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Kingdom Keepers #5
Shell Game
As the five Kingdom Keepers enter high school, everything is about to change. The Maintenance Base that controls all four parks in Disney World is under attack by the Overtakers, a group determined to change Disney forever. Relationships between the Keepers are no longer as simple as they once were. In fact, nothing is as simple as it once was.
An after-hours visit to Typhoon Lagoon is a game changer. The Keepers lose one of their most valuable supporters. But there’s work to do.…
The Disney Dream leaves Port Canaveral on a historic cruise to Los Angeles with a special treat in store for guests: the Disney Host Interactive teenage guides are on board.
Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby join celebrity guests as the DHI experience moves to one of the most advanced cruise ships in the world.
But all is not right belowdecks. Strange things are happening. Unexplained phenomena. Only the Kingdom Keepers know the truth behind their invitation to be in attendance: nearly every Disney villain is aboard the ship, including Maleficent.
The Overtakers have infiltrated the cast and crew. And no one knows what they have planned.
The Dream sets sail filled with enthusiastic guests and crew. But not for long. Maleficent takes over a video screen and warns the guests of trouble to come. With the ship arriving at the beaches of Castaway Cay—its first of many exotic ports of call—the Kingdom Keepers are under attack; back home the Base is threatened and about to fall. The Overtakers have expanded in ways never foreseen, and it’s clear they intend to use this element of surprise to accomplish what has eluded them so far: victory.
But not if Finn Whitman and friends have anything to say about it.
An after-hours visit to Typhoon Lagoon is a game changer. The Keepers lose one of their most valuable supporters. But there’s work to do.…
The Disney Dream leaves Port Canaveral on a historic cruise to Los Angeles with a special treat in store for guests: the Disney Host Interactive teenage guides are on board.
Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby join celebrity guests as the DHI experience moves to one of the most advanced cruise ships in the world.
But all is not right belowdecks. Strange things are happening. Unexplained phenomena. Only the Kingdom Keepers know the truth behind their invitation to be in attendance: nearly every Disney villain is aboard the ship, including Maleficent.
The Overtakers have infiltrated the cast and crew. And no one knows what they have planned.
The Dream sets sail filled with enthusiastic guests and crew. But not for long. Maleficent takes over a video screen and warns the guests of trouble to come. With the ship arriving at the beaches of Castaway Cay—its first of many exotic ports of call—the Kingdom Keepers are under attack; back home the Base is threatened and about to fall. The Overtakers have expanded in ways never foreseen, and it’s clear they intend to use this element of surprise to accomplish what has eluded them so far: victory.
But not if Finn Whitman and friends have anything to say about it.
Audio CD
First published April 3, 2012
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About the author
Ridley Pearson
185 books2,083 followersRidley Pearson is the author of more than fifty novels, including the New York Times bestseller Killer Weekend; the Lou Boldt crime series; and many books for young readers, including the award-winning children's novels Peter and the Starcatchers, Peter and the Shadow Thieves, and Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, which he cowrote with Dave Barry. Pearson lives with his wife and two daughters, dividing their time between Missouri and Idaho.
Also writes Chris Klick mysteries as Wendell McCall.
Also writes Chris Klick mysteries as Wendell McCall.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 383 reviews
April 27, 2012
The ending went like this:
First, I stared at the words in shock.
Second, I went, "Huh?"
Third, I screamed.
Fourth, I ran downstairs, cursing (well, more like complaining loudly and with emotion, no actual swears) Ridley as I went.
I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER YEAR???!!!!!
Other than that, I did enjoy it. Although I ended up walking away with more questions then I started with (Storey Ming, Tia Dalma's role, that Fairlie girl), I know that originally there was only going to be one book on the ships so most likely they (my questions) will be answered in the next book.
Now, more on the ending:
I certainly didn't see it coming! It is, as I remarked to a friend, "the worst possible cliffhanger ending he could have done."
I don't mean worst as in "bad plot", I mean worst as in "OMG WHAT HAPPENED I MUST READ MORE NOW!"
First, I stared at the words in shock.
Second, I went, "Huh?"
Third, I screamed.
Fourth, I ran downstairs, cursing (well, more like complaining loudly and with emotion, no actual swears) Ridley as I went.
I HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER YEAR???!!!!!
Other than that, I did enjoy it. Although I ended up walking away with more questions then I started with (Storey Ming, Tia Dalma's role, that Fairlie girl), I know that originally there was only going to be one book on the ships so most likely they (my questions) will be answered in the next book.
Now, more on the ending:
I certainly didn't see it coming! It is, as I remarked to a friend, "the worst possible cliffhanger ending he could have done."
I don't mean worst as in "bad plot", I mean worst as in "OMG WHAT HAPPENED I MUST READ MORE NOW!"
June 16, 2015
DISCLAIMER: I admit this review is kind of overlong and rambly, but considering the book I'm reviewing, it seems quite fitting indeed.
Those rascally kids known as the Kingdom Keepers are at it again, and this time their mission to defend Walt Disney's theme park world from the Overtakers leads them to a two-week cruise on the Disney Dream. Danger apparently lurks around every corner, and it seems the kids are no longer really kids, and are facing at once the threat of puberty and also annihilation by Disney baddies.
I have read all four of the previous books in this series, and my dislike for them is well-documented. Why, then, did I feel a sort of sick thrill when I received an email letting me know that this newest installment was waiting for me at the library, and then proceed to take it on our most recent Disneyland trip? I'm not exactly sure myself. At the moment I can only chalk it up to some kind of twisted interest in just how bad the series can get, how inaccurate the Disney references can be, and just how horrid the writing is this time around, along with a sometimes indiscriminating Disney fandom. I thought to myself, maybe the author will have learned something since the last book's publication (perhaps even from the letter I wrote to him myself indicating my disappointment in some of his more obvious Disney blunders, accompanied by a drawing to illustrate my point), so I decided to wait and see how long it took before there was some major inconsistency of character or technology or Disney canon. It took me two paragraphs. It was kind of downhill from there, as what followed turned out to be a really long advertisement for the Disney cruise line. On the plus side, I finally figured out the point of this series! It keeps tweens and teens interested in Disney and begging their parents to take them on Disney cruises! (Honestly, it was SO difficult to get through the extended descriptions of every little amenity and gushing about how super fantastically awesomely amazing the ship is.)
Anyway, this book continues in the tradition set forth by the first four, in every way: The FAR too numerous characters are unpleasant, shallow and incredibly inconsistent. The writing is terrible and the editing even worse. The major conflict and overall plot is muddy and convoluted. The technology continues to make no sense, and even less so now that it's supposedly evolving and upgrading. The appearances of Disney "villains" are few and far between, and then completely out of character (also... since WHEN are doughboys Disney villains?!? That came out of NOwhere. Not to mention that Jack Sparrow and Tia Dalma are hardly villains), and even include CPR practice dummies this time around. I don't understand this Ridley Pearson person. It seems sometimes like he really just doesn't understand words (why would anyone "liberate" a pastry from the fridge before eating it? Half the time I imagined him sitting there with his thesaurus and using and abusing it to make poor word choices). He also makes excessive use of sentence fragments. Fragmented sentences. All the time. Make no sense. Annoying. Distracting. Don't make sense. Don't do anything to further the plot. There are dozens of distracting pop culture references throughout that totally take you out of the story. He tries SO hard to sound edgy and hip, but he doesn't seem to understand kids at all, much less teenagers. The characters' dialogue and interactions were so stunted and unnatural (not to mention nasty and sarcastic) it was hard to read them. His attempts at sounding cool conflict with his dated turns of phrase and repeated use of certain lines, and his characters don't make any sense. This is a world where ultra-athletic high school gymnasts don't know the difference between right and left, and when decidedly unathletic artists have rock-hard abs, when everyone is crushing on everyone else, but at the same time treats each other like absolute crap, and when every character utters the phrases "I'm just saying" or "What is with you?" or "Shut up!" or "It reeked of Overtakers" at LEAST once, usually multiple times. They are all so shallow and inconsistent, I was scratching my head and rolling my eyes at almost everything they said. (Why do they have to be so completely caustic and horrible to each other?? Especially when they're supposed to be BFFs? And yes, they use phrases like that all the time too.) Whenever any attempts at actual human emotion were made, it was shallow and weak and unbelievable. It's hard for me to care about Finn's desire to save his mom when I don't care about Finn or his mom. There are so many key players that none of them get the attention they need to make them compelling or interesting in any way, and they all blur together as one snarky mass of unrealistic teen angst. He then introduces new characters sometimes for no apparent reason, and it seems like even HE can't keep them all straight. There are conversations that have nothing to do with the plot, and certain elements of story that go nowhere. I still have no idea why a 20-year-old college student would seriously be interested in a 15-year-old Freshman in high school. Speaking of which, there are some lines crossed regarding inappropriately adult references, and even seemed to be some racism here and there (attempts, I'm sure, at multi-culturalism). As for the Disney characters themselves, they are as off as ever. Why is Triton huge (as, he says, all creatures from his world are) when Ariel was normal sized in previous books? Why is Chernabog now suddenly some bizarre hybrid of minotaur and Mayan bat god? Why does Tia Dalma's heavy accent and dialect disappear and reappear arbitrarily? Why is Maleficent continually completely different than she appears in the movie and theme parks? The technology still doesn't make sense, and some of the things that were huge in the other books are now not even mentioned. The pacing was a huge mess, there were directionless, contrived action sequences the entire time that sometimes seemed physically impossible, and the editing was a nightmare. It was a string of seemingly unrelated events that could easily have been 200 pages shorter, and even then the characters and plot could have been made infinitely richer in the right hands. I have to think that the thing didn't pass under an single editor's eye.
