Amazon.co.uk Review
Taking a break from his wildly successful
Artemis Fowl series, Eoin Colfer delivers another punchy, superbly readable novel with all of the trademark qualities that have earned him so many fans.
The Supernaturalist is inventive, dramatic, delicately witty and positively hip.
Satellite City, a vast twenty-five million people plus satellite-controlled metropolis in the third millennium, is home to Cosmo Hill. This 14-year-old orphan, a "no sponsor", inhabits--or rather "survives" in--an orphanage called the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys. There are only three ways out of such a miserable establishment: adoption, death or escape. The average life expectancy is 15 years. Cosmo has a year left. At best.
When his chance comes to escape during a transportation crash, Cosmo grabs it and flees into the unknown city. But he is tracked by a zealous guard and falls from a tall building. Accidentally, of course. As Cosmo's life force ebbs away, apparently sucked out by a strange blue parasite, he is rescued by a motley crew of kids. They're on a mission, and Cosmo is drafted in to help them. It's a whole new dangerous beginning…
Colfer has carved out a funky little genre all on his own: he writes exciting adventures that are funny and futuristic, page-turning and realistic. They're not fantasy, but his books are fantastical. They've got a bit of magic about them, without being overtly magical in the Harry Potter sense.
Artemis Fowl has been described as "Die Hard with fairies". The Supernaturalist is heralded as The Matrix meets Ghostbusters. Colfer has a golden touch at the moment and this is another priceless nugget. Suitable for ages 10 and over. --John McLay
--This text refers to the
Audio Cassette
edition.
Review
In the future's Satellite City, where everything's controlled by an enormous satellite, a plot-twisting adventure includes supernatural creatures, a disenfranchised band of Supernaturalists, and abundant use of futuristic weapons. Fourteen-year-old Cosmo escapes from an orphanage that uses boys as medical and commercial lab rats and meets three people racing around rooftops on a mission. The mission: electrically zapping ghostlike blue creatures at accident scenes before the creatures drain people's life force. Stefan is the leader, Mona the mechanic, and Ditto-a 28-year-old genetic experiment with a six-year-old's body-the medic. Character motivations often serve plot and exposition, but the action is nonstop. Most memorable are the corporate and police structures and weapons (including a slug shot that wraps its victim instantly in cellophane, requiring a vat of acid for removal) and the intriguing, philosophically elusive nature of the blue supernatural creatures. (Science fiction. 10-14) (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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