false<![CDATA[Ariel]]>http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255895044m/6421522.jpg16699067 Ariel may've gone out of print after its 1983 debut, but fans haven't let it fade away. For years, used copies have been making the rounds, commanding a premium auction price & making a profit for used book dealers. Now, you can not only get your own fresh, updated version, you can get it as an ebook. Given its theme, the metamorphosis seems particularly ironic.
For two years, Pete Garey wandered thru the strange new world of Earth after the Change, a moment when technology ceased to work & things like planes, trains & automobiles became junk. He was alone until the day he was found by a unicorn who'd become his familiar. Ariel is just one of the many magical creatures to appear after the Change, but the only one with the stunning ability (or, perhaps, desire) to talk. The bond between Pete & Ariel will be like no other he's experienced.
If you know mythology, you know what anyone who wishes to be close to a unicorn must be. Pete's a virgin of twenty. In many ways he's more unworldly than expected. Whether the loss of the technical wonders of modernity has contributed to his naivete, or if it is the result of so many years in a depopulated country, is difficult to say. Could be he would have grown up that way even in the before-Change world. Whatever the reason, it makes him perfectly suited to be Ariel’s friend & foil.
Ariel is pure--she's a unicorn, after all--but no pushover. Like Pete, she has steel to balance her softness. At times, the struggle between the good & bad inside each of them is as great a threat as the unmitigated evil they join to defeat. Isn’t that the conflict at the heart of all good literature? In Ariel, readers have many dark/light things to consider, including deciding for themselves whether the world is a better or worse place after the Change. The answer is as ambiguous as most real life decisions. Boyett isn’t going to do your thinking for you.
Maybe that's the lasting appeal of Ariel. Little is clear cut in this fantasy. Not the motives of the characters. Not the true nature of the mythical beasts that emerge. Not even the why of everything that happened. Such unanswered questions are among the many reasons your thoughts will turn again & again to this book, re-examining these unknowns.--Lisa DuMond (edited)74046book1121983Ariel: A Book of the Changetotal:110|5:37|4:29|3:29|2:9|1:6|1104123083730falsefalseTue Oct 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Oct 16 15:28:28 -0700 2009Tue Oct 20 15:04:07 -0700 2009
The Last Unicorn, The Neverending Story, and The Stand. The protagonist's voice didn't ring true to me at first, but I was hooked by his relationship with the unicorn Ariel. Mayb...more...]]>
00falsefalseWed Sep 16 21:02:58 -0700 2009Wed Sep 16 21:03:31 -0700 2009
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20falsetrueWed Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Aug 25 11:12:09 -0700 2009Wed Sep 02 09:18:51 -0700 2009 World changes; selective science / technology doesn't work anymore, but magic does. Male Teen meets female unicorn; they bond. A Big Bad (think Buffy) arrives, and a rag-tag group of people rise up to oppose him. Insert improbably plot here. Teen grows up, story...more...]]>
30falsefalseWed Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009Fri Nov 13 19:05:03 -0800 2009Fri Nov 13 19:15:20 -0800 2009
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11falsefalseSun Aug 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Aug 23 15:21:49 -0700 2009Sun Aug 23 15:29:16 -0700 2009 Dialogue is stiff, plagued with adverbs (on dialogue tags too!), and almost every sentence has the word was in it. I read a whole paragraph, eight sentences, and every sentence started with his or ...more...]]>
40falsefalseMon Oct 19 00:00:00 -0700 2009Fri Oct 16 16:37:12 -0700 2009Fri Oct 16 16:37:23 -0700 2009
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20falsefalseThu Oct 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon Sep 28 08:52:12 -0700 2009Thu Nov 12 05:43:36 -0800 2009 The world of faerie, the griffin, the unicorn Ariel, makes it an urban fantasy at best. That it takes place after ...more...]]>
50falsefalseFri Apr 24 05:38:31 -0700 2009Fri Apr 24 05:41:33 -0700 2009
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10falsefalseMon Oct 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009Tue Aug 25 21:25:53 -0700 2009Mon Oct 26 13:30:23 -0700 2009
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30falsefalseFri Dec 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008Tue Jun 24 06:47:51 -0700 2008Mon Aug 24 19:15:00 -0700 2009
http://janicu.livejournal.com/80904.html...
The Premise: Pete is a high school student in Florida when suddenly technology stops. Planes fall out of the sky, cars and electricity stop working. Riots begin, and Pete is cut off from his parents who work too far away from his home or school t...more...]]>
50falsefalseSat May 02 19:37:17 -0700 2009Fri Dec 07 01:25:59 -0800 2007Sat May 02 19:37:17 -0700 2009
Steven Boyette creates between the main characters Ariel and Pete Garey. These two banter about as life long companion while the world around them are in awe he travels with a unicorn. It still pains me in the end when Garey loses Ariel, though I...more...]]>
30falsefalseTue Sep 22 00:00:00 -0700 2009Mon Sep 14 16:49:37 -0700 2009Tue Sep 22 12:50:11 -0700 2009 Now I am done....more...]]>
30falsefalseSat Sep 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sat Sep 05 20:53:51 -0700 2009Sun Sep 06 07:33:57 -0700 2009 I did enjoy the afterword a more than I enjoyed the ...more...]]>
40falsefalseWed Oct 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Oct 18 12:44:07 -0700 2009Wed Oct 21 18:56:58 -0700 2009
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20falsefalseTue Nov 10 09:39:09 -0800 2009Tue Nov 10 11:59:36 -0800 2009 It reads like a first novel, and I find the author's notes written years later pretty accurate in pinpoint...more...]]>
00falsefalseSun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1989Wed Jul 08 19:29:08 -0700 2009Wed Jul 08 19:31:16 -0700 2009
I would like to re-read this some day and, as I lost my father's copy, buy him a...more...]]>
20falsefalseThu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009Wed Sep 23 13:15:05 -0700 2009Thu Oct 01 07:59:15 -0700 20091
but wow. All I want to do is hide somewhere and read this.
Later: In spite of the interesting beginning, this turned out...more...]]>
50falsefalseTue Jan 27 14:33:59 -0800 2009Tue Jan 27 14:36:36 -0800 200940falsefalseSun Oct 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009Sun Oct 11 12:22:45 -0700 2009Sun Oct 11 12:24:13 -0700 200940falsefalseWed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003Sun Nov 29 17:37:07 -0800 2009Sun Nov 29 17:40:42 -0800 2009
http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6421522