Fireseed
One by Catherine
Stine - guest review by Alison
DeLuca
Fireseed
gripped me from the start. Stine introduced the action, the concept, and the
characters right away, and I loved all of them. Varik, the son of an agar
farmer who has to shoulder responsibilities too large for anyone, let alone an
adolescent, is strong and intelligent. More than that - he is REAL. He makes
bad decisions and gets crushes, and I thoroughly related to him right away.
Marisa, the girl who breaks into the precious seed discs that keep Varik's agar farm going, is also real. Yes, she is beautiful with long, red hair and a gorgeous figure. yes, she is rich, and she is also brave and intelligent. But she also makes mistakes, and it is those fatal flaws that make her and Varik so human. Marisa has been "seduced" (in every sense of the word) by a political group. This compels much of the action.
No one, except for Varik, realizes how important the seed discs and the agar crop are. When the whole farm nearly is destroyed, it puts the entire world in jeopardy of starvation, since food no longer grows in the "Hot Zone" which is most of the US.
Varik's father developed something called Fireseed years before the action begins, and it is this mysterious plant that Marisa is after. When the farm is nearly shut down, Fireseed becomes the last hope for the human race.
This may sound very serious and grand-scheme, but Stine also focuses on the relationship between Varik and Marisa, which is touching and also very real. The arcs of the story ebb and flow perfectly, like the waves around Varik's farm, and I breathlessly followed all of them.
Add to this Stine's lovely prose, and the book is very compelling. I had to ration it out because I loved reading it so much, but at the end I just couldn't stop.
Beyond that, in this installment Stine has presented a complete adventure. However, at the end, there is a twist that makes me long for the next book. That is a very difficult thing to do, and the writer has pulled it off brilliantly.
I highly recommend Fireseed One.
Marisa, the girl who breaks into the precious seed discs that keep Varik's agar farm going, is also real. Yes, she is beautiful with long, red hair and a gorgeous figure. yes, she is rich, and she is also brave and intelligent. But she also makes mistakes, and it is those fatal flaws that make her and Varik so human. Marisa has been "seduced" (in every sense of the word) by a political group. This compels much of the action.
No one, except for Varik, realizes how important the seed discs and the agar crop are. When the whole farm nearly is destroyed, it puts the entire world in jeopardy of starvation, since food no longer grows in the "Hot Zone" which is most of the US.
Varik's father developed something called Fireseed years before the action begins, and it is this mysterious plant that Marisa is after. When the farm is nearly shut down, Fireseed becomes the last hope for the human race.
This may sound very serious and grand-scheme, but Stine also focuses on the relationship between Varik and Marisa, which is touching and also very real. The arcs of the story ebb and flow perfectly, like the waves around Varik's farm, and I breathlessly followed all of them.
Add to this Stine's lovely prose, and the book is very compelling. I had to ration it out because I loved reading it so much, but at the end I just couldn't stop.
Beyond that, in this installment Stine has presented a complete adventure. However, at the end, there is a twist that makes me long for the next book. That is a very difficult thing to do, and the writer has pulled it off brilliantly.
I highly recommend Fireseed One.
2 comments:
Wow, I'm honored! What a nice post-hurricane Sandy blackout gift to visit your blog and see this. I just finished Alison's Night Watchman, which was great, and now to check out Jasperson's work.
Thank you for visiting the blog! Alison's work is indeed awesome. I've just finished the third book in her series, and I find myself blown away by her creativity!
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