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Pendragon: Before the War #2
The Travelers: Book Two
Before Bobby Pendragon.
Before Saint Dane.
Before the war . . .
Every territory of Halla has a Traveler. They lived for years—some even for decades—before learning of their true destiny. What was life like for Bobby Pendragon's fellow Travelers before they joined him in the fight to save every time and place that has ever existed? What led up to their becoming the guardians of Halla? The answers are here!
In this first of three thrilling Pendragon prequels, read about Vo Spader's death-defying adventures in the underwater world of Cloral, Gunny Van Dyke's race to find a murderer in 1930's Manhattan on First Earth, and the tough challenges Kasha faced on Eelong well before Bobby Pendragon arrived . . .
Before Saint Dane.
Before the war . . .
Every territory of Halla has a Traveler. They lived for years—some even for decades—before learning of their true destiny. What was life like for Bobby Pendragon's fellow Travelers before they joined him in the fight to save every time and place that has ever existed? What led up to their becoming the guardians of Halla? The answers are here!
In this first of three thrilling Pendragon prequels, read about Vo Spader's death-defying adventures in the underwater world of Cloral, Gunny Van Dyke's race to find a murderer in 1930's Manhattan on First Earth, and the tough challenges Kasha faced on Eelong well before Bobby Pendragon arrived . . .
233 pages, Paperback
First published February 24, 2009
16 people are currently reading
2686 people want to read
About the author
Walter Sorrells
30 books60 followersAlso writes under the pseudonyms of Lynn Abercrombie and Ruth Birmingham. Sorrells has now stopped writing and earns a living as a knife maker. He has a Youtube channel about it.
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April 6, 2009The second book in the trilogy of prequels to the Pendragon series proves to be even better than the first! This book follows the stories of Aja Killian from Veelox, Elli Winter from Quillan, and Alder from Denduron.
When a strange program attacks the core of Lifelight in Rubic City, Aja is blaimed. However, she knows she is innocent and also knows the person who designed the program. The only way to clear her reputation is to play the boy's game...and to win. Will Aja succeed or will she be thrown out of the academy for phaders forever?
Elli Winter lives on Quillan, a gloomy territory ruled solely by the menacing power of Blok, a company that has taken over this world. When Elli falls into a construction hole filled with a vortex of mud and water, she finds herself in a warehouse filled with strange people who call themselves the revivers. These people collect pieces of Quillan's past before Blok and plan to one day rise up and overthrow this all-powerful company. Elli's knack for knowing where artifacts are buried proves very useful on the excavations. When Elli and her team go on an unauthorized excavation, based on her gut feeling, security robots, called dados, find them. Will Elli survive and find the important artifact she believes she is looking for. Or will the dados take it and have it destroyed forever?
Alder wants nothing more than to be a Bedoowan knight, the knights who protect the lesser village people, the Milagos, who mine for a mineral called glaze deep in the mines. However, at the academy, the master heaps him with endless chores and does not allow him to train. Alder is an orphan and has no money to pay the academy fees. When he meets a strange old man willing to train him, Alder leaps at the chance. Through his training he learns about the unfair treatment of the Milago that was hidden from him. Will Alder follow his destiny and become both a knight and a Traveler? Or will his efforts fail?
This novel is filled with even more suspense than the first one. The Travelers: Book Two is far superior to its predecessor and also a great read.
When a strange program attacks the core of Lifelight in Rubic City, Aja is blaimed. However, she knows she is innocent and also knows the person who designed the program. The only way to clear her reputation is to play the boy's game...and to win. Will Aja succeed or will she be thrown out of the academy for phaders forever?
Elli Winter lives on Quillan, a gloomy territory ruled solely by the menacing power of Blok, a company that has taken over this world. When Elli falls into a construction hole filled with a vortex of mud and water, she finds herself in a warehouse filled with strange people who call themselves the revivers. These people collect pieces of Quillan's past before Blok and plan to one day rise up and overthrow this all-powerful company. Elli's knack for knowing where artifacts are buried proves very useful on the excavations. When Elli and her team go on an unauthorized excavation, based on her gut feeling, security robots, called dados, find them. Will Elli survive and find the important artifact she believes she is looking for. Or will the dados take it and have it destroyed forever?
