Series are a bit of a problem in children's and young adult books. Readers love them, or they wouldn't get printed. Adults are not too sure - are they just repetitive? Do they make readers lazy? Are they reinforcing unacceptable values?

Look at all the fuss over the years about Enid Blyton books, and Biggles, and Baby Sitters Club, and Goosebumps.

Two recent Australian titles raise some of the pluses and minuses of books in series. Both are Young Adult titles and both are futuristic "Save the world!" adventures.

John Marsden's Tomorrow series has been immensely popular. This is the fifth title and two more are ahead to complete the whole story. Several of the titles (including this one) have won all kinds of awards, and are firmly placed in the best seller lists.

So, am I the only one who has misgivings about this book?

The story continues the battle of a group of teenagers against an unidentified invader of Australia. Only the New Zealand air force seems left to help them as virtually no other Australians can be found in the book. As the title suggests, by this stage of their struggle, they have suffered a lot and want to hit back. They manage to infiltrate a major air base (by accident) and blow it up, and it is here that the book is at its best.

The pace of this episode is fast and furious, the description very visual and immediate and the emotions highly charged. The interplay between the different personalities of the group works very well, with fear, courage, hopelessness, anger, elation all tumbling over each other.

But then it stops. They escape and spend more than half the book hiding. Here, in the middle of a seven book series, should have been the opportunity for Marsden to explore and help us understand the personal problems highlighted by the mission. Certainly Ellie (the narrator) spends a long time talking about it. This type of understanding has been the focus of several of Marsden's recent books, especially about boys and their emotional needs.

But nothing like this happens in Burning for Revenge. For instance, one of the group, Kevin, gives in to his fears. Despite all the time Ellie spends in trying to analyse each of the group, Kevin is simply dismissed as a coward and a burden.

Later, they encounter a group of terrified children who have gone 'feral' to protect themselves. After one brief attempt to track them, they too are dismissed and ignored.

These sorts of 'unfeeling' elements are what disturbs me about this book. Despite all the emotion and worry that flows, via Ellie, through the book, there seems little concern for anyone else. The whole book seems shallow, suggesting that perhaps John Marsden has fallen into a major fault of series books: stretching his story just a little bit too thinly through too many books.

The same cannot be said of Michael Pryor's latest, The House of Many Rooms, yet. This is the first of a trilogy (the standard number for these fantasy, 'other world' adventures) and it sets up a very interesting number of possibilities for the later episodes.

The House of Many Rooms is an alternative world into which Saul is dragged when a beautiful princess and her hard-pressed followers use Earth as an escape route from her evil cousin Stefan. He discovers his ability to open doors to other worlds and chooses to join the band in their fight.

This capacity to change worlds is a useful device for a writer as it enables plenty of scene and character changes. Pryor builds it into the structure of the story by making the House a created universe that is constantly being built and rebuilt. Stefan's plan to rip down all the traditional superstructure threatens the whole universe, including Earth. A dangerous and destructive finale certainly sets the scene for the next book in the series with plenty of questions left unanswered.

This is the major comparison with Burning for Revenge. While that book could have told its story in half the length without much loss of depth, House could easily have been much longer and still not stretched its possibilities too thinly.

The characters in The House display the same emotions as those in Burning for Revenge. But unlike John Marsden, Michael Pryor does not try to make personal analysis a major part of the book. Therefore, unlike John Marsden, he does not disappoint by falling short. He just writes an adventure, and does it well. I am looking forward to the next two books.
 

Other titles in the Tomorrow series:
Tomorrow, when the war began
The dead of the night
The third day, the frost
Darkness, be my friend
The night is for hunting
The other side of dawn

Other titles in the Doorways series:
The Book of Plans
The Unmaker

Review by David Beagley

© 1998 David Beagley