Falcon Boy
Falcon Boy
(I’m not sure)
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By Barnaby Taylor
Rating
2 stars
Synopsis
Dr. Don’t Know unfurls a plan to take over the world. Luckily, Falcon Boy and his sidekick are (sort-of) there to stop it.
Prose
This is going to be difficult, so let’s get started. The writing is actually good in the way it has few mistakes. Quite often his lines and paragraphs are beautifully structured and roll together. This I can’t deny; however, there is a large underlying flaw to the whole thing. That is: what the author uses his writing for. Check it out.
“…with the show about to start and everything else she had to think about, she really couldn’t be bothered to pursue this whole thing any further.
‘You better get your outfit on,’ she simply told the drummer. ‘The show is about to start and I really cannot be bothered to pursue this whole thing any further.’”
Do you see what I’m talking about? This linguist repetition is done just enough to be disruptive—and I can only believe that is was intended to be funny, though I’m not sure who it was intended for. I believe this book is supposed to be for a younger audience, but even I wouldn’t enjoy this strange playfulness when I was young. Don’t worry—there’s more.
Characters
The title tells us there should be at least Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird in the story. However, that is not necessarily true. Before anything gets started, they are captured, leaving their release entirely up to a girl named Ellis. So we have her—sort of. The only problem here is that Ellis spends most of her time reflecting and rehashing in length the tales of her most favorite story detective Pearly Stockwell. So though we get to see actually quite a few characters with interesting names, none of them are developed to the degree that could be called rewarding. I’m afraid I can’t say much more here, so we’ll move on.
Structure
Here is where everything falls apart completely. The author constantly breaks the fourth wall, talking to us directly; added to which he raises things to a meta-level, addressing the flaws and the flow of the plot, jerking the story to a halt and launching it back into motion with little reason. All of this only further confounds why this book would be considered for children. Even as an adult, I found it grueling and lackluster.
All in all, the story was actually quite simple. Bad guy tries to take over the world. Girl foils it by releasing the superheroes that were captured, and…that’s it. The filler in between that fattens the book to 190+ pages are tangents that usually have very little relevance. Because of this too, the reader is forced to focus harder to get details that seem to be pertinent only to find out that none of them are.
Overall
Clearly, I’m not a super fan of this book. That said, I have to say the writing had its moments. The author knew how to string sentences together, but sadly that doesn’t always make a good story. There is literally little plot for the amount of pages spent. Though the book bounds with creativity, spotlighted in all the kooky sidetracking that is done, the heart of the story is weak if not non-existent. I hope if this author ever produces anything else, it picks its audience appropriately and has a little more cohesion to the events and characters with more depth. Even at a satirical level, this was lacking—and still not meant for KIDS!!!
Check out his book, https://www.amazon.com/Falcon-Bewilder-versus-Battle-Planets-ebook/dp/B00LZRKMXC?ie=UTF8&keywords=falcon%20boy&qid=1462925714&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1
Check out his website, here.
