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booksonanisland's review
1.0
Very disappointing. I was so confident I was going to love this book because I adore the TimeRiders series and I'm baffled by the fact Alex Scarrow could go from TimeRiders to this.
The Legend of Ellie Quin is about a farm girl running away from home and heading to the big city, New Haven. This takes place a thousand years into the future and on another planet. Ellie also turns out to be some mad man's bio-weapon, though not much explained about this.
Like I said, I was so confident I was going to love this I bought The Legend of Ellie Quin and The World According to Ellie Quin for £5 each off Amazon in paperback! It was only half way through reading this that I realized how much I regret doing that. It was also less than half way through that I decided to just skim the rest of the book and be done with it.
The book begins with a wikipedia-like article discussing the legend that is Ellie Quin even farther in the future and the rather funny comments that followed (the kind of comments you'd find in any article on the internet). I though it was a good way to begin the book but it mostly serves an an info-dumper throughout the rest of the book.
The writing was also a problem. I can't be bothered looking through to find examples, but I did find more than enough grammar errors to guess that an editor did not look through the book. Secondly, I wasn't excited about the slang used: 'dreg' 'freg' 'crud' ect.
Characterization and world-building was rather weak - not enough to make me want to read on. The characters lacked the personality and development needed to become fleshed out. We are given the dull details about the O2 industry and some other stuff, but the world-building doesn't go beyond that.
This book did nothing to convince me to read the rest of the series which is a shamed because I really wanted to at least like it and I already bought the second book! However, I feel like I'd be mercilessly killing a wounded animal if I continue with the Ellie Quin series.
The Legend of Ellie Quin is about a farm girl running away from home and heading to the big city, New Haven. This takes place a thousand years into the future and on another planet. Ellie also turns out to be some mad man's bio-weapon, though not much explained about this.
Like I said, I was so confident I was going to love this I bought The Legend of Ellie Quin and The World According to Ellie Quin for £5 each off Amazon in paperback! It was only half way through reading this that I realized how much I regret doing that. It was also less than half way through that I decided to just skim the rest of the book and be done with it.
The book begins with a wikipedia-like article discussing the legend that is Ellie Quin even farther in the future and the rather funny comments that followed (the kind of comments you'd find in any article on the internet). I though it was a good way to begin the book but it mostly serves an an info-dumper throughout the rest of the book.
The writing was also a problem. I can't be bothered looking through to find examples, but I did find more than enough grammar errors to guess that an editor did not look through the book. Secondly, I wasn't excited about the slang used: 'dreg' 'freg' 'crud' ect.
Characterization and world-building was rather weak - not enough to make me want to read on. The characters lacked the personality and development needed to become fleshed out. We are given the dull details about the O2 industry and some other stuff, but the world-building doesn't go beyond that.
This book did nothing to convince me to read the rest of the series which is a shamed because I really wanted to at least like it and I already bought the second book! However, I feel like I'd be mercilessly killing a wounded animal if I continue with the Ellie Quin series.
goldluula's review
3.0
Ellie Quin was a shortish story introducing us into the world of Ellie and setting the scene for future books in the series.
Ellie is a young girl who thought she was ordinary. Turns out she was wrong.
She's spent all of her life on a farm, farming oxygen to be sold at prices which are dipping desperately. All her life she has dreamed of nothing more than escaping the farm, and travelling to New Haven, the major city of the planet she's on. After discussing plans with that standard boy she has a crush on (c'mon, he teaches her maths), she runs away from home.
Did I mention that this planet is not Earth? And that the atmosphere is not yet hospitable for humans to survive without an oxygen mask?
Well, she's a ninny who doesn't pack enough oxygen.
She also happens to be one of the most important people in the universe.
She doesn't even know it yet.
Well... It wasn't Time Riders, but it was still a nice read. I'd recommend it for people going on a journey in the car with a couple of hours to waste. The characters seemed a bit flat, and Ellie a bit 2D. I'm hoping that the series will pick up a bit in the next book - as I said, it's a short story and it was only an introduction.
Ellie is a young girl who thought she was ordinary. Turns out she was wrong.
She's spent all of her life on a farm, farming oxygen to be sold at prices which are dipping desperately. All her life she has dreamed of nothing more than escaping the farm, and travelling to New Haven, the major city of the planet she's on. After discussing plans with that standard boy she has a crush on (c'mon, he teaches her maths), she runs away from home.
Did I mention that this planet is not Earth? And that the atmosphere is not yet hospitable for humans to survive without an oxygen mask?
Well, she's a ninny who doesn't pack enough oxygen.
She also happens to be one of the most important people in the universe.
She doesn't even know it yet.
Well... It wasn't Time Riders, but it was still a nice read. I'd recommend it for people going on a journey in the car with a couple of hours to waste. The characters seemed a bit flat, and Ellie a bit 2D. I'm hoping that the series will pick up a bit in the next book - as I said, it's a short story and it was only an introduction.
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