Fantasy novels are just masked attempts to preach to us, or Avalon: Quest For Magic #4: Heart of Avalon

Books about Emily are always a little boring. I feel like the others outshine her...even when the book is supposed to be about her. She's just so...
Caring?
Empathetic?
Healing?
Um, try boring.



Plot: Let's get this over with. Adriane and Kara are both level 2 mages. Emily longs to join them in their level 2-ness, but still hasn't bonded with a special magical animal.
That's right, folks. Ozzie, the ever-annoying ferret/elf, is NOT Emily's bonded. He is, in fact, a unique mage, like Emily herself.
One day, at the celebrated Wavefest of Prince Merlin (the spoiled merboy Emily eventually falls in love with), several sea dragons show up with some unknown illness.
A mysterious baby sea dragon then transports Emily and Marlin to a faraway island. How? We don't know. The baby sea dragon is not REALLY a sea dragon, but some kind of magical purple and pink shapeshifter. Emily dubs him Indigo, or "Indi" for short (sort of like Indiana Jones!!).
As their friends rush to find them, Emily and Marlin try to convince Indi, who can travel along the magical web at will AND has eaten Emily's magic jewel, to take them back, but Indi uses all his magic to take them to Port Tuga.
A mysterious woman named Miranda teaches Emily to use her magic in terrifying ways that end up killing several animals. However, in the process, Emily discovers that ALL the sea animals are sick, and that she has bonded with Indi, who has become a sparkly unicorn!!
The magic needed to heal all of them is located in the Crystal Caves, which some people think don't exist. Emily, Marlin, and Indi go there, finding their friends in the process. It turns out that the cave isn't full of jewels, though; it's full of magical sea dragon eggs!! And you thought the sea dragons were going extinct!
BAM! The Dark Sorceress shows up to take the magic of the eggs. Wait...it turns out Miranda was really the Dark Sorceress. Pwned!!! Nice one.
Bla bla bla. They fight her, recover Marina, the missing water Fairimental, and save the baby dragon eggs.
However, Indi used all his magic to save Emily. He transports her to another island (a habit of his, I suppose), where a water sylph tells Emily that Indi is really one of the power crystals they are seeking. Emily is heartbroken; how can she give up her bonded? But she gives Indi up...and he comes back, because he loves her. Now he'll be a unicorn forever!
Rude awakening: Emily isn't meant to bond with a magical animal. She is meant to strengthen the bond between animal and human, so in a way she is bonded to everyone. However, Indi is now her paladin! w00t, Emily is a Level 2 mage!!
But the Dark Sorceress has another dastardly plot up her sleeve...which involves Henry Gardener, the wizard we've all been waiting for.
Unfortunately, we'll never see how that ends up, because Rachel Roberts, the author of this series, did not publish anymore books. I've heard all this crap about how she's just switching publishers, but it's been 3 years, and either she's the slowest writer ever, or she's given up. Whatever. We don't need you, Rachel Roberts. We like Madison Finn better ANYWAY!

More notes:
Tasha: The unicorn jewel and the wolf stone emit completely opposite frequencies.
Adriane: Big surprise.
If that's not foreshadowing, I don't know what is.
Wait...if they emit completely different frequencies, shouldn't that make them create beautiful harmony together? That's what happens with light, anyway.

Kara: Tasha, you rock!
Tasha: Actually, I crystallize, Princess.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

All of them are Level 2 mages...except for Emily. All of them have bonded animals...except for Emily. All of them have boyfriends...except for Emily.
Mwahahaha.

"Kara smiled her million-dollar blazing star smile."
I swear they copied that out of the movie "Life Size".

Marlin: It's all those sea dragons' fault! Magic attracts magic! Everyone knows that.
Jaaran: What does a jerk attract?
Someone's been watching "Seinfeld".

"Pups rolled across the sand as a purple blur erupted from the center of the pile."
Lol. That just looks funny when you picture it. Especially when the pups look like baby seals...laff attack.

Indi shapeshifts to look like Ozzie, and Emily doesn't realize something's wrong until she notices he doesn't have a collar - and this is after the Ozzie lookalike has showed up with pink/purple fur, eaten her backpack and jewel, and talken in gibberish for the past ten minutes.
Nice, Emily.

Adriane: Jaaran!! *flyingleaphug*
Jaaran: Adriane, I'm so glad you're here.
Zach: *jealous fuming*
Lorren: Probably just friends, I'm sure.
ROFL!! Oh, the drama!

Jaaran says, "What are you insinuating?" Agh, I remember Amber would say that ALL THE TIME in 7th grade.
Blah. 7th grade.

They go to a place called Port Tuga. Hm, that wouldn't happen to be a play on Tortuga, would it?

Emily believes in evolution, but she's against it. How does that work out??

Indi's name was Riba until Emily decided to change it.
I like Riba better. Rrrrrrrrrrrriba.

"Magic lamps! Only been rubbed once."
Euphemism for sex?

Tee hee hee, Miranda teaches Emily to use Jedi Mind Tricks on some advancing trolls. "You don't want this magical creature. We were never here, you never saw us, we never existed."

Indi has Indi-gestion.
-_-

Miranda is so Sith!!! She's corrupting Emily like Sidious corrupted Anakin.
"Maybe, someday, I can evil stop people from dying!!!"

Miranda is such a liar!!!!

Rah!! She's killing them all! All the sea creatures IN THE WORLD.

Lol. Marlin's all, "Who's Miranda? What are you talking about?"
You are now in...THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Marlin randomly jumps into the water to save his sea dragon from a pack of hungry sea wolves.
You're screwed, my friend.
And Emily does NOTHING to help him...because standing on the deck screaming, "Oh no, Marlin," does not count.

She killed them all. And not just the men...but the women, and the children. They were animals, and she killed them, like animals.
SHE HATES THEM!!!
[For all of you who are really confused, go watch "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones". The funniest movie you will ever see, I guarantee it.]

They run into sirens who try to lure them away from their destination.
In an ocean of tears, we wait.
Waiting, longing for home.
There is no today.
No tomorrow.
No place to go.
Whaaat? The sirens collaborated with an emo band??

"Every seafaring elf knows how to protect himself from the siren's lure. Get wig-jiggy with it."
-_-
And no, it wasn't Ozzie who said that, surprisingly enough.

Hm, all the creatures in the water are sick. Could it be the water is making them sick??? GOOD JOB, EMILY!!! XP

"It ain't all tweetybirds and pretty monkeys out there."
That's an interesting picture.

Tasha has disappeared.
"'Listen, pal.' Lorren stepped close to Marlin. 'I'm not leaving here without her!'
Emily caught a momentary flash of jealousy in Kara's eyes."
I'd be jealous, too.
Boy drama sucks.

Emily: I'm sorry about the Flyer. She was a good...boot. [Boat]
Cribby: None like her!
Marlin: If we make it back to Aquatania, we'll build you a new one.
Will Turner: A better one!
Jack Sparrow: A better one!
Will Turner: That one.
Jack Sparrow: That one??? Aye, that one!

The magic in the sea dragons' eggs could heal all...but they don't want to take the lives of the babies to save everyone else.
Veiled anti-abortion message?

Zach has the power to control time...but he's not very good at it.
So Kara stupidly tries to help him, and Adriane spazzes out. MORE FORESHADOWING.

Aw, Marlin saves Emily from the burden of hatching sea dragons.
They all imprint on him.

Indi is a power crystal!!!
That could be why he's pink and purple.

Indi now looks like the hunchback of Notre Dame.
Apparently, he's the Heart of Avalon, the most powerful of the nine power crystals. Whoop-dee-doo.

Why isn't the sylph on the cover wearing any clothes?