Apparently the Disney Dream does NOT go to LA, but hey, they had to take this literary commercial across to Disneyland somehow, didn't they? I was a little surprised that the cruise didn't end before the book did, but then the commercial can just continue. Oh, and yes, there is a huge and tacky cliffhanger at the end of this book. The final confrontation was so rushed and boring, that was far more shocking to me than the cliffhanger. I really don't care what happens, because I know when the sixth book comes out next year, there's just going to be some obvious and/or nonsensical solution (hello, Finn will just put his face under the water and utter that silly code and Triton will appear and splash them back onto the ship, easy-peasy).
It's kind of embarrassing and disheartening to me that Disney fans are so eating up this sloppy series. I keep wondering if a younger me, obsessed with Disney as I was (and still am), would have loved these books, but I think even then I was Disney savvy enough to have noticed how inaccurate the information about the parks and characters here are. (In fact, it probably would have bugged me more, even when coloring books had the wrong details it bugged me.) Even 2 stars is a little too generous a rating for this book, but it did seem to be a little better than the previous books (probably because it's been a while since I read them so my memory of them has faded). When I read these books I feel a sort of pang of disappointment, mostly at the hugely wasted potential. Think of the AMAZING story that this premise could lead to in the right hands! What follows instead is a 500-plus page commercial for the Disney cruise line. It almost makes me want to go on a Disney cruise LESS... I mean, I guess I'm surprised that it occurs to me only now that this entire series has been one huge marketing tool from the very beginning. But even a commercial can be amazing! This book was not. (Well, it was, but not in a good way.)
Those rascally kids known as the Kingdom Keepers are at it again, and this time their mission to defend Walt Disney's theme park world from the Overtakers leads them to a two-week cruise on the Disney Dream. Danger apparently lurks around every corner, and it seems the kids are no longer really kids, and are facing at once the threat of puberty and also annihilation by Disney baddies.
I have read all four of the previous books in this series, and my dislike for them is well-documented. Why, then, did I feel a sort of sick thrill when I received an email letting me know that this newest installment was waiting for me at the library, and then proceed to take it on our most recent Disneyland trip? I'm not exactly sure myself. At the moment I can only chalk it up to some kind of twisted interest in just how bad the series can get, how inaccurate the Disney references can be, and just how horrid the writing is this time around, along with a sometimes indiscriminating Disney fandom. I thought to myself, maybe the author will have learned something since the last book's publication (perhaps even from the letter I wrote to him myself indicating my disappointment in some of his more obvious Disney blunders, accompanied by a drawing to illustrate my point), so I decided to wait and see how long it took before there was some major inconsistency of character or technology or Disney canon. It took me two paragraphs. It was kind of downhill from there, as what followed turned out to be a really long advertisement for the Disney cruise line. On the plus side, I finally figured out the point of this series! It keeps tweens and teens interested in Disney and begging their parents to take them on Disney cruises! (Honestly, it was SO difficult to get through the extended descriptions of every little amenity and gushing about how super fantastically awesomely amazing the ship is.)
Anyway, this book continues in the tradition set forth by the first four, in every way: The FAR too numerous characters are unpleasant, shallow and incredibly inconsistent. The writing is terrible and the editing even worse. The major conflict and overall plot is muddy and convoluted. The technology continues to make no sense, and even less so now that it's supposedly evolving and upgrading. The appearances of Disney "villains" are few and far between, and then completely out of character (also... since WHEN are doughboys Disney villains?!? That came out of NOwhere. Not to mention that Jack Sparrow and Tia Dalma are hardly villains), and even include CPR practice dummies this time around. I don't understand this Ridley Pearson person. It seems sometimes like he really just doesn't understand words (why would anyone "liberate" a pastry from the fridge before eating it? Half the time I imagined him sitting there with his thesaurus and using and abusing it to make poor word choices). He also makes excessive use of sentence fragments. Fragmented sentences. All the time. Make no sense. Annoying. Distracting. Don't make sense. Don't do anything to further the plot. There are dozens of distracting pop culture references throughout that totally take you out of the story. He tries SO hard to sound edgy and hip, but he doesn't seem to understand kids at all, much less teenagers. The characters' dialogue and interactions were so stunted and unnatural (not to mention nasty and sarcastic) it was hard to read them. His attempts at sounding cool conflict with his dated turns of phrase and repeated use of certain lines, and his characters don't make any sense. This is a world where ultra-athletic high school gymnasts don't know the difference between right and left, and when decidedly unathletic artists have rock-hard abs, when everyone is crushing on everyone else, but at the same time treats each other like absolute crap, and when every character utters the phrases "I'm just saying" or "What is with you?" or "Shut up!" or "It reeked of Overtakers" at LEAST once, usually multiple times. They are all so shallow and inconsistent, I was scratching my head and rolling my eyes at almost everything they said. (Why do they have to be so completely caustic and horrible to each other?? Especially when they're supposed to be BFFs? And yes, they use phrases like that all the time too.) Whenever any attempts at actual human emotion were made, it was shallow and weak and unbelievable. It's hard for me to care about Finn's desire to save his mom when I don't care about Finn or his mom. There are so many key players that none of them get the attention they need to make them compelling or interesting in any way, and they all blur together as one snarky mass of unrealistic teen angst. He then introduces new characters sometimes for no apparent reason, and it seems like even HE can't keep them all straight. There are conversations that have nothing to do with the plot, and certain elements of story that go nowhere. I still have no idea why a 20-year-old college student would seriously be interested in a 15-year-old Freshman in high school. Speaking of which, there are some lines crossed regarding inappropriately adult references, and even seemed to be some racism here and there (attempts, I'm sure, at multi-culturalism). As for the Disney characters themselves, they are as off as ever. Why is Triton huge (as, he says, all creatures from his world are) when Ariel was normal sized in previous books? Why is Chernabog now suddenly some bizarre hybrid of minotaur and Mayan bat god? Why does Tia Dalma's heavy accent and dialect disappear and reappear arbitrarily? Why is Maleficent continually completely different than she appears in the movie and theme parks? The technology still doesn't make sense, and some of the things that were huge in the other books are now not even mentioned. The pacing was a huge mess, there were directionless, contrived action sequences the entire time that sometimes seemed physically impossible, and the editing was a nightmare. It was a string of seemingly unrelated events that could easily have been 200 pages shorter, and even then the characters and plot could have been made infinitely richer in the right hands. I have to think that the thing didn't pass under an single editor's eye.
Apparently the Disney Dream does NOT go to LA, but hey, they had to take this literary commercial across to Disneyland somehow, didn't they? I was a little surprised that the cruise didn't end before the book did, but then the commercial can just continue. Oh, and yes, there is a huge and tacky cliffhanger at the end of this book. The final confrontation was so rushed and boring, that was far more shocking to me than the cliffhanger. I really don't care what happens, because I know when the sixth book comes out next year, there's just going to be some obvious and/or nonsensical solution (hello, Finn will just put his face under the water and utter that silly code and Triton will appear and splash them back onto the ship, easy-peasy).
It's kind of embarrassing and disheartening to me that Disney fans are so eating up this sloppy series. I keep wondering if a younger me, obsessed with Disney as I was (and still am), would have loved these books, but I think even then I was Disney savvy enough to have noticed how inaccurate the information about the parks and characters here are. (In fact, it probably would have bugged me more, even when coloring books had the wrong details it bugged me.) Even 2 stars is a little too generous a rating for this book, but it did seem to be a little better than the previous books (probably because it's been a while since I read them so my memory of them has faded). When I read these books I feel a sort of pang of disappointment, mostly at the hugely wasted potential. Think of the AMAZING story that this premise could lead to in the right hands! What follows instead is a 500-plus page commercial for the Disney cruise line. It almost makes me want to go on a Disney cruise LESS... I mean, I guess I'm surprised that it occurs to me only now that this entire series has been one huge marketing tool from the very beginning. But even a commercial can be amazing! This book was not. (Well, it was, but not in a good way.)
February 15, 2017
These are hard to rate. There are moments of cleverness (stopped by a hair, electricity's effects) and always a neat idea or two, but they are overall bland to me. The same things keep happening over and over (OTs taking over, KKs keeping the kingdom, OTs plan a trap, KKs get trapped or trap them back).
