Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Odd name for a hero - fab story!, 26 April 2009
This is a great book! Alfred Kropp is a fab hero - not gorgeous and unreal like so many paperback heroes, but clumsy, a bit odd looking, and honest with a good heart. He doesn't spend most of his time looking suave and sophisticated, instead he spends quite a bit of time confused and uncertain about the best course of action, which is why he's such a good choice for a hero. Don't get me wrong I love Alex Rider and the Young Bond books, but Alfred Kropp is a slightly more real character. I hate spoilers, but without giving too much away there's lots here to appeal - secret organisations out to save the world - and other organisations out to destroy it, an out of control agent of darkness, strange mystical dreams and a sword shrouded in mystery. Combine that with a beautiful heroine and driving some of the world's most expensive cars (oh, boys and their toys!) and you have an excellent spy/ mystery/ adventure story. I thoroughly recommend this book to early teens, although there's no reason why younger readers wouldn't enjoy it if they're into this sort of story, and as an adult I enjoyed it too! (I'm really pleased to see there are two more books out!)
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, 11 April 2008
Alfred Kropp is big enough to play football, but too clumsy to be any good, and too dense to remember the playbook. In fact, Alfred doesn't really excel at anything. Except for his height and big head, he's pretty much average. Ordinary. If only he were smaller, he could go through each day unnoticed.
He has no father and his mother died of cancer when he was only twelve. For two years he's been juggled between various foster homes until his Uncle Farrell appears and takes him in. And that's when his life becomes anything but ordinary.
A slick, devious stranger offers Uncle Farrell one million dollars to steal a special sword back from Mr. Samson, Farrell's boss. Alfred has many questions. How do they know it really belongs to the stranger? What happens to him if his uncle gets caught for stealing? Why is this man asking them to steal it? Uncle Farrell threatens Alfred. He has no choice. He either helps steal the sword, or he goes back to foster care.
As soon as Alfred wields the sword in his hands, he knows it is no ordinary sword. He finds out he's holding Excalibur, King Arthur's sword. The same sword that knights have been guarding for centuries. From the moment Alfred steals the sword he is pitched headlong into a world unlike any he has ever known. A world that clashes with knights, swords, fast cars, helicopters, daggers, guns, and much more.
Alfred, the ordinary foster kid, finds he has a not-so-ordinary connection to a world forgotten, and through that connection, he has been charged with saving the world by saving Excalibur. An extraordinary task for an ordinary kid.
My fourteen year-old son grabbed this book from my shelf before I had a chance to start it and daily badgered me to read it once he'd finished. I will be adding the second and third installments of this series to my library. This action-packed adventure is a must read. I dare you to try to put it down once you've begun. In THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ALFRED KROPP, Rick Yancey has done the impossible by merging a world of knights in shining armor with today's age of technology, an extraordinary combination! Amazing!
Reviewed by: Cana Rensberger
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