Alder wants nothing more than to be a Bedoowan knight, the knights who protect the lesser village people, the Milagos, who mine for a mineral called glaze deep in the mines. However, at the academy, the master heaps him with endless chores and does not allow him to train. Alder is an orphan and has no money to pay the academy fees. When he meets a strange old man willing to train him, Alder leaps at the chance. Through his training he learns about the unfair treatment of the Milago that was hidden from him. Will Alder follow his destiny and become both a knight and a Traveler? Or will his efforts fail?
This novel is filled with even more suspense than the first one. The Travelers: Book Two is far superior to its predecessor and also a great read.
July 10, 2016
This was a large improvement over the first book in this series for two main reasons. The characters were more fleshed out, and the plots went at a faster pace. I also liked that there was more showing and less telling. Overall, it felt like a more polished book than the first one.
There were still a couple of major downsides. One, Ellie's story ended just as it was getting super exciting - I would have loved to see how she and Nevva worked together. Two, Alder's story ends with someone dying , yet it was so short that the death barely registered with me. If these books were longer, I would have more time to get attached to the Travelers and their companions.
There were still a couple of major downsides. One, Ellie's story ended just as it was getting super exciting - I would have loved to see how she and Nevva worked together. Two, Alder's story ends with someone dying , yet it was so short that the death barely registered with me. If these books were longer, I would have more time to get attached to the Travelers and their companions.
February 21, 2022
I’ll admit I was torn about whether to read this book. I found myself pretty disappointed by the first volume in this prequel trilogy, and while this and the final book are both short, I wasn’t sure whether it was worth spending my time on it. The fact that this book and book 3 are written by a different author than the first one gave me some hope, and surprisingly that hope was rewarded. This still isn’t quite as good as the main series, and I still have some quibbles, but it’s a marked improvement over the first book.
The biggest change for the better is that these stories feel like they actually matter. The first book was random events from the early days of three Travelers, and I wondered in my review why we couldn’t see something more interesting and relevant about them learning they’re travelers. Lo and behold, each story in this book has the future Traveler meet Uncle Press and learn about Halla and their destiny. This really helps me feel like these stories have an actual reason for existing and aren’t just a cash grab.
On the other hand, it’s still clear that these three stories aren’t a good jumping on point for those not already familiar with the main series. Press’s conversations with the new Travelers are generally glossed over, and there’s also no attempt to explain anything about the territories the Travelers are native to. This isn’t too much of an issue in Alder’s tale; as I noted in my review of Merchant of Death, Denduron is a pretty typical medieval world and Alder’s quest to become a knight is easy to understand for the average fantasy fan. But Aja’s story never bothers to explain what Lifelight is, and since I haven’t reread The Quillan Games yet, I had to do my best to figure out Elli’s world from the context in the story.
But if you are already familiar with Pendragon and the Territories, these stories are fun. Aja’s is a bit too much like the Spader one from the first book, as it also involves her dealing with a school rival, but it somewhat addresses my big issue with The Reality Bug. Whereas Bobby was content to play a fantasy version of his own life, here Aja is forced into a dungeon crawler video game where she has to use her brain to figure out how to escape. If The Reality Bug had shown more things like this, I might have liked it better. Though on the other hand the school rival turns out to be working for Saint Dane, a plot thread I’m almost certain will never go anywhere because he doesn’t appear in the main series.
The Elli Winter story is probably the most interesting of the three. Elli is the second oldest Traveler, as she’s a middle aged mother, and she’s just lost her husband to the cruel corporation that runs her Territory. She winds up becoming the janitor for a literally underground resistance base where the treasures of the past are protected from the megacorp. Whereas Gunny’s story felt like it didn’t really fit his character, Elli’s was interesting because she really plays into the invisibility of being seen as just the cleaning lady. And yet she has an almost supernatural ability to find the lost pieces of art that have been buried and has committed herself to memorizing the various books that are recovered. This story made me interested in getting to the Quillan Games in the main series, especially because I remember nothing about it from the first time I read the books as a kid, and I think Elli will be an interesting character to see more of.
