Readers of Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series will be well aware of his fantastic writing style and exceptional story telling. This time Nix provides his readers with a new and original style. Throughout the book we follow the story of 'Gold eye' who, having lost his loved ones to the evil overlords, must now seize the opertunity to escape from the 'factory like' dorms that all children are locked inside. For it will soon be his birthday; the sadest birthday of them all, when 14 year old children are taken and made into a grotesque machines, forced to serve the overlords for eternity. Gold eye must use his special talents to escape the dorms and be recruited by the ominous Shade. Obsessed with defeating the overlords, shade is both their saviour and their enemy. Suffice to say this book with both thrill and astound you; nix maintains the pace and the tension throughout, however the book is less up beat than his previous works. I prefer to see this as a posotive aspect; the fact that he can explore different areas and still suceed, proves once again his brilliance.