Pendragon: The Lost City of Faar

Picture this: You're headed to a basketball game when your uncle takes you on a side trip to an old abandoned subway, where you find that you are a traveler, somebody destined to keep balance in every world. This is Bobby Pendragon's fate in D.J. MacHale's Pendragon series. This is the second installment in Bobby's Action-packed fight for peace.

In The Lost City of Faar, Bobby finds himself headed for another Territory, or planet, searching for his nemesis, Saint Dane, a really bad guy bent on destroying Halla, or in other words, EVERYTHING. *Gasp* Pretty bad, right? Anyway, Bobby's traveling to a planet named Cloral, the last place that Saint Dane had been seen. When he gets there, he finds out that the entire Territory is covered with water, and people survive on these giant boats the size of cities called habitats. Each habitat plays an important part in the economy, and without one, the whole system would get really out of whack. When one habitat crashes into another, with everyone aboard dead, Bobby has to find out who did it. His suspicions point to Saint Dane, but you can never be sure in a traveler's life.

I enjoyed this book much more than the previous one. The only reason I even read the first is because my friends kept telling me that the series was good. The first book wasn't bad, I just couldn't get into it. This one, on the other hand, had me hooked from very early on. I suspect it was because this one was very inventive and had cool gadgets that I had only dreamed of before. On the other hand, the way that the author presents the story makes it extremely obvious that Bobby will be okay and that all will be well. This put a damper on the story, but you soon forget about that when you start reading it.

I really liked that this book gave you multiple perspectives of the same thing. Bobby meets up with another traveler from Cloral named Spader, who has lived on the Territory his entire life. Eventually, they visit another Territory, where there is actually solid ground, and Spader finds everything foreign and a bit scary. He doesn't know how they survive without being surrounded by water, while Bobby can hardly believe that Cloral manages it.

This book deals with the issue of revenge. Spader's dad, another traveler from Cloral, is found dead on the Habitat that crashed, and Spader immediately wants to find who did it and kill them, which is very contradictory to his normally bright and lighthearted attitude. I thought it was interesting that even though Spader's father was destined to die because there can't be multiple travelers from the same Territory, he still won't rest until revenge is dealt. This book shows how revenge and other negative feelings can interfere with what needs to be done.

Ultimately, this was a great sequel to a great series. I think that it only improved upon the first, and it seems to be the same with the third book. It gives you a fresh perspective on how different people see the same thing in very unique ways. There are also some pretty deep parts to it, and you can't get your mind off of them for a while. While it may be a bit of a predetermined ending, it's a wild ride to get there. Anybody who likes a good story with some creative twists to it will love this series. It wasn't perfect, but pretty darn Close. This definitely deserves an A.