The magic/science has been inconsistent from the beginning, and now it is even more so. "Why don't we fall through the floor?" Me: this was brought up in book 1; holograms don't have weight. Sadly, this question keeps them guessing longer than it should, and could've solved many of their problems (um, floating? Flying?). They also tried to change things with 2.0, but kept having relapses. "Fear isn't a factor" to "OMG she's too afraid to go all clear and the sharks are going to eat her!" Nonsense. Characters also keep forgetting things they shouldn't (a powerful sea god offered to help you, remember?), and putting themselves in danger for no reason, and just generally making the same mistakes they made the last few books (how do you catch Maleficent?).
Characterization is consistently inconsistent. They go from "Philby is trying to take over!" to "The only one who can save us is Philby" to "We can't trust Philby!" And EVERYONE is crushing on everyone (heterosexually). Really? Is this supposed to make it more interesting? I would think reading about loyal friends (who don't snap at each other and ignore each other and blame each other) who choose to maybe crush on one person at a time would be best. And random useless characters are thrown in. Storey Ming maybe was supposed to be the KKs connection to the staff . . . but supposedly Wayne does that, and the KKs have staff badges. ?
Jafar's staff doesn't turn into a snake. There were more problems I cannot remember.
I admit I often tuned out while I listened . . . but I think that's just another sign that this book couldn't hold my interest. I don't think I'll slog through any more of these.
The magic/science has been inconsistent from the beginning, and now it is even more so. "Why don't we fall through the floor?" Me: this was brought up in book 1; holograms don't have weight. Sadly, this question keeps them guessing longer than it should, and could've solved many of their problems (um, floating? Flying?). They also tried to change things with 2.0, but kept having relapses. "Fear isn't a factor" to "OMG she's too afraid to go all clear and the sharks are going to eat her!" Nonsense. Characters also keep forgetting things they shouldn't (a powerful sea god offered to help you, remember?), and putting themselves in danger for no reason, and just generally making the same mistakes they made the last few books (how do you catch Maleficent?).
Characterization is consistently inconsistent. They go from "Philby is trying to take over!" to "The only one who can save us is Philby" to "We can't trust Philby!" And EVERYONE is crushing on everyone (heterosexually). Really? Is this supposed to make it more interesting? I would think reading about loyal friends (who don't snap at each other and ignore each other and blame each other) who choose to maybe crush on one person at a time would be best. And random useless characters are thrown in. Storey Ming maybe was supposed to be the KKs connection to the staff . . . but supposedly Wayne does that, and the KKs have staff badges. ?
Jafar's staff doesn't turn into a snake. There were more problems I cannot remember.
I admit I often tuned out while I listened . . . but I think that's just another sign that this book couldn't hold my interest. I don't think I'll slog through any more of these.
April 13, 2012
Here's what happened at the end:
I yelled, Di immortalis!!!
Then I screamed.
Then I almost burst into tears
Then I yelled, WILLA!!!!
Anyway, it was the best book in the series so far! I LOVED IT! Storey kept annoying me, though. It was pure GENIUS!!!! It was well written and I even had to take out the old dictionary a few times. Not that I have a small vocabulary, mind you. I like to compartmentalize my inquiries in files in my intellect-filled brain.
I yelled, Di immortalis!!!
Then I screamed.
Then I almost burst into tears
Then I yelled, WILLA!!!!
Anyway, it was the best book in the series so far! I LOVED IT! Storey kept annoying me, though. It was pure GENIUS!!!! It was well written and I even had to take out the old dictionary a few times. Not that I have a small vocabulary, mind you. I like to compartmentalize my inquiries in files in my intellect-filled brain.
August 9, 2012
There was so much that Pearson could have done with these books. The idea was solid. The first book was great.
Unfortunately the farther into them we go, the more they don't seem planned at all, but just a haphazard mixture of experiences the Kingdom Keepers have. Each book doesn't really give any knew information, it just strings you along. For instance, why has it taken so long to see any of Disney's good guys? I mean we're in the fifth book and we only have a glimpse Mickey and half a chapter of Posiden, who, I might add, isn't really one of the main good guys. Another example, we're in the fifth book, and Finn is still Finn. Pearson has hinted at making 7 books all in all. This sounds surprisingly like another really famous series that just ended about a little boy and his seven years/seven books. But where Pearson falls short is the lack of growth in his characters, particularly Finn, but the others included. Jess and Amanda are still fairlies that we don't know anything about. Wayne is still this aloof old guy who doesn't really give any direction to the KK's except to torment Finn with his riddles. The characters seem stagnant.
Overall, I liked Pearson's original ideas and thought there was a lot he could have done with it. Unfortunately, he didn't.
Unfortunately the farther into them we go, the more they don't seem planned at all, but just a haphazard mixture of experiences the Kingdom Keepers have. Each book doesn't really give any knew information, it just strings you along. For instance, why has it taken so long to see any of Disney's good guys? I mean we're in the fifth book and we only have a glimpse Mickey and half a chapter of Posiden, who, I might add, isn't really one of the main good guys. Another example, we're in the fifth book, and Finn is still Finn. Pearson has hinted at making 7 books all in all. This sounds surprisingly like another really famous series that just ended about a little boy and his seven years/seven books. But where Pearson falls short is the lack of growth in his characters, particularly Finn, but the others included. Jess and Amanda are still fairlies that we don't know anything about. Wayne is still this aloof old guy who doesn't really give any direction to the KK's except to torment Finn with his riddles. The characters seem stagnant.
Overall, I liked Pearson's original ideas and thought there was a lot he could have done with it. Unfortunately, he didn't.
June 16, 2015
Did you ever wonder what happens at Disney at night? The Kingdom Keepers, or The DHIs, know. DHI are Disney Host Interactives, aka Holagrams who tour people around the parks. In this book fantasy adventure, Kingdom Keepers V: Shell Game by Ridely Pearson there is a war for the base in Disney World. The base is what controls the parks and the whole of Disney World. The original Kingdom Keepers (Finn, Charlene, Maybeck, Phibily, and Willa) are back to stop the Overtakers from taking over the base. The Overtakers are the villains from the Disney movies. In these books there is Jafar, Tia Dalma, Maleficent, and more famous villains. The bosses of the Overtakers are Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty) and Chernabog (from Fantasia, also know as Walt Disney's darkest creation. Wait you think the base is the only problem in this book? No way!! The Dream is coming to town, the new Disney cruise line. The Keepers gave to go aboard. Who's going to stop the Overtakers at the base? Will the Overtakers be aboard the ship? If you love Disney and like action, you will love this book. Each chapter ended with you having to figure out what is going to happened next. Ridely Pearson is such an amazing writer. When he described Downtown Disney I pictured it.
August 12, 2012
Here's my complaint to Mr. Pearson:
I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL APRIL 2013 FOR THE NEXT ONE??
Seriously, dude? That's just mean. Because here's the thing, Mr. Pearson, this time you didn't finish the episode. You just left us there, with many, MANY questions which you'd best be answering, and soon. Namely:
-What's the end game of the OTs in Disneyland? (On that note: Is there only one real OT for each character, or does each park have one?)
-How/Why did Finn see the "future"?
-Who's the new Fairlie and will there be more aid coming from the Amanda/Jess background? (BTWs, you still haven't fully explained why they're so invested in saving the kingdom or why Wayne knows so much about them.)
-Which was the shell game: the cruise or the attack on the base?
Oh, and don't even get me started on the threat of retiring the DHIs with 2.0 and them being beta testers. I love that twist, don't get me wrong, but Pearson already stated there will only be seven books; there isn't space to chuck out the fabulous five (or would it be super seven with the inclusion of Amanda/Jess?). That said, I wouldn't put anything past him...
I thoroughly enjoy seeing more villains and secondary characters (shout out to King Triton, what up home skillet?).
And yeah, I may be just a bit hooked. Thanks for giving me a non-cold turkey way to come off ten years of Harry Potter, dude.
I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL APRIL 2013 FOR THE NEXT ONE??
Seriously, dude? That's just mean. Because here's the thing, Mr. Pearson, this time you didn't finish the episode. You just left us there, with many, MANY questions which you'd best be answering, and soon. Namely:
-What's the end game of the OTs in Disneyland? (On that note: Is there only one real OT for each character, or does each park have one?)
-How/Why did Finn see the "future"?
-Who's the new Fairlie and will there be more aid coming from the Amanda/Jess background? (BTWs, you still haven't fully explained why they're so invested in saving the kingdom or why Wayne knows so much about them.)
-Which was the shell game: the cruise or the attack on the base?
Oh, and don't even get me started on the threat of retiring the DHIs with 2.0 and them being beta testers. I love that twist, don't get me wrong, but Pearson already stated there will only be seven books; there isn't space to chuck out the fabulous five (or would it be super seven with the inclusion of Amanda/Jess?). That said, I wouldn't put anything past him...
I thoroughly enjoy seeing more villains and secondary characters (shout out to King Triton, what up home skillet?).
And yeah, I may be just a bit hooked. Thanks for giving me a non-cold turkey way to come off ten years of Harry Potter, dude.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 25, 2018
Sorry, but I'd rather be on the side of Maleficent, aka The Green Machine (LOL)
I love that they make her out to be a puppet. See, she's not a bad one after all, just misunderstood :p
I did find it to be a bit slow. I've already started KK#6 and that one is a lot faster going.