"Emily could feel the sorrow pouring from him as Indi finally resigned himself to his fate. With a shuddering sigh, all the color washed away as the creature that was Indi began to shrink, folding in on itself, shapeshifting for the last time. In her outstretched hands, Emily held a plain gray, heart-shaped rock.
'You don't love me anymore.'
'No,' Emily stammered. 'That's not what I meant.'
With a loud crack, the stone split down the middle."
Mwahaha. That's kind of funny.
Malachi: Hearts of Stone.
From Bible flashcards in like 1st grade.
But that's so emo!!! It's the sirens' fault; their bad influence made Indi suicidal.

Avalon is where you heart is. So if home is where your heart is, and that's where your treasure is also, then Avalon is at home...with all of your treasure...so you're rich??
Sorry, spaghetti brain.

"'I am the merfolk prince.' Marlin met his father's gaze. 'But I am also a dragon rider.'"
And with that, he rips off his clothes and hops into the sea.
Lol. He's a dragon rider. LIKE ERAGON!!

Peanut, Cocoa, and Bananas are good dragon names.

Emily: I think he knows how lucky Aquatania is to have a prine like you.
Marlin: *takes her hand* No one ever saw magic in me, until you.
AAAAAAAAAGH SOOOOO SAPPY!!! If this wasn't a children's book, they'd be kissing right now.

Even more foreshadowing. Adriane is majorly at odds with Kara and the way Kara treats Zach.

The Dark Sorceress' plan involves phantom wraiths, which are like dementors. Nice.

The crystal she gave to Adriane WAS tainted. Whooooa!! How evil is that??

So we'll most likely never find out what would've happened or what's going to happen in the rest of the series. There are no more Avalons, for which I'm a little sorry, but there are 3 Pony Pals left in the series, and a buttload of Madison Finns, so stay tuned!

Of course the Native American girl has to bond with a mistwolf, or Avalon: Web of Magic #3: Cry of the Wolf

Okay, I'm trying to finish this pretty quickly because I have a Christmas Eve service to go to in about an hour (I'm starting this at 2:51, but knowing me, I'll probably finish around 4:00).



As you can see on the cover, this is the first glimpse we've seen of Stormbringer, the elusive mistwolf, and that little hottie (psh) in the back there is Zach. It looks like Adriane has a lip ring...psyche, that's an indentation on my book.

Plot: Adriane and Stormbringer are bestest friends and they tell each other everything. Storm admits to Adriane that she's lonely and wishes she weren't the last mistwolf alive.
Well, it turns out she's not. A bunch of mistwolves pop through a portal into Ravenswood and whisk Stormbringer away. Storm doesn't want to leave Adriane, but come on. She tells her "pack mate" that she will always be able to find her.
So Adriane is heartbroken and convinces her friends to reopen the portal so she can contact Storm...and gets pulled inside and dumped in the Shadowlands! Sucks for you. In the Shadowlands, she meets a deranged ape thing named Scorge who is looking for his magic rock. No comment. He runs away and Adriane finds the rock, which can move on its own and seems to understand everything she says. They become BFFs and Adriane dubs him Rocky.
Then imps attack them, obviously after Rocky! A boy named Zach appears on a griffin named *snicker* Wind Dancer and saves their butts.
Bla bla bla. Zach feeds Adriane and they talk. Adriane finds out that Zach's parents were mages and they were killed and a bunch of FASCINATING stuff.
A bunch of scary, magical creatures keep attacking them. They must REALLY want that rock. Adriane saves them all this time, but Windy is greviously wounded. They fly through another portal into the Fairy Glen and Windy dies.
But that's okay, because there are Fairimentals in this new portalicious place, and boy, do they like to talk! Turns out "Rocky" is a dragon egg. Hmm, sounds vaguely "Eragon"-ish. They also reveal Adriane's real quest (she'd been very vague on details with Zach) and he flips out, because he was raised by mistwolves.
Whaaaa? Adriane drags the story out of him: Zach was raised by mistwolves, but in order to prove himself to one wolf brother, he tried to kill the creature that destroyed his parents, and in the process led several mistwolves into a trap. Adriane's all, "Awww, that sucks, but you have to be strong," and a bunch of moving stuff. Sort of awkward/boring. She also finds out that Zach has never had a birthday party; this is important (sort of). Then Adriane leaves to go on her quest. By herself. All on her owney.
And she gets attacked by magical creatures. AGAIN. But Zach and Rocky save her, Rocky hatches into a baby dragon and imprints on Adriane, so Adriane renames him "Drake". Phew. That's a lot of information.
Not done yet. Adriane somehow gets captured in order to save Zach and Drake, and is taken to the dark sorceress that we met in book #2. She throws Adriane into the dungeon. Figures. There Adriane meets a bunch of fellow prisoners who are suffering from the Black Fire (don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but it's a magical disease that Lyra had, and a million of the animals in Ravenswood had, and it's pretty serious, but apparently really easy to cure because Emily does it ALL THE TIME, but anyway....). One of them is Silver Eyes, a mistwolf Zach had thought he'd killed. Guess you were wrong!
The d-flies come back and open a portal, allowing Emily to heal all the animals. Neither she nor Kara go THROUGH the portal to try to HELP Adriane, they just sit behind their computer and heal through the internet with magic. LAAAME. So Adriane, now strong, leads the animals on a revolt. They get out of the castle. Yay!
But it turns out it was a trap. The manticore from book #1 has a trillion soldiers behind him and he's mostly likely going to kill them all, but Zach and the mistwolves save them all. Yaaaaaay???
Then Adriane throws a birthday party for Zach. It's touching. Then she goes home. I REALLY suck at summarizing.

