The Sacrifice by Charlie Higson
Dec. 25th, 2012 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
The sickness destroyed everyone over the age of fourteen. All across London diseased adults are waiting, hungry predators with rotten flesh and ravaged minds.
Small Sam and his unlikely ally, The Kid, have survived. They’re safe with Ed and his friends at the Tower of London, but Sam is desperate to find his sister.
Their search for Ella means Sam and The Kid must cross the forbidden zone. And what awaits them there is more terrifying than any of the horror they’ve suffered so far …
Sam and the Kid’s arrival at the Tower of London has reminded everyone of Matt’s prophecy of The Lamb and The Goat and despite Ed’s protection, Sam’s uncomfortable with the attention and desperate to find his sister, Ella. With Ed reluctant to help them, they turn to Ruth, a fellow rescuee who volunteers to take them across the forbidden zone. But Ruth isn’t all that she seems and Sam and the Kid meet some familiar faces and discover that there are worse things than the rampaging sickos …
Meanwhile Shadowman’s following St George who’s been building an army of organised sickos – developing strategies for ambushes against the kids they run across as they close in on central London. Shadowman’s warnings fall on deaf ears and all he can do is watch as St George grows into a much more powerful threat …
The fourth in Charlie Higson’s ENEMY SERIES finally returns to Sam’s storyline and the various plotlines from the preceding books finally begin to come together. Personally I found the Kid’s stylised dialogue a little much to take and the pacing sagged in places but I loved the way the sickos are developing and organising and the book does end with a great set-up for the next in the series.
Sam does a lot of growing up in this book and discovers things about the world that he wasn’t previously ready for. I liked the snippets of information about the Kid’s past and he’s a real survivor – inventive and smart in a way that Sam needs. His dialogue did grate with me at times – it’s very stylised and I’m not sure a kid of his age would use all of the cultural references that he touches on – but he is an original character who does add to the book.
I think Shadowman is also a great character, a practical realist who can’t quite be hard-hearted enough when it matters. His obsession with St George and their cat and mouse game is fascinating.
The pacing sags at times and I thought there were too many random Sicko encounters, which got a bit samey. However Higson remains brutal in culling characters and he really develops the Sicko mythology to explain how they came about with the introduction of the Green Man. The ending is a great set-up for the next in the series, which I’m really looking forward to reading.
The Verdict:
The fourth in Charlie Higson’s ENEMY SERIES finally returns to Sam’s storyline and the various plotlines from the preceding books finally begin to come together. Personally I found the Kid’s stylised dialogue a little much to take and the pacing sagged in places but I loved the way the sickos are developing and organising and the book does end with a great set-up for the next in the series. The ending is a great set-up for the next in the series, which I’m really looking forward to reading.
Small Sam and his unlikely ally, The Kid, have survived. They’re safe with Ed and his friends at the Tower of London, but Sam is desperate to find his sister.
Their search for Ella means Sam and The Kid must cross the forbidden zone. And what awaits them there is more terrifying than any of the horror they’ve suffered so far …
Sam and the Kid’s arrival at the Tower of London has reminded everyone of Matt’s prophecy of The Lamb and The Goat and despite Ed’s protection, Sam’s uncomfortable with the attention and desperate to find his sister, Ella. With Ed reluctant to help them, they turn to Ruth, a fellow rescuee who volunteers to take them across the forbidden zone. But Ruth isn’t all that she seems and Sam and the Kid meet some familiar faces and discover that there are worse things than the rampaging sickos …
Meanwhile Shadowman’s following St George who’s been building an army of organised sickos – developing strategies for ambushes against the kids they run across as they close in on central London. Shadowman’s warnings fall on deaf ears and all he can do is watch as St George grows into a much more powerful threat …
The fourth in Charlie Higson’s ENEMY SERIES finally returns to Sam’s storyline and the various plotlines from the preceding books finally begin to come together. Personally I found the Kid’s stylised dialogue a little much to take and the pacing sagged in places but I loved the way the sickos are developing and organising and the book does end with a great set-up for the next in the series.
Sam does a lot of growing up in this book and discovers things about the world that he wasn’t previously ready for. I liked the snippets of information about the Kid’s past and he’s a real survivor – inventive and smart in a way that Sam needs. His dialogue did grate with me at times – it’s very stylised and I’m not sure a kid of his age would use all of the cultural references that he touches on – but he is an original character who does add to the book.
I think Shadowman is also a great character, a practical realist who can’t quite be hard-hearted enough when it matters. His obsession with St George and their cat and mouse game is fascinating.
The pacing sags at times and I thought there were too many random Sicko encounters, which got a bit samey. However Higson remains brutal in culling characters and he really develops the Sicko mythology to explain how they came about with the introduction of the Green Man. The ending is a great set-up for the next in the series, which I’m really looking forward to reading.
The Verdict:
The fourth in Charlie Higson’s ENEMY SERIES finally returns to Sam’s storyline and the various plotlines from the preceding books finally begin to come together. Personally I found the Kid’s stylised dialogue a little much to take and the pacing sagged in places but I loved the way the sickos are developing and organising and the book does end with a great set-up for the next in the series. The ending is a great set-up for the next in the series, which I’m really looking forward to reading.