I love that they make her out to be a puppet. See, she's not a bad one after all, just misunderstood :p
I did find it to be a bit slow. I've already started KK#6 and that one is a lot faster going.
November 6, 2018
Mild and petty spoilers ahead | Warning!
I didn't like this book very much. The writing style felt different then the previous book and sometimes I couldn't tell who's pov I was reading from.
Also, Why some many abbreviation? Everything is abbreviated! (Or should I say abbrvd) like Jack sparrow beong JS, or chip and Dale being C and D. Whyyy, it's like speaking in text talk!
And lastly I didn't undstand Finn's new found hatred for Philby. It made me frusterated because Philby never really did anything wrong. All he did was talk to Wayne without him. (Which in my mind is fine! People are allowed to have conversations with other without You being present.)
I liked the beginning okay though, and the drugging scene was cool too.
I didn't like this book very much. The writing style felt different then the previous book and sometimes I couldn't tell who's pov I was reading from.
Also, Why some many abbreviation? Everything is abbreviated! (Or should I say abbrvd) like Jack sparrow beong JS, or chip and Dale being C and D. Whyyy, it's like speaking in text talk!
And lastly I didn't undstand Finn's new found hatred for Philby. It made me frusterated because Philby never really did anything wrong. All he did was talk to Wayne without him. (Which in my mind is fine! People are allowed to have conversations with other without You being present.)
I liked the beginning okay though, and the drugging scene was cool too.
September 15, 2014
The biggest problem with the Kingdom Keepers Series is that it is too long. If Ridley Pearson had kept it to three or four books, he could have done what he wanted to do with it but would not have run out of plot devices.
This book dragged on and on with the same things happening over and over again from the previous books but set on a ship which somehow made it more boring than interesting.
The characters never learned anything and just made me annoyed. I used to like some of the characters but now they are just boring, repetitive people who insist on fighting about the stupidest things.
Then there are the Disney characters, which let's be honest, are the reason that most of us are here. They are nothing like the Disney characters in the movies that we know and love them from. They are flat, strange representations that show up for random, short periods of time and don't really do anything.
This book was the worst of the bunch in my opinion. Next to nothing happened, the kids seemed to regress rather than make progress in anything, and the Disney characters were so far off from anything that was ever shown in the classic Disney movies that I just got mad and frustrated as I read any scenes with them.
I have never been a huge fan of Pearson's writing, but this installment just brought all of my frustrations to a head. His actions scenes somehow manage to be boring and conversations progress in a way that no one ever talks in, especially not kids. Decisions are made in no logical progression and the entire plot is so boring and pointless at this point.
This series had some good parts towards the beginning, but now it is a struggle to get through a chapter without feeling frustrated.
This book dragged on and on with the same things happening over and over again from the previous books but set on a ship which somehow made it more boring than interesting.
The characters never learned anything and just made me annoyed. I used to like some of the characters but now they are just boring, repetitive people who insist on fighting about the stupidest things.
Then there are the Disney characters, which let's be honest, are the reason that most of us are here. They are nothing like the Disney characters in the movies that we know and love them from. They are flat, strange representations that show up for random, short periods of time and don't really do anything.
This book was the worst of the bunch in my opinion. Next to nothing happened, the kids seemed to regress rather than make progress in anything, and the Disney characters were so far off from anything that was ever shown in the classic Disney movies that I just got mad and frustrated as I read any scenes with them.
I have never been a huge fan of Pearson's writing, but this installment just brought all of my frustrations to a head. His actions scenes somehow manage to be boring and conversations progress in a way that no one ever talks in, especially not kids. Decisions are made in no logical progression and the entire plot is so boring and pointless at this point.
This series had some good parts towards the beginning, but now it is a struggle to get through a chapter without feeling frustrated.
May 22, 2012
I started reading the Kingdom Keeper series because I wanted to make sure they were okay for my niece to read and I got hooked. I had the privilege of meeting author Ridley Pearson in March of this year and getting Shell Game autographed. It will make a wonderful gift for my niece this Christmas.
Each book in the series is better than the last and Shell Game is no exception. The characters are definitely progressing into their teen years and the conflicts developing between the Keepers reflects this. That awkward stage boys go through when they first start seeing girls through the eyes of attraction, the uncertainty of the girls as they try to read the mixed signals from the boys.
The stakes are even higher in this installment as the Keepers set sail on the Disney Dream. They are trapped on the magnificent ship for 14 days, along with some of the baddest Disney villains. Will they be able to stop Malificent and her crew before they take over the entire Disney empire?
Each book in the series is better than the last and Shell Game is no exception. The characters are definitely progressing into their teen years and the conflicts developing between the Keepers reflects this. That awkward stage boys go through when they first start seeing girls through the eyes of attraction, the uncertainty of the girls as they try to read the mixed signals from the boys.
The stakes are even higher in this installment as the Keepers set sail on the Disney Dream. They are trapped on the magnificent ship for 14 days, along with some of the baddest Disney villains. Will they be able to stop Malificent and her crew before they take over the entire Disney empire?
May 27, 2015
I really liked the book, now that I read the book for the second time. IT really surprised me how much more information and secrets I have gathered from the story that I didn't notice the first time that I read it. Overall, really awesome action packed story!
July 4, 2012
Book 5 in the on-going series...the Keepers are in high school now and about to take part in a Disney Cruise!
"As the Disney Fantasy joins the cruise fleet, a special treat is in store for guests aboard its inaugural sail from Cape Canaveral to Los Angeles: the Disney Host Interactive teenage guides will be part of the Fantasy crew. Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby are to attend the cruise as celebrity guests, and to perform a ribbon cutting for the DHI server to go live. The Fantasy is now the most advanced cruise ship in the world. But all is not right belowdecks. Strange things are happening. Unexplained phenomena. Only the Kingdom Keepers know the truth behind their invitation: nearly every Disney villain is represented onboard the new ship: whether on its decks or in its theaters. It's believed the Overtakers have infiltrated the cast and are "stowaways." Worse: it is believed they have stolen an important journal that once belonged to Walt Disney himself--Finn has been having dreams about this--and that some kind of mission is planned. The ship sets sail filled with enthusiastic guests and crew, and the battle is on in new and exotic arenas: the beaches of Castaway Cay, the caves of Aruba, the locks of the Panama Canal, Costa Rica's rain forest zip line . . . But the end game is far more complicated and intense than anything the Kingdom Keepers had planned on. If the Overtakers get their way, a power will be unleashed that no one will have the ability to vanquish: Chernabog, dormant for years, is about to have his full powers restored
"As the Disney Fantasy joins the cruise fleet, a special treat is in store for guests aboard its inaugural sail from Cape Canaveral to Los Angeles: the Disney Host Interactive teenage guides will be part of the Fantasy crew. Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby are to attend the cruise as celebrity guests, and to perform a ribbon cutting for the DHI server to go live. The Fantasy is now the most advanced cruise ship in the world. But all is not right belowdecks. Strange things are happening. Unexplained phenomena. Only the Kingdom Keepers know the truth behind their invitation: nearly every Disney villain is represented onboard the new ship: whether on its decks or in its theaters. It's believed the Overtakers have infiltrated the cast and are "stowaways." Worse: it is believed they have stolen an important journal that once belonged to Walt Disney himself--Finn has been having dreams about this--and that some kind of mission is planned. The ship sets sail filled with enthusiastic guests and crew, and the battle is on in new and exotic arenas: the beaches of Castaway Cay, the caves of Aruba, the locks of the Panama Canal, Costa Rica's rain forest zip line . . . But the end game is far more complicated and intense than anything the Kingdom Keepers had planned on. If the Overtakers get their way, a power will be unleashed that no one will have the ability to vanquish: Chernabog, dormant for years, is about to have his full powers restored
April 25, 2012
Ah! Can't belive I'll have to wait another year for the next one! What a cliffhanger! You jump straight into the action with this one. Two new locations. Typhoon Lagoon, which I thought Ridley could have done more with and The Disney Dream. Which dispite all the things that happen to the kids there, I still really want to go on a cruise. Lots of new characters, lots of distrust. Everyone seems to be disliking Philby in this one, I didn't like that to much and that it was mentioned about a million times that the DHI's were 2.0 now. Got it the first time! I'm suprised Disney let Ridley put in the line where Maleficent goes to call Ariel a bitch. Since I won't be having a Disney holiday this year (boo hiss) this is the closest I'll get. I really do recommened this series for all Disney fans :)
September 30, 2017
I can't believe it took me so long before reading this one! I forgot how I love the Kingdom Keepers! This one was a little bit different from the others since I've never been to Typhoon Lagoon or the Disney cruise, it was less familiar. The ending was crazy! I need to read the next book soon!
June 15, 2018
So, I wasn't going to give any reviews of this series until the very end, when I would do one big long review of the series of a whole, but I had to make a special exception for this one.
While the Kingdom Keepers series as a whole can be a bit silly at times and the geography of everything can be....questionable....it always kept a certain dignity to it. It didn't cross too many bounds, it knew what its limits were. And then this came. Now, I don't really know where to start, so I'll just jump into all the problems I have with problem.
1) It's not really a book. I mean, it's a book in the sense that yes, it's something that is published and it's a literal book, but it's not a book because it doesn't really have a plot. The 'plot' is kind of the same as all the other Kingdom Keeper books: the DHI software is being established somewhere new, the Kingdom Keepers are going there, the Overtakers are there, they're trying to rise to power, the Kingdom Keepers need to stop them, at least for now.
This book has a weird beginning-it starts with Wayne talking to Finn in the Magic Kingdom, and then Finn wakes up and....gets drugged. Yeah. There's a few pages about Typhoon Lagoon (though the cover would have you believe it was the bulk of the book), but the bulk of the action takes place on the Disney Dream. You know, that cruise ship? And from there, the plot is stopping the Overtakers, but neither the Keepers nor the audience is sure what the OTs are really doing, if they're doing anything at all. And so the Keepers are just doing stuff without really knowing what they're doing, and it ends so suddenly without really any conclusion. The only real plot is So, there really is no beginning, no middle, and no ending! *shrug*
2) The book has too many loose ends that never wrap up. Now, I know, having read the sixth book, that this book has many set ups that are used for stuff in later books. Which, normally, is good. Foreshadowing is usually always good here and there, but it's not used effectively here at all. It kind of hits you over the head with it, and instead of just a mention so that in the next book you say "oh hey! yeah that was a thing," you get hit over the head with how much it's mentioned. And if this was only one thing, I'd be fine with it, but it's not. It's a ton. It's the "mysterious" girl, it's Amanda and Jess, it's Dillard (who is handled EXTREMELY sloppily, and if it wouldn't give that much away, I'd have a giant rant about how bad this is). Everything is all over the place, and it's distracting, dammit!
3) The ideas just...aren't good. And I have to explain what I mean by that, because in all rights, this is an extremely imaginative series. And while some of his choices are kind of out there, they're almost never so bad that you dislike the book. I mean, you have to keep your suspension of disbelief pretty high when you're reading a book series about teenagers who turn into holograms when they fall asleep and so they have to battle Disney villains.
In the first four books correspond, more or less, with each Disney World theme park, which makes sense. Now, I can sense the need to go to a new location, and I could even understand the fact that maybe even both of the waterparks wouldn't be enough (and assuming that Disney Springs is out of the equation), so I guess the only logical conclusion at that point would be the Disney cruises, but here's the problem - many people who have read the books have been to Disney World- it's super expensive to go to Disney World, but a ton of people have done it, and it's way more accessible to people than a Disney cruise, which is like, 5 times the expense of a week at Disney World. Also, if you're simply considering how many people can be on a Disney Cruise at a time (I looked it up- 2,700; 3,650 including Cast Members). That's not a lot, and that's for up to about a week at a time. Disney World is visited by about 130,000 per DAY. Disney World also opened in 1971, with the last Park being created in 1998, 20 YEARS AGO, while the Disney Cruises have only been operating since 1995, and that didn't even include the cruise ship that the main characters are on. My point is, the Disney Cruise is not as familiar to people because it simply can never be, and so it makes for shakier storytelling. The first four Kingdom Keepers books were even to get away with not as explaining as much (even though they explained a ton anyway), because people are relatively familiar with how the Parks are set up, and if they're not, then it's easy to look up a map online. What its harder to do is getting a map of a Disney Cruise line vessel, especially this specific one (because I assume that all of them are similarly set up, they're different in enough ways to make them distinct). And as a Disney aficionado practically beyond compare, this annoys me to no end, because I cannot visualize as much in this book as I could in the others. This book is just appealing to less people and, even more to this book's detriment, he doesn't explain scenes as well. This is probably because the author went there in person, and I guess he wasn't thinking that other people wouldn't know the exact locations of everything at all times. That's all I can think of, and it's just so annoying, as well as bad writing and storytelling.
Another bad idea that's extremely similar was the choice of villain. This is something that's been built up since the first book, when Maleficent mentions something about her serving "she who lies within," when asked if she is leader of the Overtakers. And that is amazing foreshadowing, because that book came out in 2005 and this one came out in 2012, so...good job there. In the second book, we think that the 'ultimate villain' is Chernabog, which would make a lot of sense, because he was personally created by Walt Disney and Walt Disney described him as being the most fearsome Disney villain ever, even described as being almost literally Satan. That's pretty tough to beat, but they introduce a new villain that is basically the most powerful baddie, the ultimate baddie, the QUEEN.
And it's Yeah. The villain, I guess, from one Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. Here's the thing: who IS SHE? I only know that she's from Pirates of the Caribbean because I remember being 12 years old, reading this book, going "Who the hell is that," looking it up on the Disney Wiki, and being like "oh. Cool, I guess." Because even in the Pirates of the Caribbean lore, she's not a big deal! So to have her be the MOST POWERFUL DISNEY VILLAIN EVER, A DISNEY CHARACTER 1) not animated 2) NOT created by Walt Disney and 3) NOT EVEN A BIG PLAYER IN THE WORLD SHE'S IN is a lot. And, I'm sorry, how many people have seen ANY Pirates of the Caribbean movies PAST the first one? And remember that those films are rated PG-13 and this technically is marketed for 10 and up. I mean, that probably doesn't play a huge part in it, because young kids do go to see that movie, but STILL, that should be an issue, because you're appealing to less of a demographic AGAIN! Do you know what everyone has seen, or at least know about? Sleeping Beauty. It came out in 1959! Even Chernabog, who is a ton more obscure, is still from Fantasia, a movie which has been out in 1940. Tia Dalma first appeared in 2006 in a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. She's an extremely obscure character, and maybe Ridley thought that this would work to his benefit, that he could whip out this extremely overpowered character that everyone would marvel at, but it didn't work. This just shortens your demographic and makes everything just harder to "see." I hated this so much, which you can probably tell from my ranting. It's bad writing!
I could go on to complain about little details, like how Ridley Pearson has corny dialogue about 45% of the time at best, and how unpleasant some of his imagery is, and how he has no idea what a high school actually is, and how maybe this literally 65-year old white guy should not keep writing about a 16-year-old African American's point of view on firsthand racism, and how these characters have been 16 for about 4 books, even though these books take place at least 6 months apart from each other-
-and how the whole appearance of the volunteer KKs is not explained AT ALL, and how only NOW the OTs are thinking about possessing Cast Members, and-and.....yeah.
I still adore the series with all my heart and soul, don't get me wrong. But this book....not this book. Never this book.
While the Kingdom Keepers series as a whole can be a bit silly at times and the geography of everything can be....questionable....it always kept a certain dignity to it. It didn't cross too many bounds, it knew what its limits were. And then this came. Now, I don't really know where to start, so I'll just jump into all the problems I have with problem.
1) It's not really a book. I mean, it's a book in the sense that yes, it's something that is published and it's a literal book, but it's not a book because it doesn't really have a plot. The 'plot' is kind of the same as all the other Kingdom Keeper books: the DHI software is being established somewhere new, the Kingdom Keepers are going there, the Overtakers are there, they're trying to rise to power, the Kingdom Keepers need to stop them, at least for now.
This book has a weird beginning-it starts with Wayne talking to Finn in the Magic Kingdom, and then Finn wakes up and....gets drugged. Yeah. There's a few pages about Typhoon Lagoon (though the cover would have you believe it was the bulk of the book), but the bulk of the action takes place on the Disney Dream. You know, that cruise ship? And from there, the plot is stopping the Overtakers, but neither the Keepers nor the audience is sure what the OTs are really doing, if they're doing anything at all. And so the Keepers are just doing stuff without really knowing what they're doing, and it ends so suddenly without really any conclusion. The only real plot is So, there really is no beginning, no middle, and no ending! *shrug*
2) The book has too many loose ends that never wrap up. Now, I know, having read the sixth book, that this book has many set ups that are used for stuff in later books. Which, normally, is good. Foreshadowing is usually always good here and there, but it's not used effectively here at all. It kind of hits you over the head with it, and instead of just a mention so that in the next book you say "oh hey! yeah that was a thing," you get hit over the head with how much it's mentioned. And if this was only one thing, I'd be fine with it, but it's not. It's a ton. It's the "mysterious" girl, it's Amanda and Jess, it's Dillard (who is handled EXTREMELY sloppily, and if it wouldn't give that much away, I'd have a giant rant about how bad this is). Everything is all over the place, and it's distracting, dammit!
3) The ideas just...aren't good. And I have to explain what I mean by that, because in all rights, this is an extremely imaginative series. And while some of his choices are kind of out there, they're almost never so bad that you dislike the book. I mean, you have to keep your suspension of disbelief pretty high when you're reading a book series about teenagers who turn into holograms when they fall asleep and so they have to battle Disney villains.
In the first four books correspond, more or less, with each Disney World theme park, which makes sense. Now, I can sense the need to go to a new location, and I could even understand the fact that maybe even both of the waterparks wouldn't be enough (and assuming that Disney Springs is out of the equation), so I guess the only logical conclusion at that point would be the Disney cruises, but here's the problem - many people who have read the books have been to Disney World- it's super expensive to go to Disney World, but a ton of people have done it, and it's way more accessible to people than a Disney cruise, which is like, 5 times the expense of a week at Disney World. Also, if you're simply considering how many people can be on a Disney Cruise at a time (I looked it up- 2,700; 3,650 including Cast Members). That's not a lot, and that's for up to about a week at a time. Disney World is visited by about 130,000 per DAY. Disney World also opened in 1971, with the last Park being created in 1998, 20 YEARS AGO, while the Disney Cruises have only been operating since 1995, and that didn't even include the cruise ship that the main characters are on. My point is, the Disney Cruise is not as familiar to people because it simply can never be, and so it makes for shakier storytelling. The first four Kingdom Keepers books were even to get away with not as explaining as much (even though they explained a ton anyway), because people are relatively familiar with how the Parks are set up, and if they're not, then it's easy to look up a map online. What its harder to do is getting a map of a Disney Cruise line vessel, especially this specific one (because I assume that all of them are similarly set up, they're different in enough ways to make them distinct). And as a Disney aficionado practically beyond compare, this annoys me to no end, because I cannot visualize as much in this book as I could in the others. This book is just appealing to less people and, even more to this book's detriment, he doesn't explain scenes as well. This is probably because the author went there in person, and I guess he wasn't thinking that other people wouldn't know the exact locations of everything at all times. That's all I can think of, and it's just so annoying, as well as bad writing and storytelling.
Another bad idea that's extremely similar was the choice of villain. This is something that's been built up since the first book, when Maleficent mentions something about her serving "she who lies within," when asked if she is leader of the Overtakers. And that is amazing foreshadowing, because that book came out in 2005 and this one came out in 2012, so...good job there. In the second book, we think that the 'ultimate villain' is Chernabog, which would make a lot of sense, because he was personally created by Walt Disney and Walt Disney described him as being the most fearsome Disney villain ever, even described as being almost literally Satan. That's pretty tough to beat, but they introduce a new villain that is basically the most powerful baddie, the ultimate baddie, the QUEEN.
And it's Yeah. The villain, I guess, from one Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. Here's the thing: who IS SHE? I only know that she's from Pirates of the Caribbean because I remember being 12 years old, reading this book, going "Who the hell is that," looking it up on the Disney Wiki, and being like "oh. Cool, I guess." Because even in the Pirates of the Caribbean lore, she's not a big deal! So to have her be the MOST POWERFUL DISNEY VILLAIN EVER, A DISNEY CHARACTER 1) not animated 2) NOT created by Walt Disney and 3) NOT EVEN A BIG PLAYER IN THE WORLD SHE'S IN is a lot. And, I'm sorry, how many people have seen ANY Pirates of the Caribbean movies PAST the first one? And remember that those films are rated PG-13 and this technically is marketed for 10 and up. I mean, that probably doesn't play a huge part in it, because young kids do go to see that movie, but STILL, that should be an issue, because you're appealing to less of a demographic AGAIN! Do you know what everyone has seen, or at least know about? Sleeping Beauty. It came out in 1959! Even Chernabog, who is a ton more obscure, is still from Fantasia, a movie which has been out in 1940. Tia Dalma first appeared in 2006 in a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel. She's an extremely obscure character, and maybe Ridley thought that this would work to his benefit, that he could whip out this extremely overpowered character that everyone would marvel at, but it didn't work. This just shortens your demographic and makes everything just harder to "see." I hated this so much, which you can probably tell from my ranting. It's bad writing!
I could go on to complain about little details, like how Ridley Pearson has corny dialogue about 45% of the time at best, and how unpleasant some of his imagery is, and how he has no idea what a high school actually is, and how maybe this literally 65-year old white guy should not keep writing about a 16-year-old African American's point of view on firsthand racism, and how these characters have been 16 for about 4 books, even though these books take place at least 6 months apart from each other-
-and how the whole appearance of the volunteer KKs is not explained AT ALL, and how only NOW the OTs are thinking about possessing Cast Members, and-and.....yeah.
I still adore the series with all my heart and soul, don't get me wrong. But this book....not this book. Never this book.
October 25, 2014
In Shell Game (Kingdom Keepers Book 5), the crew are celebrity guests on an inaugural sail of a new ship traveling from Florida to California via the Panama Canal. Their presence also means that a new DHI server is being unveiled that will have their hologram counterparts working the crowd on the cruise ship and on some of the shore excursions.
Prior to the trip, we learn that the Overtakers have been mounting an assault in Florida at the site of the main DHI headquarters. The Keepers have recruited various other kids, park employees and Disney characters to help in the battle but a vicious siege is going on and the keepers are hesitant to leave the battle in the hands of others. Still, they are the face of the DHI and it's their job to go on this cruise. Even more important, the Overtakers seem to be coincidentally planning something on the cruise. It seems obvious that they would be interested in the new DHI server outside of the core theme park areas but as the story gets going it's obvious that there may be something even more sinister going on.
The first portion of the book takes place in Florida and involves the Keepers making preparations to leave on the cruise securely prepared for whatever problems they may encounter. We learn that the the Overtakers have been recruiting their own forces. It seems that the Evil Queen (Snow White's queen) and Maleficent have been using their powers of "persuasion" (and magical spells) to entrance kids and adults to their cause. The Overtaker humans are usually recognized by their eerie green eyes though it is evident that there are others who are just following orders and may not even know that they are in the service of these wicked characters.
The story is generally pretty fun albeit a little convoluted and repetitive. It started off with some running through Epcot and other Florida parks as well as an exciting confrontation in the Typhoon Lagoon water park. The nostalgia that came from reading the descriptions of these parks was, as always, a lot of fun. Once the story moved to the cruise ship I was less familiar with the "real world" environment but cruise ships in general (even Disney ones) are fairly easy to imagine so I was able to envision the author's world fairly easily.
This book had a lot of twists and turns and intricate side plots. There were a bunch of new characters introduced and it was made very clear that we as readers should be unsure and uneasy as far as who we should really be trusting. Even within the group of five core Kingdom Keepers there seems to be a little contention in the ranks as the teenagers start acting suspiciously and blatantly mistrustful of each other. The DHI software has received an upgrade and there's a lot of reference to new abilities and changes but there's also the suspicion that maybe Disney is looking to "upgrade" to new actors as well since the kids are getting older. All in all there is a fair amount of suspicion and anxiety at the heart of the story.
My main complaint with the series still continues in this book...the interaction and involvement of true Disney characters is far too sparse. We finally have some of the Disney "hero" characters helping out but their appearances are very brief and limited. Most of the Disney "villain" scenes involve the kids spying on them and listening to the villains bicker or plot. When we finally do get a face-to-face confrontation with the villains, the pacing and dialog often feels rather forced and the end of the scene feels a bit anti-climatic. I know he needs to balance the plot by limiting any huge scenes with the full-scale Disney villains and heroes but I keep hoping that maybe a lower-scale hero or two will team up with the kids for the majority of the book and that they might duke it out with some classic Disney henchmen. There is just a lot of potential for fun encounters that I feel are being totally lost.
With regards to pacing and plotline, as I started to run out of pages, I worried that the author was going to pull a 'deus ex machina' and come up with some cheesy ending to wrap the story up. Instead, things just kept getting more and more messy. Finally, the last section of the book flashes back to a strange holographic "dream" sequence from the opening chapter and lets us know that this book is not going to tie the story up in a neat little bow. Far from it...we end up with the entire plot literally dangling in midair as we finish the last page.
As with the previous books, this book is not deep, amazing, "must-read" literature. It's a fun, light adventure romp aimed at tweens and teens. The plot is often ridiculous and the motivations are sometimes very cheesy. As a warning, the plot is getting heavier and darker as the books progress. We're not venturing into "adult novel" territory yet but the storyline and plot points are becoming more intricate and intense such that younger readers (earlier than middle grade) will likely not be as enamored as maybe they were with the first couple of books. This book, more than previous books, seemed to me to be trying harder to "get into the heads of teenage characters" in a way that felt a little heavy handed at times. Still, to Disney fans and those who enjoy a cheesy teenage adventure, this is a fun read.
Overall, this plot and pacing felt more convoluted and confusing than previous books and that left me a little off balance and unsettled. Still, the cliffhanger ending has me itching to read the next book. I admit that the book and series are not fully living up to my expectations or to what I think is their true potential but I'm still having a good time and want to see the end of this journey.
***
2.5 out of 5 stars
Prior to the trip, we learn that the Overtakers have been mounting an assault in Florida at the site of the main DHI headquarters. The Keepers have recruited various other kids, park employees and Disney characters to help in the battle but a vicious siege is going on and the keepers are hesitant to leave the battle in the hands of others. Still, they are the face of the DHI and it's their job to go on this cruise. Even more important, the Overtakers seem to be coincidentally planning something on the cruise. It seems obvious that they would be interested in the new DHI server outside of the core theme park areas but as the story gets going it's obvious that there may be something even more sinister going on.