Alder’s story wasn’t bad, but it felt a bit more generic than the other two. It’s well written and engaging, as it shows Alder going from the kid that’s made fun of at the knight academy to a real knight. But the story feels like it could be in a part of any number of other kid’s fantasy series, from Tortall to Ranger’s Apprentice. I think the whole thing suffers from the fact that Denduron, being the starting territory, is significantly less out there than the others, and Alder really doesn’t get much screen time in Merchant of Death, which leaves the author little to build from. He’s not a bad character, but there’s really nothing about him that made me want more of him.
Of course, while I enjoyed this more than the first book, I’m not sure I can really recommend it. If you like one or more of the characters in this book and want more of them, then it may be worth reading, but this definitely isn’t a good jumping on point to the series, and I don’t think it’s worth slogging through the first volume - though the short story format means there’s no reason you can’t just skip that. I will be reading the third and final Book of the Travelers in the near future, but that’s more for completeness’s sake, and I don’t know I’d miss these books if they didn’t exist.
The biggest change for the better is that these stories feel like they actually matter. The first book was random events from the early days of three Travelers, and I wondered in my review why we couldn’t see something more interesting and relevant about them learning they’re travelers. Lo and behold, each story in this book has the future Traveler meet Uncle Press and learn about Halla and their destiny. This really helps me feel like these stories have an actual reason for existing and aren’t just a cash grab.
On the other hand, it’s still clear that these three stories aren’t a good jumping on point for those not already familiar with the main series. Press’s conversations with the new Travelers are generally glossed over, and there’s also no attempt to explain anything about the territories the Travelers are native to. This isn’t too much of an issue in Alder’s tale; as I noted in my review of Merchant of Death, Denduron is a pretty typical medieval world and Alder’s quest to become a knight is easy to understand for the average fantasy fan. But Aja’s story never bothers to explain what Lifelight is, and since I haven’t reread The Quillan Games yet, I had to do my best to figure out Elli’s world from the context in the story.
But if you are already familiar with Pendragon and the Territories, these stories are fun. Aja’s is a bit too much like the Spader one from the first book, as it also involves her dealing with a school rival, but it somewhat addresses my big issue with The Reality Bug. Whereas Bobby was content to play a fantasy version of his own life, here Aja is forced into a dungeon crawler video game where she has to use her brain to figure out how to escape. If The Reality Bug had shown more things like this, I might have liked it better. Though on the other hand the school rival turns out to be working for Saint Dane, a plot thread I’m almost certain will never go anywhere because he doesn’t appear in the main series.
The Elli Winter story is probably the most interesting of the three. Elli is the second oldest Traveler, as she’s a middle aged mother, and she’s just lost her husband to the cruel corporation that runs her Territory. She winds up becoming the janitor for a literally underground resistance base where the treasures of the past are protected from the megacorp. Whereas Gunny’s story felt like it didn’t really fit his character, Elli’s was interesting because she really plays into the invisibility of being seen as just the cleaning lady. And yet she has an almost supernatural ability to find the lost pieces of art that have been buried and has committed herself to memorizing the various books that are recovered. This story made me interested in getting to the Quillan Games in the main series, especially because I remember nothing about it from the first time I read the books as a kid, and I think Elli will be an interesting character to see more of.
Alder’s story wasn’t bad, but it felt a bit more generic than the other two. It’s well written and engaging, as it shows Alder going from the kid that’s made fun of at the knight academy to a real knight. But the story feels like it could be in a part of any number of other kid’s fantasy series, from Tortall to Ranger’s Apprentice. I think the whole thing suffers from the fact that Denduron, being the starting territory, is significantly less out there than the others, and Alder really doesn’t get much screen time in Merchant of Death, which leaves the author little to build from. He’s not a bad character, but there’s really nothing about him that made me want more of him.
