively.

Those who survive to graduate become major or minor characters in fairy tales. The wheels are grinding, but they haven’t quite fallen off yet.Ĭhainani works an elaborate sea change akin to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked (1995), though he leaves the waters muddied.Įvery four years, two children, one regarded as particularly nice and the other particularly nasty, are snatched from the village of Gavaldon by the shadowy School Master to attend the divided titular school. Myklusch promises a closing, or at least a next, volume in 2012. (An explosive closing twist is described only in retrospect.) The fluid prose style may carry patient readers through, though familiarity with the first volume is a must even veterans may need reminders of Jack’s background, the significance of a certain major character who turns out to have been only temporarily killed off in the previous episode or even why the Rüstov are considered a threat. Neither they nor occasional bursts of comics-style hyperviolence are enough to rev up a labored, wandering plot that eventually culminates in a climax featuring lots of standing around for talky explanations and exchanges. Some traces of the inspired whimsy that animated the earlier episode remain: Jack invents “Nuclear Knuckles” to crank up his fighting prowess for instance, and he encounters Lorem Ipsum, a texting teenaged superhero whose power compels her victims to speak only faux-Latin gibberish. Intercepted messages indicate the mysterious Rüstov will spring some nefarious surprise upon the Imagine Nation (a land populated by “superheroes, ninjas, androids, and aliens”) in just five days, putting a deadline on young Jack’s efforts to counter the invader’s insidious computer virus.

Myklusch squanders much of the promise of series opener Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation (2010) with this unwieldy middle volume.

The secret war by matt myklusch