The first portion of the book takes place in Florida and involves the Keepers making preparations to leave on the cruise securely prepared for whatever problems they may encounter. We learn that the the Overtakers have been recruiting their own forces. It seems that the Evil Queen (Snow White's queen) and Maleficent have been using their powers of "persuasion" (and magical spells) to entrance kids and adults to their cause. The Overtaker humans are usually recognized by their eerie green eyes though it is evident that there are others who are just following orders and may not even know that they are in the service of these wicked characters.
The story is generally pretty fun albeit a little convoluted and repetitive. It started off with some running through Epcot and other Florida parks as well as an exciting confrontation in the Typhoon Lagoon water park. The nostalgia that came from reading the descriptions of these parks was, as always, a lot of fun. Once the story moved to the cruise ship I was less familiar with the "real world" environment but cruise ships in general (even Disney ones) are fairly easy to imagine so I was able to envision the author's world fairly easily.
This book had a lot of twists and turns and intricate side plots. There were a bunch of new characters introduced and it was made very clear that we as readers should be unsure and uneasy as far as who we should really be trusting. Even within the group of five core Kingdom Keepers there seems to be a little contention in the ranks as the teenagers start acting suspiciously and blatantly mistrustful of each other. The DHI software has received an upgrade and there's a lot of reference to new abilities and changes but there's also the suspicion that maybe Disney is looking to "upgrade" to new actors as well since the kids are getting older. All in all there is a fair amount of suspicion and anxiety at the heart of the story.
My main complaint with the series still continues in this book...the interaction and involvement of true Disney characters is far too sparse. We finally have some of the Disney "hero" characters helping out but their appearances are very brief and limited. Most of the Disney "villain" scenes involve the kids spying on them and listening to the villains bicker or plot. When we finally do get a face-to-face confrontation with the villains, the pacing and dialog often feels rather forced and the end of the scene feels a bit anti-climatic. I know he needs to balance the plot by limiting any huge scenes with the full-scale Disney villains and heroes but I keep hoping that maybe a lower-scale hero or two will team up with the kids for the majority of the book and that they might duke it out with some classic Disney henchmen. There is just a lot of potential for fun encounters that I feel are being totally lost.
With regards to pacing and plotline, as I started to run out of pages, I worried that the author was going to pull a 'deus ex machina' and come up with some cheesy ending to wrap the story up. Instead, things just kept getting more and more messy. Finally, the last section of the book flashes back to a strange holographic "dream" sequence from the opening chapter and lets us know that this book is not going to tie the story up in a neat little bow. Far from it...we end up with the entire plot literally dangling in midair as we finish the last page.
As with the previous books, this book is not deep, amazing, "must-read" literature. It's a fun, light adventure romp aimed at tweens and teens. The plot is often ridiculous and the motivations are sometimes very cheesy. As a warning, the plot is getting heavier and darker as the books progress. We're not venturing into "adult novel" territory yet but the storyline and plot points are becoming more intricate and intense such that younger readers (earlier than middle grade) will likely not be as enamored as maybe they were with the first couple of books. This book, more than previous books, seemed to me to be trying harder to "get into the heads of teenage characters" in a way that felt a little heavy handed at times. Still, to Disney fans and those who enjoy a cheesy teenage adventure, this is a fun read.
Overall, this plot and pacing felt more convoluted and confusing than previous books and that left me a little off balance and unsettled. Still, the cliffhanger ending has me itching to read the next book. I admit that the book and series are not fully living up to my expectations or to what I think is their true potential but I'm still having a good time and want to see the end of this journey.
***
2.5 out of 5 stars
July 24, 2020
In the fifth book of the Kingdom Keepers series, the Keepers are now trapped on the biggest cruise ship on the sea, the Disney Dream. The popularity of the DHIs moved Disney to plan a giant cruise with them as the center show. And who else would be accompanying the Keepers and the thousands of innocent civilians? Why the worst Disney villains ever imagined of course.
Re-reading this book series has been a rollercoaster ride for me. While the first two books were ok, the last three have gotten consistently better and better with this book being one of the best in the series. I truly enjoyed everything about this read. The characters are fleshed out and intriguing and the tension and paranoia throughout is excellent. I loved every minute.
Re-reading this book series has been a rollercoaster ride for me. While the first two books were ok, the last three have gotten consistently better and better with this book being one of the best in the series. I truly enjoyed everything about this read. The characters are fleshed out and intriguing and the tension and paranoia throughout is excellent. I loved every minute.
August 27, 2024
I’m pretty sure Ridley only wrote this book so he could get a free cruise. It completely lacks the charm of the previous books. Weirdly, I didn’t remember a thing about this book, only that I didn’t like it as a kid. I think Ridley was going for “teenage growing pains,” but in doing so, he made all of the characters painfully unlikable.
Can’t wait for you-know-who to you-know-what in the next book 🙄 I’m sure it will be just as NOT emotionally impactful as I remember.
Can’t wait for you-know-who to you-know-what in the next book 🙄 I’m sure it will be just as NOT emotionally impactful as I remember.
December 22, 2023
After 8 long months, I can finally say that I have finished this book. This book was such a letdown after reading Power Play (book 4), and I refuse to believe there are still 3 more books left in this series. The beginning of this book was so promising, however the book seemed to crash and burn after page 100. I honestly cannot decide which was worse, the lack of Amanda and Jess or the addition of Storey Ming. I still have no idea how I managed to read 545 pages of this book. This book is essentially a 500 page commercial for the Disney Cruise Line.
August 21, 2023
Writing was a lengthy, sometimes convoluted and too detailed. But with all the twists and turns, concept and plot was fun!
January 2, 2024
definitely the best one yet
July 20, 2025
so much fun!! i really enjoyed this book, it was fast-paced and just such a good time. possibly my favourite kingdom keepers book yet, as i especially loved it as it was set in typhoon lagoon and on a disney cruise/castaway cay which are some of my favourite places. the chapters were super short which made it easy to read and it never really got boring.
March 29, 2019
I absolutely loved this book. The cliffhanger at the end was really unexpected. I love the way this series is going, ad I love how they incorporate actual Disney characters such as King Triton and Ursula. These books are really amazing and I can't wait to read more.
May 8, 2022
My review of the original Shell Game.
Given the confined nature of the setting and horribly perfunctory “plot,” I had a suspicion that Shell Game’s makeover wouldn’t be too severe—and I was correct. Though it has more significant edits than some of the earlier rewrites, these exist almost solely to shorten the book. 95% of the material is there, but it’s half as long, with most of the excess descriptions or banter cut.
This is pretty much a blessing in every sense. As I mentioned in my review of the original, Shell Game has nearly zero redemptive qualities, and it’s obvious that these rewrites have no interest in bettering the story in any way—just making it slightly more readable and adding a couple of superficial bells and whistles. So the best one could hope for with a new version was that it would be mercifully shorter, and that much, at least, Pearson could deliver.
Naturally, these cuts included the original’s slightly intriguing elements. The Siege subplot with the engineering base is completely scrapped, and there’s no mention of the volunteer additional Keepers and cast members assisting in the fight. Finn’s mother isn’t a Green Eyes for most of the book (a change I really don’t understand the logic behind), so there’s even less sense of underlying danger than before.
This probably technically worsens the story, but when the original product was so lousy to begin with, I really can’t bring myself to care one way or the other. Both Shell Games are awful; this one is shorter; and that’s all I have to say about that.
Some other miscellaneous (and meaningless) changes from the original:
* Willa is with Finn and Wayne for the whole railroad fight.
* Willa is Finn’s classmate, and they’re the ones who look at the Mayan bat god pictures in class, not Willa and Philby.
* Finn and Amanda don’t fight before he leaves on the cruise.
* Finn and Willa fight the doughboys before they go out and test the lifeboats, not right before the book’s final scene.
* No weird scene with Finn hitting on the photoshop lady. And thankfully, no weird kiss between Finn and Charlene. (Although it’s extremely bizarre to me that the only kiss Pearson retained from the original series is the one between Finn and Storey.)
* There’s a random paragraph about Maybeck feeling lonely and out of place, plunked right in the middle of a conversation he’s having with Tim the bug guy. It’s so jarring, and I am absolutely baffled as to why it was added, and in that spot of all places. It actually made me wonder for half a second if Pearson was going to go nuts and make Maybeck and Tim a couple. That probably would have been better than anything else we got.
* Tim, despite not being a love interest, is featured slightly more, because Maybeck rescues him after he gets tied up in a closet.
* Willa and Charlene find their own way out of the jungle, rather than crossing over and then using fireworks to return.
* The cobra that chases Finn is stopped with a dart because the characters run through a dart game taking place on the beach; in the original, some forever-unidentified person just threw it in the jungle and saved Finn.
* Philby and Willa see Finn running away from the cobra in this version, and apparently do nothing? Finn just turns around and decides to go back, without any interactions with the other Keepers—probably because they weren’t there in the original. I don’t know why they bothered to have Philby and Willa spot him at all.
* Rather than passively watching the action, Maybeck is at least spotted by the Overtakers during the plane delivery, but Philby and Willa take out his attackers and then they all run off. So it was entirely inconsequential.
* Mattie and Storey are combined into one character, which is actually pretty smart, since Mattie’s presence added absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, we never get a scene between Amanda, Jess, and Storey, even though they have a shared history (and, in Amanda and Storey’s case, a bit of a love triangle with Finn); they reunite off-page.
* The book states that Amanda and Jess’s parents let the Barracks take them, which is inconsistent with the series’ previously established facts (well, there’s a big surprise). I actually went back to the republication of Disney at Dawn just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and there it was: Amanda says, “My parents drowned. Jess’s went on this trip to South Africa and never came back. They think pirates—real pirates—got them.” I don’t even like this series, and I apparently have a better memory of character details than the folks who created them.
* There’s a new wrinkle where the contents of the journal cannot be photographed, copied, or replicated in any way. I don’t know what this added.
* No blathering about the 2.0 DHI technology and how it differs from the original version (which took up a lot of the first printing).
* Finn’s hostility towards Philby is basically nonexistent, as are any feelings between any characters towards one another.
* Maleficent’s voice is described as “shrill” and “gravelly” within two pages, and both descriptors seem entirely wrong.
* Maleficent’s monologue no longer ends with “wake up and smell the roses” (which actually kind of worked, because Sleeping Beauty), but “wake up and smell the roasted.” I don’t even know.
* Instead of Finn having a final battle with Tia Dalma, they arrange a future meeting with Maleficent to trade the journal for his mother’s freedom—a change that, again, could have been interesting if Finn wasn’t such a complete blank.
* No fight between Maybeck and the OTKs on the AquaDuck water slide.
* No weird thing where Finn can see the future at the beginning of the book (because, seriously, what even was the point of that?).
* Finn doesn’t randomly gain super strength for no reason at the end of the book.
* No stupid cliffhanger ending where the outcome was always clear anyway. Finn just utters Triton’s code and he and Willa get back on the ship, just as we all knew would happen back in 2012.
Given the confined nature of the setting and horribly perfunctory “plot,” I had a suspicion that Shell Game’s makeover wouldn’t be too severe—and I was correct. Though it has more significant edits than some of the earlier rewrites, these exist almost solely to shorten the book. 95% of the material is there, but it’s half as long, with most of the excess descriptions or banter cut.
This is pretty much a blessing in every sense. As I mentioned in my review of the original, Shell Game has nearly zero redemptive qualities, and it’s obvious that these rewrites have no interest in bettering the story in any way—just making it slightly more readable and adding a couple of superficial bells and whistles. So the best one could hope for with a new version was that it would be mercifully shorter, and that much, at least, Pearson could deliver.
Naturally, these cuts included the original’s slightly intriguing elements. The Siege subplot with the engineering base is completely scrapped, and there’s no mention of the volunteer additional Keepers and cast members assisting in the fight. Finn’s mother isn’t a Green Eyes for most of the book (a change I really don’t understand the logic behind), so there’s even less sense of underlying danger than before.
This probably technically worsens the story, but when the original product was so lousy to begin with, I really can’t bring myself to care one way or the other. Both Shell Games are awful; this one is shorter; and that’s all I have to say about that.
Some other miscellaneous (and meaningless) changes from the original:
* Willa is with Finn and Wayne for the whole railroad fight.
* Willa is Finn’s classmate, and they’re the ones who look at the Mayan bat god pictures in class, not Willa and Philby.
* Finn and Amanda don’t fight before he leaves on the cruise.
* Finn and Willa fight the doughboys before they go out and test the lifeboats, not right before the book’s final scene.
* No weird scene with Finn hitting on the photoshop lady. And thankfully, no weird kiss between Finn and Charlene. (Although it’s extremely bizarre to me that the only kiss Pearson retained from the original series is the one between Finn and Storey.)
* There’s a random paragraph about Maybeck feeling lonely and out of place, plunked right in the middle of a conversation he’s having with Tim the bug guy. It’s so jarring, and I am absolutely baffled as to why it was added, and in that spot of all places. It actually made me wonder for half a second if Pearson was going to go nuts and make Maybeck and Tim a couple. That probably would have been better than anything else we got.
* Tim, despite not being a love interest, is featured slightly more, because Maybeck rescues him after he gets tied up in a closet.
* Willa and Charlene find their own way out of the jungle, rather than crossing over and then using fireworks to return.
* The cobra that chases Finn is stopped with a dart because the characters run through a dart game taking place on the beach; in the original, some forever-unidentified person just threw it in the jungle and saved Finn.
* Philby and Willa see Finn running away from the cobra in this version, and apparently do nothing? Finn just turns around and decides to go back, without any interactions with the other Keepers—probably because they weren’t there in the original. I don’t know why they bothered to have Philby and Willa spot him at all.
* Rather than passively watching the action, Maybeck is at least spotted by the Overtakers during the plane delivery, but Philby and Willa take out his attackers and then they all run off. So it was entirely inconsequential.
* Mattie and Storey are combined into one character, which is actually pretty smart, since Mattie’s presence added absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, we never get a scene between Amanda, Jess, and Storey, even though they have a shared history (and, in Amanda and Storey’s case, a bit of a love triangle with Finn); they reunite off-page.
* The book states that Amanda and Jess’s parents let the Barracks take them, which is inconsistent with the series’ previously established facts (well, there’s a big surprise). I actually went back to the republication of Disney at Dawn just to make sure I wasn’t crazy, and there it was: Amanda says, “My parents drowned. Jess’s went on this trip to South Africa and never came back. They think pirates—real pirates—got them.” I don’t even like this series, and I apparently have a better memory of character details than the folks who created them.
* There’s a new wrinkle where the contents of the journal cannot be photographed, copied, or replicated in any way. I don’t know what this added.
* No blathering about the 2.0 DHI technology and how it differs from the original version (which took up a lot of the first printing).
* Finn’s hostility towards Philby is basically nonexistent, as are any feelings between any characters towards one another.
* Maleficent’s voice is described as “shrill” and “gravelly” within two pages, and both descriptors seem entirely wrong.
* Maleficent’s monologue no longer ends with “wake up and smell the roses” (which actually kind of worked, because Sleeping Beauty), but “wake up and smell the roasted.” I don’t even know.
* Instead of Finn having a final battle with Tia Dalma, they arrange a future meeting with Maleficent to trade the journal for his mother’s freedom—a change that, again, could have been interesting if Finn wasn’t such a complete blank.
* No fight between Maybeck and the OTKs on the AquaDuck water slide.
* No weird thing where Finn can see the future at the beginning of the book (because, seriously, what even was the point of that?).
* Finn doesn’t randomly gain super strength for no reason at the end of the book.
* No stupid cliffhanger ending where the outcome was always clear anyway. Finn just utters Triton’s code and he and Willa get back on the ship, just as we all knew would happen back in 2012.
December 29, 2012
I thought that this book was good. This is the fifth book in this series and has been able to hold my attention and keep my interest for the next book. Overall this would have to be my least favorite of the series so far. It was dull and difficult to get through at times which was difficult from its polar opposite of the last book, leaving the reader in suspense throughout the entire book. I did think it was a slight let down from the last book but good all the same. Shell Games takes place in a Disney cruise which is a different setting from the usual and familiar Disney parks. While at times it was hard to visualize settings, as never having been on a Disney cruise myself, the author well described the setting make it easier to visualize. The different setting also was an interesting change as to story because characters are faced with new conflicts and villains. The book also leaves you with a big cliffhanger and makes my interest in the next book all the more higher and I look forward to it greatly.
May 30, 2020
These books are PAINFUL!!! I bought books 1-4 over five years ago because they sounded awesome!! Who wouldn’t want to read about a group of kids trying to prevent Disney villains from taking over the parks after hours?? However, Ridley Pearson managed to take such a fun concept and make it soooo boring!!! I decided not to continue the series after finishing book #4... and then I was gifted books 5-7 (lucky me 🤮) I decided to give them another chance and nothing has changed... they are so overly complicated, Pearson uses adjectives and metaphors that make no sense at all, just filling up the pages with meaningless words to waste even more of my time!! I’ve read over 2,000 pages of these books and I can’t name anything intriguing about the main characters... my OCD wants me to read books 6 and 7 but I really don’t think I can!! Save yourself the time and read Percy Jackson instead...
December 30, 2013
I really wanted to like it. I really did. Unfortunately, I could only (in good conscience) give it 2 stars. For me, there was too much going on - as if Pearson threw any plot idea into the book and forgot to finish them. Yes, they were eventually brought up again in the end (WAYYYY end of the book) but not enough to explain anything for me or give me an "a-ha!" moment. The story only started to pick up for me a few chapters before the end of the book. At least some of the character story lines were interesting with some cute relational developments. Needless to say, this is my least favorite book of the series. I'm so disappointed that I almost don't want to read the next one. I wonder if book 6 is available at the library so I don't have to throw good money after bad.
August 19, 2016
Nothing is quite as simple for the Keepers as it once was. Their relationships are changing and danger lurks around every corner. The Maintenance Base that controls all four parks is under attack as the Keepers leave on a Disney cruise ship, but they aren't safe either. Overtakers are replacing their Cast Member selves and the Kingdom Keepers don't know exactly what they're planning. Everything is about to change.
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