Of course, while I enjoyed this more than the first book, I’m not sure I can really recommend it. If you like one or more of the characters in this book and want more of them, then it may be worth reading, but this definitely isn’t a good jumping on point to the series, and I don’t think it’s worth slogging through the first volume - though the short story format means there’s no reason you can’t just skip that. I will be reading the third and final Book of the Travelers in the near future, but that’s more for completeness’s sake, and I don’t know I’d miss these books if they didn’t exist.
April 16, 2023
I loved this book because we get to learn a little bit more about some lesser known Travelers.
Aja, Ellie, and Alder.
We get to see Aja learn how to think outside the box. That logic isn't always the answer.
We get to see Ellie's descent into depression and how she ends up abandoning her daughter. We also see her become a leader in her own right.
And Alder. We get to see Alder learn what being a knight actually means.
Every time Press showed up, I had to smile.
I am so sad there is only one more of these left. It was like having a bit of Pendragon back.
Aja, Ellie, and Alder.
We get to see Aja learn how to think outside the box. That logic isn't always the answer.
We get to see Ellie's descent into depression and how she ends up abandoning her daughter. We also see her become a leader in her own right.
And Alder. We get to see Alder learn what being a knight actually means.
Every time Press showed up, I had to smile.
I am so sad there is only one more of these left. It was like having a bit of Pendragon back.
October 5, 2020
i enjoyed this book much more than the first one. Each story was equally as interesting as the others; I can't even pick a favorite or least favorite. Each world that was described was easy enough for me to figure out as the story went on easily, but it was not just said straight out how the world worked. The fact that they are travelers is elaborated upon in this book more than in the previous one. All the characters were interesting as well.
January 3, 2019
Really enjoyed reading about the previous lives of travelers before they joined Bobby in the quest to defeat Saint Dane! This book features Aja Killian, Elli Winter and Alder. All three bring interesting backgrounds to the quest but I really liked Alder.
May 1, 2019
(reread in 2019)
This book made up for the first book in this collection of side stories. The characters Aja, Elli and Alder felt like they had more purpose as new found travelers. This book is more worth the read than the first one.
This book made up for the first book in this collection of side stories. The characters Aja, Elli and Alder felt like they had more purpose as new found travelers. This book is more worth the read than the first one.
July 16, 2017
we learn the background of Alder, Ellie and Aja
February 10, 2019
This was much better than the first book. Different author? Different characters? Regardless, it was much more intriguing and tied to the original series than the first one. I loved it.
April 5, 2022
Amazing!!! So great to hear more about these worlds!
August 7, 2022
Too short
March 8, 2024
I LOVE ALDER 😭😭😭😭
June 26, 2025
is good!
April 18, 2025
4.5. While Pendragon: Before The War (Book Two of the Travelers) doesn’t quite match its predecessor in terms of worldbuilding, it surpasses it with stellar characterization across all three short stories.
This time around, the stories hit harder, driving their characters into situations that force them to question their beliefs and confront their flaws. Though the worldbuilding remains intriguing and distinct across each tale, it undeniably takes a backseat to character development.
Among the three narratives, Aja’s story stood out the most. From the start, the stakes felt real, and the lesson she learned—shifting from pure logic to embracing emotion—was one of the most compelling arcs in the collection. Elli’s and Alder’s stories both explored the tension between who they thought they were meant to be versus who they actually are. However, Elli’s journey resonated more, as her unexpected role made her characterization feel fresh, whereas Alder’s followed more familiar tropes.
Overall, this was a strong continuation of the prequel trilogy. Six character introductions in, and I can’t wait to reconnect with them when their stories unfold in the main Pendragon series. Here’s hoping the final installment keeps the streak alive.
This time around, the stories hit harder, driving their characters into situations that force them to question their beliefs and confront their flaws. Though the worldbuilding remains intriguing and distinct across each tale, it undeniably takes a backseat to character development.
