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Jacob's Ladder (Black Apples)
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Product Description
Review
This well-written, original novel is more than an exciting adventure in an unusual setting: it raises questions about the nature of death and the importance of hope and courage when faced with another world.
(Carousel )This is a truly haunting and beautiful book, written in the sparest, poetic prose. Both characters and setting are economically but powerfully drawn and the whole tale resonates with echoes of both myth and modern science fiction.
(Books for Keeps ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.Product Description
Hodder Literature: an exciting series of literature titles for Key Stage 3 for whole class use.
Jacob wakes in the middle of a field with no recollection of how he came to be there. The only thing he can clearly remember is his name. Is he alive or dead? Jacob is then taken by Virgil, a mysterious guide, to a featureless place named Locus. He is given a grey uniform and becomes part of a mass of young people, all resigned to their fate and struggling to piece together memories of their previous existence. With two companions, Jacob sets out on a journey back towards the life he has left. The journey is uncertain; there is no guide, nor any advice as to decisions that have to be made. Challenges, temptations, fearful encounters with strange characters and creatures lead him to the Palace of Remembrance, the gateway back to the real world, where a final (or is it a first?) choice awaits him.
Jacob wakes in the middle of a field with no recollection of how he came to be there. The only thing he can clearly remember is his name. Is he alive or dead? Jacob is then taken by Virgil, a mysterious guide, to a featureless place named Locus. He is given a grey uniform and becomes part of a mass of young people, all resigned to their fate and struggling to piece together memories of their previous existence. With two companions, Jacob sets out on a journey back towards the life he has left. The journey is uncertain; there is no guide, nor any advice as to decisions that have to be made. Challenges, temptations, fearful encounters with strange characters and creatures lead him to the Palace of Remembrance, the gateway back to the real world, where a final (or is it a first?) choice awaits him.
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First Sentence
Jacob's eyes twitched open and he became aware that he was lying on the ground with his face pressed against the earth. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Jacob's eyes twitched open and he became aware that he was lying on the ground with his face pressed against the earth. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
I read this in 2 sittings. A cross between Holes and Lovely Bones. A good little read, which had me hooked. Recommended for 10 - 14 year olds, both boys and girls.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
THIS BOOK WAS FANTASTIC! IF YOU LIKE ADVENTURE AND INTRIGUE THIS BOOK DELIVERS. IT MAKES YOU READ LATE INTO THE NIGHT.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
lovely speculative fiction for youth and adults
24 Oct 2009
Format:Hardcover
Very unlike most modern YA which mostly seems to deal with realistic modern settings and dramatic issues like bullying, sexuality, social situations, etc., Jacob's Ladder takes place in a strange out-of-time alternative universe and addresses more subtle existential questions. The prose is wonderfully succinct and evocative, and the story inventive yet calling to mind mythological themes. One of my recent favorites.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Answering the age old question... and not liking the answer.
18 Feb 2007
Format:Hardcover
Where do you go when you die? Heaven? Hell? Nowhere? Somewhere?
For Jacob, who wakes up one day in a grassy field with no memories, stained clothes, and a mysterious guide who takes him to a dormitory with other boys who had the same experience, life, or death, is a mystery with no answers. Is it heaven when the food is always the same, there is no joy except for sharing the merest fragments of memories with your roommates, and nobody can answer your questions? Is it hell when you are forced to pick up basketfuls of stones day after day, the penalty for missing a day of stone picking is a visit from ghosts, and you have dreams of despondent parents?
What is certain is that the boundary between dreams and reality is breached. Jacob wants answers and more. In time, all of his roommates will have similar urges, but this is Jacob's trial.
But a trial for what? Jacob's Ladder, by Brian Keaney, has rich possibilities in its plot, but they fall flat. The reader is expected to not need any answers as to what this place is, how one gets there, and how one leaves. There are workers in this place... do they not "move on?" This after-world is a dull and listless place. Given that this characterization is drastically different than 99.9% of other after-world depictions, it requires a modicum of explanation, and that explanation is not forthcoming. Thus, Keaney wets the reader's appetite, but no answers are provided.
Like The Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier, this novel seems incomplete. Jacob receives no clarity about why things are the way they are. Perhaps hell intentionally bypasses these questions.
For Jacob, who wakes up one day in a grassy field with no memories, stained clothes, and a mysterious guide who takes him to a dormitory with other boys who had the same experience, life, or death, is a mystery with no answers. Is it heaven when the food is always the same, there is no joy except for sharing the merest fragments of memories with your roommates, and nobody can answer your questions? Is it hell when you are forced to pick up basketfuls of stones day after day, the penalty for missing a day of stone picking is a visit from ghosts, and you have dreams of despondent parents?
What is certain is that the boundary between dreams and reality is breached. Jacob wants answers and more. In time, all of his roommates will have similar urges, but this is Jacob's trial.
But a trial for what? Jacob's Ladder, by Brian Keaney, has rich possibilities in its plot, but they fall flat. The reader is expected to not need any answers as to what this place is, how one gets there, and how one leaves. There are workers in this place... do they not "move on?" This after-world is a dull and listless place. Given that this characterization is drastically different than 99.9% of other after-world depictions, it requires a modicum of explanation, and that explanation is not forthcoming. Thus, Keaney wets the reader's appetite, but no answers are provided.
Like The Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier, this novel seems incomplete. Jacob receives no clarity about why things are the way they are. Perhaps hell intentionally bypasses these questions.
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