04 April, 2011

Review - Havoc (Malice Book 2) by Chris Wooding

The story in a nutshell:

Malice is an underground comic depicting kids in horrible situations, battling terrible monsters and overcoming (or not) even worse obstacles...and it's all real. Any kid who does the ritual and says the right words will be taken to Malice by the evil Tall Jake, ruler of Malice.

Havoc is a group of kids banded together to be the thorn in Tall Jake's equally lengthy foot (actually I don't know if that last part's true).

Havoc [US] [UK] was a great conclusion to the Malice duology and I have to say I liked it even better than the first. Wooding does a great job of not only creeping you out with the tone he's set, but his plotting is exciting and action-packed. All in a middle-grade level book. (There is a comic picture of a person's butt that emphasizes this point) :)

If you don't already know, Malice (my review) and Havoc are novels interspersed with comics and it's done almost flawlessly. I say almost because there is still a bit of a disconnect going from comic form to novel and back, but nothing that hurts the story in any way and nothing that's really avoidable in any way.

The imagination is brilliant, it's fun, it's an insanely quick read, and totally worth it even if you think you're too good for a kids book. :)

I did find myself looking forward much more to the limited comic portions, which sped by way too fast. But that's not anything I can really fault the book for.

Why Read Havoc?

I'll answer your question with a question...Do you like Awesome? Highly recommended.

4 out of 5 Stars

3 comments:

Jared said...

Interesting! I read (and enjoyed) Malice, but had just sort of assumed it was a trilogy. If it actually concludes in two volumes, I'm much more drawn to it... especially if the second is this good!

Bryce L. said...

Oh yeah, it's awesome. I need to read more Wooding. I have Retribution Falls ordered already.

Anonymous said...

I much preferred Malice, myself. It was more dark, twisted and grim whereas Havoc was more of a crazy, childish and full-out warfare sort of thing...