Thursday, July 28, 2011

Darkside (2007) Tom Becker

Tom ‘Becker’ Beckerlegge (b. 1982) is a British children's author.
He studied history at Jesus College, Oxford.
His first novel, Darkside, was published in 2007.
Since that time Becker has published at least four other Darkside novels.

I read 'Darkside' because I had to. I'm scheduled to work woth the book as a classreader for Year 8 (12/13 year old) students.

I did not like the book. It is utterly derivative. Not a single speck of originality.
The wereman is a take on Wolverine from the X-Men. Jonathan Starling is a take on Harry Potter and Philip Pullman's Lyra. The whole concept of the Darkside is a take on the 'worlds' created by Rowling and Phillip Pullman (Northern Lights series).

The book was clearly written with an eye to a spin-off series/film.
It's not even very well written - in terms of language.

I do hope that this is not the future of books for young adults.

No comments:

Post a Comment