The Transall Saga

Time-travel, science fiction, survival and adventure: the plot prescription for a winning audiobook? Perhaps. While veteran narrator Johnny Heller ably recounts the story of 13-year-old Mark Harrison, time-traveler to a post-apocalyptic earth, he must endeavor to wring every fragment of feeling from a text mostly lacking in emotion. Paulsen's novel, with its tight, limited focus on plot at the expense of character, offers Heller little meat in its cast of stock characters. As a result, secondary characters are sometimes indistinguishable. Only Sarbo, a warrior and champion, is clearly drawn. While this recording isn't poorly executed, given the limitations of the text, it's simply lackluster. T.B. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Starred review from May 4, 1998
Paulsen (Brian's Winter) works his magic with another wilderness adventure yarn. But the wilderness this time isn't in this world--or is it? That's what 13-year-old Mark tries to discover. On his first solo backpacking trip, crossing an old missile range in a desert out west, a mysterious blue light transports him to a thick red jungle under a sulfurous sky. There the struggle for survival soon supersedes the quest for the route home. Paulsen draws on such Saturday-matinee staples as poisonous insects, deadly quicksand and murderous beasts; Mark even swings on vines with a friendly monkey-like creature (and this is just the first 30 pages). Yet the plot feels fresh, thanks to the author's taut, unsentimental storytelling (Mark's Tarzan-esque antics, for example, result in broken ribs). Mark grows to manhood in the four or so years of his sojourn; the narrative, meanwhile, continues at a hurtling pace. The teen saves a girl's life, then joins her tribe of forest-dwellers; later, he is captured with them and enslaved by the more technologically advanced Tsook people. There are raids, escapes and brushes with the Tsook overlord, the Merkon, who takes a frighteningly keen interest in Mark. Readers may figure out who the Merkon is long before the protagonist does, but no matter--the action along the way (including just the right dash of romance) is never less than enthralling. While the story is self-contained, the end points to a sequel, so, with any luck, another installment is on the way. Ages 12-up.

Time-travel, science fiction, survival and adventure: the plot prescription for a winning audiobook? Perhaps. While veteran narrator Johnny Heller ably recounts the story of 13-year-old Mark Harrison, time-traveler to a post-apocalyptic earth, he must endeavor to wring every fragment of feeling from a text mostly lacking in emotion. Paulsen's novel, with its tight, limited focus on plot at the expense of character, offers Heller little meat in its cast of stock characters. As a result, secondary characters are sometimes indistinguishable. Only Sarbo, a warrior and champion, is clearly drawn. While this recording isn't poorly executed, given the limitations of the text, it's simply lackluster. T.B. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine