The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book. The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it. King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him. Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave. But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys. His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail. But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...
Relic: Grab a Popsicle and chill out as you read this one (oh so punny).
Relic is set in the future, after the great floods sweep the globe and leave only those worthy as survivors in the polar ice land. Society has reached a peaceful and righteous equilibrium, and from the looks of it everyone is happy in their pre-determined life stations. Or so it seems.
Terrell starts out with the death scene of the main character's brother, Eamon. Eamon is murdered by a mystery killer as he was climbing the forbidden ice cliffs, and Eva, the main character, is introduced to us in mourning. She chooses to honor her brother by casting away her simple life of docile maiden, and replacing him in the Testing, a competition against nature, time, and other youthful competitors. The point of the competition is display your strength, wit, and skill by surviving and returning with a relic from the ice cliffs. The relics are examined and displayed for all to see; they serve as a proclamation of the evil of the past and the righteousness of the present. To succumb to the persuasive powers of the evil god Apple is a sin punishable by exile.
But wait! It seems that all is not what it seems in this cool community, and Eva starts to question her society and her beliefs.
I love the plot of this book. The idea is fresh and new, which seems to be rare these days, following the rush of vampire/werewolf/dystopian dramas. The phase is getting a bit old, in my opinion. This book though, really is new and original.
Unfortunately, the actual writing was kind of a let down. I honestly believe that fifty pages could have been cut out as Eva trekked across the icy plains. For the longest time, she didn't do much of anything, while the reader was left waiting for her to realize what we already gleaned in the beginning. The villains were easily distinguishable from the heroes, which is always boring, and the plot only picked up in the final twenty pages. And they were a good twenty pages, which was why I wish the book had cut out all the extraneous detail.
The book was not great, it was pretty average actually. I will be reading the second, however, because I think that if Terrell really took a critical look at her novel, edited out the unnecessary parts, and worked really hard, she could have a hit. The plot is really interesting, it's too bad that the writing fell through.
2.5/5 stars
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