Leighton's Blog

Here is a small piece of video footage that I created with Blender, One of my first attempts at realism. (Also, please don’t use without permission, it is copyrighted.)

I was one of the first people to get The Curse of the Spider King, and was then able to give other people hints on the Alternate Reality Game. Now about the book:

The Curse of the Spider King

This is a unique book in the popular “Portal Fantasy” genre. Nothing weird there. A perfect example of portal fantasy is The Chronicles of Narnia, the kids come upon a portal and enter another world in which they have adventures. In The Curse of the Spider King the kids don’t go to the other world, the other world comes to them! Another amazing thing about the book is that, instead of having one, two or three, main protagonists, it has SEVEN!

Imagine writing that, and trying get the reader to sympathize with all of them. Whoa, that would be tough. But still Christopher Hopper and Wayne Thomas Batson come out on top, not only do they miraculously manage to get us attached to each of the seven teens, but they also get us to sympathize with possibly twice that number of sentinels, elves sent by Ellos to retrieve the teens to their rightful home.

Have you ever read a book that just overloads your brain with info and character names? You have? I’m not surprised. I bet you’re thinking that The Curse of the Spider King is gonna be one of those. “Seven protagonists?!!” you say. “N-No no. Not for me.” You are wrong. This book handles the names, the info, the history, everything in fact, so well that I would rate this book among the best written YA Fantasy out there. And no, I was not paid to say that. lol

Ooh. The suspense! I hate the suspense. Unfortunately I must admit that it is well written. Too well. lol I am still in suspense, the second book isn’t out yet! Many thanks and congrats to the authors!

Also, the book had me cracking up all the time. Funny stuff.

-Leighton