Carnival by Kanneh-Masons
Album
Decca Classics announces the release of Carnival, a very special collaboration between Academy...
SpiderBeetleBee by Bill MacKay
Album Watch
Drag City presents the second volume of Bill MacKay and Ryley Walker's inspired collaboration. It's...
folk rock
Academic Emergency Medicine
Education and Magazines & Newspapers
App
Wiley’s leading emergency medicine journal is now available on your iPad and iPhone. Academic...
Suite Francaise
Book
By the early l940s, when Ukrainian-born Irène Némirovsky began working on what would become Suite...
Starboard (Voyagers #2)
Book
Dylan: I’ve lived my adult life under the Hollywood spotlight, but no one really sees who I am....
Contemporary MM Romance
Hazel (1853 KP) rated The Calling (Endgame #1) in Books
Dec 7, 2018
The result of collaboration between James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton is this first book in a dystopian series, <i>Endgame: The Calling</i>. Twelve teenage descendants of ancient cultures from across the world have been trained to represent humanity in a game that will determine the future of the world. The only way to win is to discover three keys and be the last player left alive. These young people are not just playing for their own lives for if they die their entire family line will be wiped out.
<i>Endgame: The Calling</i> focuses on discovering the first key, Earth Key. After meeting each other in China, each of the twelve is given a clue to solve that will help lead them in the right direction. Although there can only be one winner, a couple of the player decide to help each other out, but is there really anyone who can be trusted?
<i>Endgame</i> reminds me of <i>The Hunger Games</i> by Suzanne Collins but on a much larger scale, and also a more adult version. The entire planet is the games’ arena, which does not bode well for a lot of the world’s inhabitants. That is one of the things I disliked about this book, the unnecessary deaths of innocents. There was a lot of gruesome murder, which admittedly is the point of <i>Endgame</i>, but some of it was uncalled-for.
I did not particularly care for the writing style and formatting of the text. It was often confusing to work out who was saying or doing what. Another thing I did not like was that there was not an obvious protagonist. It is hard to know whether there is a particular character we should be rooting for or whether they should all be regarded as equal.
For a science fiction, dystopian novel <i>Endgame</i> is an interesting idea, fast paced and full of action. Unfortunately the events, names and puzzles leave the reader feeling bewildered, and the gruesome scenes rather disgusted.
Overall I think this book would appeal to an audience who loves a lot of brutal action and solving things. It requires the reader to be able to think rather than sit back and enjoy. Personally, I am not bothered about reading the next in the series.
SunnyFunnies: Hide and Seek
Education and Games
App
SunnyFunnies are interactive tales – educational games for children, ages 2-5. This app was...