Six heroes. One Destiny. Live the legend with a new line of books based on BIONICLE, the first-ever, best-selling LEGO action figure.
In the time before time, a great being watched over the ancient land of Mata Nui, protecting it from harm. But now a powerful entity, Makuta, has arisen, and a dark and evil shadow has fallen over the land. Just when all seems lost, six heroes emerge from the darkness.
These mighty warriors are the Toa, and they have a single Destroy Makuta and restore peace to the land. Theirs will be a difficult mission, filled with grave dangers.
In the third BIONICLE CHRONICLE, the Toa face their greatest challenge yet, as they battle a powerful new the Bohrok Kal.
Catherine (Cathy) Hapka has written more than one hundred books for children and adults, as a ghostwriter for series as well as original titles, including the Romantic Comedies Something Borrowed, The Twelve Date of Christmas, and Love on Cue. She lives in Pennsylvania.
Deep beneath the island of Mata Nui, in a cavern so far below the surface that no ray of light had ever pierced its darkness, a pair of glowing red eyes stared out of a huge, shadowy face. Unblinking, the eyes turned upward, seeing far beyond what lay before them, through rock and earth and sand, all the way to the distant sunlit surface. pg. 3
This is not a book adults should read. Some children's fiction is accessible and fun for adults to read, but this is not it.
It's baffling. At times I couldn't even understand what was going on. There's a ton of made-up jargon that is liberally spread onto the book. The plot is nigh indecipherable.
I always thought Lewa was just a weirdo who spoke in a strange manner, but apparently in this book Hapka is saying there is a village where everyone talks like this. Not sure why.
I think this is probably the better of the Hapka chapterbooks, though maybe Beware the Bohrok is superior. Despite this section of 2003’s story being generally panned, I think the author does a good job with setting it up and concluding it. Would’ve been nice to have Takua tag alone— as I’ve been harping in these reviews he appears as the main character of that year’s Bionicle movie— like in the Bohrok-Kal animations, but at least there are other familiar faces from the line that aren’t the Toa who take a more active role. I think the Vahi plot-point is done about as well as could be expected. There really is no good way to integrate it, as cool as The Mask of Time is.
This one was decent. Probably my least favorite Bionicle Chronicles book so far. There were some interesting dynamics between the Toa as usual and an interesting premise, that they lose their powers, but little else really drew me in. Just an okay book.
A very mechanical story with promise, cheesy and it reeks of advertising all throughout. However there's still something compelling about the Bionicle story. It's very simple and it never reaches it's potential but it has the bones of a good fantasy adventure world.
Defeating the bad guy was done by making them use their power on themselves, but only because they had the power symbols they stole at the beginning of the story.. it just doesn’t make any sense. Liked the last one, this one just went out on a limb.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
the final confrontation between the Toa Nuva and the Bohrok-Kal is so great and it's nice that the Kanohi Vahi is actually set up before it appears unlike in the comic.
I'm going to come out and say it: the 2003 Bohrok-Kal arc is the worst one in all of BIONICLE. People get on the 2005 Hordika arc, but there was some cool stuff in there with the characters, and also the sets came with flying spinners. The Bohrok-Kal are reskinned Bohrok with shiny bits, and the entire thing is silly.
C.A. Hapka is doing her best with what she's got, but it's still pretty weak. At one point one of the Matoran is trying to describe the thief of a Nuva icon, and he struggles, when all he should be saying is, "It's a Bohrok, but shinier!" considering that they have reprogrammed Bohrok walking around all their villages.
It also doesn't make a lot of sense? Yes, that the Bohrok swarms have a failsafe isn't that out there, but given we're told the Bohrok aren't evil, just a force of destruction awakened too early, why oh WHY are the Bohrok-Kal such massive douchebags? They're proud, sadistic, power-hungry, and all-around unpleasant.
And WHY is it that the Nuva icons are needed to free the Bohrok queens? That's a connection that is never explained again, unless I forgot something. Also why the Toa Nuva lose their elemental powers when their Nuva icons are stolen, something that isn't brought up later on, and is nothing like how other Toa in the setting work. It's a transparent way to add more unnecessary drama by way of making the heroes helpless, and it's already annoying because once again, the Toa Nuva start the story like "Well we don't want to work as a team becauses teams are stupid," meaning they have to learn the team work lesson AGAIN.
The title's dumb too. Makuta's not in charge of the Bohrok! He just flipped the switch! The Kal are just the failsafe! This book gives us a couple of chapters from his perspective to make us remember he still exists, but this is so, SO not his show right now. He's just chilling in the background until the next arc.
Thankfully, there are a couple of really strong elements in the story. There's a great scene with Jalla telling Tahu to stop being so proud, and I like it. I like the interactions between Toa and the people they protect. This book also introduces the Mask of Time, and even though it's complete BS that it doesn't work on the Bohrok-Kal (a force field prevents them from TIME BEING SLOWED???), it's got cool bits attached to its story here (in the comics it came right the fudge out of nowhere--this book gives setup). And the way that they do defeat the Bohrok-Kal--feeding them too much power so that they're own powers go haywire and destroy them--is really cool and I've always loved that sequence.
Next book in the series is, from what I remember, pretty good, and the first one by GregF. So I look forward to that one.
Ooh, the evil Makuta. We finally meet the ultimate villain of the series. The Toa Mata got an upgrade, but so did the vermin Bohrok that they thought they defeated in the last book. This has to be my favorite of the BIONICLE Chronicles because we are just now starting to learn how the Toa really feel about each other and they are all learning how to take care of each other as well. I love how the girl Toa are always the ones to have affection toward their "brothers" but there's something about Gali Nuva that I love even more; she's so dedicated to defending her fellow Toa. But she's not the kind of personality that is all, "I have to sacrifice myself for my friends because that's how much I love them." No. She's the hardcore female who knows that if she falls during battle, then her friends will only suffer more, and that's why she is always fighting and keeping the group in unity. Don't get me wrong, she is willing to sacrifice herself for her friends, but she is wise enough to understand cause and effects, even after herself. Woo! It's getting better as we go, (I said that earlier didn't I)?
Amazon Book Description: In the time before time, a great being watched over the ancient land of Mata Nui, protecting it from harm. But now a powerful entity, Makuta, has arisen, and a dark and evil shadow has fallen over the land. Just when all seems lost, six heroes emerge from the darkness. These mighty warriors are the Toa, and they have a single destiny: Destroy Makuta and restore peace to the land. Theirs will be a difficult mission, filled with grave dangers. In the third Bionicle Chronicle, the Toa face their greatest challenge yet, as they battle a powerful new enemy: the Bohrok Kal.
I thought that it was a great book for ages 10 and up but there was a couple of places in the book that confused me. My favorite part was when the borok-kal were being killed by there own powers. I loved this book because the author used lots of descriptive words. I would rate this book 10 out of 10.
Another iffy Bionicle tale, the villains in his one are just slightly more powerful versions of the ones from the last. Still, Hapka does a fine job fleshing out the various characters. As usual, the message has an emphasis on friendship and teamwork.
This book was really good. I read it when I was younger, so I don't remember much about it. Sorry! They all run together! But I remember that it was good!
Basically may favorite book. With such a great story AND a very amazing author, it could hardly be bad. I definitely recommend you read it– after you read the first and second books, of course!