More notes:
Adriane and Storm are running through the woods together. What is this, Pocahantas?

Ugh, way to reference "George of the Jungle". "Adriane! Watch out for that....tree."

Now they're rolling down a hill together? Like Anakin and Padme?

Dang. Turns out Adriane's parents abandoned her at Ravenswood so they could travel the world. That sucks.

Adriane believes she's a wolf. Why isn't she being locked up?

Ooh, never mess with a mistwolf named MOONSHADOW. Rawr.

Turns out there are billions of mistwolves. Storm just missed them.

Lame. Storm's all, "Oh, thanks for the fun times, I'm going to leave forever now!"

Okay, that Marcus guy is kind of an idiot. "It's beauty and the beast!"

Oh. Dragons must be real because Ozzie's cousin's friend's friend's brother-in-law's neighbor's cousin's schoolmate's grandma saw one!

"Dragons are very rare and powerful magicla creatures. They have long been extinct on Aldenmor." FORESHADOWING!!

Okay, here are the dragonflies and their colors.
Barney = purple
Fiona = red
Goldie = yellow
Fred = blue
Blaze = orange

"Instead of playing our regular 'Throw the Shoe at the Dragonflies' game that you all love so much, I have a special new game for us to play. It's called the 'Open the Portal' game! Yay!" Heh.

Emily grabs Adriane to prevent her from being sucked in and Ozzie is just hopping up and down. Thanks for the help, Ozzie.

Oh no. Scorge talks like Jar Jar Binks.

"You're not from around here..."
"No, I'm from...over the rainbow."
Right.

Adriane, you do realize you're talking to a rock.
"Is that what you are, Rocky? A pet rock? Yes, you are! Who's the good widdle pet rock? You! That's who!"
Then again, I'm talking to a fictional character....

"Let's rock and roll!"
No comment.

Ha. Rocky goes bowling.

Ew, Zach starts poking Adriane and pulling her hair. You're not 2.

I think this is supposed to show us how witty and edgy Adriane is.
Zach: Where are you from?
Adriane: Over the rainbow.
Zach: How old are you?
Adriane: One hundred and fifty.

WHAT KIND OF NAME IS WIND DANCER?? That reminds me of that Sky Dancer show I loved so much.

Okay, that's sad, because Christopher Paolini BASICALLY copied this book with the whole, "It's not a stone, it's an egg," deal.

Okay, Zach needs to get out more.
Adriane: What do we do? Sit on it?
Zach: *laughing uncontrollably* No, I don't think it's a chicken.

"A human had killed his pack mother. But the only other human here was Zach."
Then it must have been Zach.

