Published Information
| Author: | Michael Scott |
| Series: | The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel #1 |
| Published: | May 2007 |
| Genre: | Fantasy |
| Pages: | 400 |
Plot Summary
Sophie and Josh Newman are 15 year old twins who have taken up summer jobs in San Francisco. Josh works in a book shop for Nick Fleming and Sophie lands a job at the coffee shop across the street working for Perry Fleming, Nick's wife. In the first couple of chapters we learn that Nick and Perry are anything but normal and are actually near immortal humans. Specifically, Nick is Nicholas Flamel, the famous alchemist, and Perry is a very powerful sorceress. Both have been living for centuries and now work to protect the earth from being destroyed by the Dark Elders, basically evil gods who once ruled the earth, but were beaten by humans and their iron.
On top of everything, it turns out that Sophie and Josh are also a part of saving the world, and are part of a prophesy in which they will have the power to save or destroy the world. They problem is that they don't understand this magic world, have no magic of their own that they are aware of, and are just learning to drive. How can they be the prophesied twins to save the world from the Dark Elders? Fortunately, Nick and Perry, along with an ancient vampire, will all work together to train them. But will it be soon enough? The Dark Elders have also discovered their existence and are sending all of their servants, as well as themselves, to try and capture, if not kill the twins.
Comments
So a couple of things on this book. First, vampire books are becoming popular, as are books about the gods. This is the first one that I have read that attempts to blend the two. Of course, vampires are a little different that we normally think, as are the gods. But they are still present, and in an enjoyable form
Second, the author makes a habit of describing something a character does by explaining it from a non-standard point of view. For instance, most authors might say the following: "Joe said some words and then cracked a smile. Jane noticed the smile and wasn't sure what it meant." This author says (in some instances): "Joe said some words. Jane wasn't sure what the smile meant." In other words, it is implied that Joe cracked a smile. There were several times where I went searching back into the book to figure out when "Joe smiled." It took most of the book before I figured out this grammatical structure/style and it was very frustrating until then. In fact it was still frustrating because you are not sure Jane was talking about Joe's smile, her smile, or a random smile that appeared in the air.
Third, "deux ex machina" is a standard in this book. There are several times when there is no possible way to escape, but all of the sudden, the main characters are able to call upon a here to fore unknown power to fix the problem. That is one of my pet peeves. That being said, it isn't as obvious as I have seen in other books so it didn't bother me so much.
Overall, the book was enjoyable and a good page turner. At the end of the book, you find that the author has based much of the book on research of people that really did exist. That has made me want to go back and re-read just to see the real human aspect of the characters. Obviously, they didn't have mystical magic powers, but they were real scientists of their times.
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