Desperately seeking details
Arwen Elys Dayton’s debut novel needs more worldbuilding and character development.
Seeker Author: Publisher:
ANEW year, a renewed expectation of good books coming my way. So for my first read of 2015, I decided to dive into action-packed, young adult fantasy fiction because, hey, what better way to kickstart the year? Or so I believed. Three apprentices, Quin, Shinobu and John, have trained almost their whole lives to become revered Seekers. What is a Seeker, you ask? No, I cannot answer the question, because even after reading the entire book twice, I still don’t get it. There are excerpts inserted loosely, describing the tasks of a Seeker: Saving the innocent, bringing justice to the world, etc, but the build up of the origins and evolution of Seekers is seriously lacking.
So the three apprentices train in a medieval setting in the middle of Scotland, which makes no sense, really – more about that later. We are also introduced to a so-called great weapon named the disruptor, because it fires rainbow-coloured sparks that will dis- rupt your mind. A disruptor that disrupts your mind? How ... original.
Moving forward, while Quin and Shinobu successfully complete their training and take their oaths as Seekers, John fails, say the trainers who happen to be Quin and Shinobu’s fathers, Briac and Alistair, respectively. John is sent back home to his grandfather, but returns with a vengeance, driven by a promise made to his mother.
But maybe he had the better deal because Seekers? They aren’t so wonderful, after all. Quin and Shinobu discover that instead of saving the world and defending the weak, they are to become hired assassins alongside their dads.
There is an underlying theme of students hating their masters (who just so happen to be their parents), and eventually turning on them which I found extremely odd. Why would your own father knowingly deceive you? Why would your mother support this? I would ship them a Parenting For Dummies book if I could.
So, romance. Did you really think you could read a YA book and not plod through a lacklustre relationship? So we have John and Quin, in a not-so-secret relationship. Shinobu, who is a distant cousin of Quin’s, really, really likes her but she doesn’t know it, or perhaps chooses to feign ignorance. Again, this is another uncertainty. Yes, we encounter little snippets of teenage angst in the romance department, but I suppose it is to be expected. So dear reader, do reserve a sliver of tolerance for the exceedingly conventional love triangle.
Have I mentioned that the characters are poorly developed? Take John, for instance. Every single time I started believing the author could not muck up John’s character further, she proved me wrong. Throughout the book, he makes multiple proclamations about how much he loves Quin, and would never do anything to harm her. Yet whenever they meet, he does just that, harm her. Given, he needs Quin to teach him how to wield an athame – a weapon only sworn Seekers know how to use. But really, my dear, beating a person up is not the way to ask for help.
Then there are the various settings. See, the Seekers can travel through time but they need to remain very focused while doing so or else they will be trapped forever “between”. What is this “between”? Cue my clueless face again. And how is it that the apprentices train in a seemingly medieval Scotland, appear in what seems to be the “golden era” of Hong Kong when opium was still considered chic, and then find themselves in London aboard a flying ship! The time travel gimmick doesn’t really explain all this.
As reluctant as I am to praise this book in any way, I have to say that there were several decent scenes. I’m only sorry there weren’t more of them in the first few chapters. Perhaps the author was trying to avoid an infodump, but honestly, there was simply not enough to work with in the beginning. By the time I got to slightly more interesting arcs, I was way past caring and just wanted to be done with it.
So why did I read the book twice, you ask? Because I wanted to be absolutely, 100% sure I did not miss any explanations about the evolution of Seekers. Yes, I admit I was rather intrigued by the idea of Seekers and the mysterious, time-travelling creatures dreads, but sadly, my effort was for naught.
I believe a sequel is in the works; would I give it a try? Personally, no, just ... no.
The theatre lies across the River Thames from the site of London’s 17th-century printing houses near St Paul’s Cathedral.
About 750 copies of Shakespeare’s collected plays were printed seven years after the playwright died in 1616.
Some 230 copies are known to have survived, including the book found among belongings from a now-defunct Jesuit college in Saint-Omer, near Calais.
Saint-Omer librarian Remy Cordonnier identified the folio, which was missing its title page and had been misidentified as an 18th-century printing.
He said annotations suggest it was been used for student performances at the college – some of the bawdier jokes have been crossed out.
One First Folio sold at Christie’s auction house in 2006 for US$6.8mil (RM24.6mil at today’s rates).
Saint-Omer mayor Francois Decoster said Cordonnier had told him of the discovery.
“I think we’ve found the second-most-precious book in the world.” – the town already has a copy of the most valuable, the 15th-century Gutenberg Bible.
Rylance said that 17 Shakespeare plays were not printed in the playwright’s lifetime.
Without the First Folio they would have been lost.
“This one will return and live a few hundred yards from where it was originally created,” he said, looking out across the Thames from the Globe.
“Magical.” — AP