Among the three narratives, Aja’s story stood out the most. From the start, the stakes felt real, and the lesson she learned—shifting from pure logic to embracing emotion—was one of the most compelling arcs in the collection. Elli’s and Alder’s stories both explored the tension between who they thought they were meant to be versus who they actually are. However, Elli’s journey resonated more, as her unexpected role made her characterization feel fresh, whereas Alder’s followed more familiar tropes.
Overall, this was a strong continuation of the prequel trilogy. Six character introductions in, and I can’t wait to reconnect with them when their stories unfold in the main Pendragon series. Here’s hoping the final installment keeps the streak alive.
March 21, 2013
Aja's story was great. I loved the logic puzzle. Admittedly, I felt like not actually explaining it was a bit of a cop out, but it's just a short story and it was still very entertaining. Honestly it just feels good to start reading again.
Elli's story was okay. Never really had that much of a strong connection to her anyway so I wasn't ENTHRALLED, but it was interesting.
I liked Alder's story the best, I think. It was the most endearing and relatable.
I must admit that I find the writing pretty lackluster, but I loved the original series so much that I really don't care.
Elli's story was okay. Never really had that much of a strong connection to her anyway so I wasn't ENTHRALLED, but it was interesting.
I liked Alder's story the best, I think. It was the most endearing and relatable.
I must admit that I find the writing pretty lackluster, but I loved the original series so much that I really don't care.
April 27, 2009
I really liked this book. Aja Killian is one of my favorite travelers and I loved her story. I never really got a lot of Elli and her story besides that she was Nevva's mother. It was great to get some background on her. I always liked Alder. His beginning was different than I would have imagined it, but it fit him. The writer seemed to understand the characters and it felt like a DJ MacHale book rather than an "inspired by" book.
April 12, 2011
This was definitely another title within the Pendragon Before The War books that I didn't want to end. I had so much fun with this and the first title. These books are full of action and adventure and some fantastic characters that I look forward to running into in the Pendragon series. I highly recommend these titles to both kids and adults. Everybody will enjoy these tales for sure.
October 31, 2022
These short stories were quite interesting. I have to say that I found Elli's story more interesting than I expected since she is given so little characterization in the main series. Aja's story was also good and I feel like it made her character more interesting and more likeable than the Reality Bug. Alder's story was fun and it was an exciting journey to see him progress as a knight.
December 7, 2011
I've currently read Alder's story. next, I'm to read the backstory for Aja Killian, the traveller from Veelox. afterwards, I'll move over too book 1 of the Travellers since I'm on book 6 of Pendragon. if I read Elli Winter's story, it would be a spoiler.
January 16, 2016
2nd book in the prequel trilogy to give background stories about the Travelers in the Bobby Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale.
Travelers: Book Two is about Aja Killian and Lifelight on Veelox , Elli Winters on Quillan and Alder on Denduron.
Travelers: Book Two is about Aja Killian and Lifelight on Veelox , Elli Winters on Quillan and Alder on Denduron.
March 20, 2009
i can't wait until the third one of these are coming out. i definitly can't wait until the last pendragon book is coming out in may
May 6, 2009
I enjoyed reading this book, because I learned a lot from the situations and conflicts that occurred in this novel. This book captivated my interest because it was a solid read.
July 25, 2009
I liked Alder's story the best.
January 25, 2010
A lot better then the first of the prequels. I enjoyed it a lot more and felt like I learned a lot of interesting facts about Aja, elli, and alder and what lead them into becoming travelers.
June 4, 2010
Improvement story wise from the last one. I liked all three of these stories, but once again they all seemed out of character. Aja was nice. What's up with that?
June 1, 2011
Ok book, but the prequels are pretty unnecessary
April 11, 2011
It's really nice to read about the pre-Travelers lives and learn about in what ways they stood out from the others in their world.
January 28, 2014
amazing! about aja killians experiance in fighting a computer program, elli winters quest to save the world from blok INC., and alders jourany to become a bedoowan knight
January 28, 2017
Almost as good as the actual Pendragon series but not quite.
February 9, 2016
This was way better than the first book in this trilogy. Can't wait to dive into the third :)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews