Promising-looking but ultimately rather blah YA fantasy featuring not only Nicholas Flamel (and the missus), but Dr John Dee too, both alive and well and living in modern San Francisco. Clunkily written � I complain about clunky writing so often that I can only assume that nobody but me cares about it � and rather too full of state-of-the-art technology that will look as quaint as anything out of Enid Blyton in a few years' time. The first few pages alone are littered with references to Bluetooth earpieces, Goth music, trendy coffee shops, computer games, 'Shrek', and David Copperfield (not the Dickens one, the other one). And heaven forbid that the young female protagonist would just wear a denim jacket: oh, no, it has to be VINTAGE denim. The story itself is a hotchpotch of pretty much every scrap of mythology you can imagine all jumbled up together, up to and including Atlantis (to say nothing of the goddess Hekate living inside Yggdrasil). Part one of a trilogy, and I don't think I can be bothered with parts two and three.