Zach destroys the map to the Fairy Glen. Psycho.

Zach suddenly has a sword?? Question mark?

Oh, it's an Elven Spirit Sword. I wonder, did ELROND make it for you? Or was it passed down from father to son from the great warrior Isildur?

Okay, I started laughing when Windy died. I felt bad, but Adriane was all, "BUT THESE FLOWERS HAVE HEALING MAGIC! THEY CAN HELP HIM!" Then she falls to her knees and is all, "[Vader]NOOOOOOO![/Vader]"

I REALLY doubt that the Fairimentals are wearing any clothes. "Heart of Avalon" has a naked water Fairimental on the cover.

Adriane: My friend...that I'm looking for, is not exactly human.
Zach: What is she?
Adriane: A mistwolf.
Zach: *flips out* A MISTWOLF!?? *runs away*
Um, what was up with that?

Uh, creepy, they commune with trees.

They're looking at a picture of Zach and his parents.
Zach: That's me.
Adriane: The baby I take it.
....

No, Adriane, your parents have never been killed by a manticore, don't try to relate.

"You're everything I've always dreamed of being. Strong, confident, independent. And you understand what's going on around here. How are we supposed to figure this all out without your help?"
Wow. Flattery works, too.

"How can I help? You need a knight, a hero, like Zach."
What gives you the impression that he's a hero? I was under the impression that he's an angry, pubescent teenage boy.

"'Human,' Moonshadow said to her. With a start, Adriane realized the pack leader was talking to her."
Well, yes, seeing as you're the only human in sight.

"And I like your name, Drake. It's so smooth, like a rock star. Rock star, get it?"
ENOUGH WITH THE ROCK PUNS!!

Okay, they're attacked by things that look like Rocksteady and Bebop from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Zach rescues her. Again. How convenient.

THOSE ARE SO NOT ORCS!! LIES!!

Oh, you shouldn't assume that dragons are horrible monsters. That's discrimination. OBVIOUSLY you've never been to diversity training, Zack.

"Zach's butt was suddenly crisped with soot." Mmm, delicious.

Some more Jedi fight scenes. Aww, Adriane, you're so selfless!

She just randomly faints. Nice.

The dark sorceress looks like the falcons from "Snakecharm" and "Falcondance".

Okay, the dark sorceress isn't really evil, if all she does is capture teenage girls and tell them wolves are stupid.

"Oh, how is your friend kara? I'm looking forward to meeting her again." FORESHADOWING!!

Adriane has the Black Fire now. She is going to die. Wait! What's that sound?
POP! POP! POP! POP! POP!
Yay, the dragonflies are back!

Aw, Silver Eyes doesn't blame Zach.

Gee, how will we get out of the castle? Don't worry, Lyra knows how! AARGH! Why can't they figure stuff out for themselves? Heh, coming from someone who is practically failing math....

Oh dear, the manticore is back.

Violence and blood.

Aaaaand now you're outnumbered.

Okay, lame.
Adriane: Save yourself!
Storm: I would not be able to go on without you.
Adriane: Really?
Storm: Yes.
Adriane: I love you, Storm.
Storm: I love you, Adriane.

A magic net is about to fall on them...but at the last moment, all the mistwolves turn to mist, rendering them invisible! Wait, invisible things can still be caught by nets.... Doesn't make any sense.

Manticore: I will kill you as easily as I killed your parents, boy!
Moonshadow: Then you will have to kill me as well!
Awww, Moonshadow comes through for Zach. Wth, manticore, why would you ADMIT that? They'll be taking you to Fairy Alcatraz.

Oooh, Adriane looks so fashionable in a purple leaf.

Zach is kind of creepy. "What, he likes his tummy rubbed!"

Awww, a hamster-size dog.

Zach gets a magic jewel! It's a dragon stone! Now he's bonded to Drake! Yay!

Ha. Kara hits on Zach.

YES! I did it in LESS THAN AN HOUR! w00t!!! Okay, now I have to go to church. Seeyas!