A war has been waging for centuries; a magical and technological battle between good and evil. This conflict will affect life everywhere, but not everyone is aware it exists. When twelve-year old Max Rigdon is sent to stay with his grandfather for the summer, he unwillingly enters the fight.
The day Max steps off the bus he is marked with an evil curse and immediately becomes the target of evil men and creatures with designs on ruling the universe. Not only does this curse cause Max physical pain but it allows his enemies to track and find him. He soon learns that the reason for this unwanted attention is because his grandfather is the keeper of a gateway; a powerful machine that makes travel to hundreds of strange unknown worlds possible. The enemy will do anything to gain possession of this power in their quest to control all worlds.
With the help of his friend Cindy and others, Max must quickly learn the necessary skills to survive if he is to avoid the deadly trap that has been planned for him and his grandfather. A trap that has been decades in the making with Max as the missing piece. If successful it will change life as we know it.
"This is a reasonably good YA fantasy and with other books in the series following this one, it is worth checking them out."
Reviewer: Angel for Bookangel.
Max and the Gatekeeper is the story of twelve-year-old Max and the adventure he becomes involved in when he is sent to his Grandfather’s house in the country for the summer. Although he doesn’t really want to be there and the rest of the town treats him badly, he makes friends with his next-door neighbour, Cindy. So it’s a bit of a shock to find out that his Grandfather is guarding an inter-dimensional gateway to other worlds and that the rest of the town are working for evil forces and want to get there hands on it.
Learning that magic exists, that there are other worlds and there are people working with his grandfather to protect the gateway and stop it being used for evil purposes is easy. Learning magic, travelling to other worlds and finding out that his grandfather is training him to take over means that Max, with the aid of Cindy, has to step up to the challenge.
Although this is a fairly standard setup: two young people, magic worlds, grave danger, it does well to tell its own story without falling into too many clichés. The beginning of the story is a little slow and there are some parts later on that do meander, but in general it follows at a reasonable pace with some well though out plot. The characters are well defined and you do get a feel for protagonists and antagonists on both sides. This is a reasonably good YA fantasy and with other books in the series following this one, it is worth checking them out. Rating:4
"The story itself is wonderfully creepy, and I was hooked from the first moment."
Reviewer: Reader for Bookangel.
We meet Max on the bus to his grandfather's house, having been sent away for the summer to help his mother make ends meet. From his first encounter with a disturbing stranger, the story moves swiftly to the apparently haunted house and crowds of strangers in black robes and that's before the real plot even begins. The story itself is wonderfully creepy, and I was hooked from the first moment.
I'm not going to spoil this but readers of YA fantasy should definitely give this a read. It would be of particular interest to fans of the Tim and Two Witches, Harry Potter, or Magic in the Wind books, but the author has taken this familiar idea and made it entirely his own.
As regards presentation, this book has decent formatting, grammer and no annoying spelling errors or typos. There is nothing to distract or detract from the story.
Thoroughly enjoyable and I look forward to finding out more about Max. Rating:4
