The Rivers of Zadaa (Pendragon)
Grade 5-8 -Bobby Pendragon plunges once more into his fast-moving, rip-roaring, and basically pointless story in this sixth volume in the series. Here he and his ally, the beautiful, athletic teen-warrior Loor, team up to save Loor's home world of Zadaa from the despicable shape-changing demon Saint Dane. The villain has hatched a plot to cut off all the water from Loor's people, instigating a civil war between the thirsty Batu and the underground Rokador, with whom the Batu have until now kept an uneasy truce. The plot is about as deep as a cookie sheet, and the characterizations are even shallower-except for Pendragon, who grows as a character when he decides that he must learn to fight, and he asks Loor to teach him. Meanwhile, Saint Dane also bedevils Bobby's friends Mark and Courtney back home in Stony Brook, CT. This series treads water throughout most of its volumes; when readers reach the end of this episode, they're only microscopically farther along in the story arc than when they began. Still, the action never stops for long, andZadaais sure to hold the interest of fans of the series.-Walter Minkel, New York Public LibraryCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.