Ariel: A Book of the Change

strong post-apocalyptic fantasy

Like everyone else who was there when the machines stopped working and the mythological creatures appeared, Pete Garey can tell you what he was doing at the precise moment, 4:30 to be exact when the lights went out as the Change occurred. A high school student at the time of the Change, he survived by scavenging what was taken for granted before the Change.

Pete was washing himself in waters that before the Change would go on fire when he sees the unicorn with her broken leg. He sets the leg with splints and they become traveling companions with Pete scavenging for food especially the impossible to find peppermints that Ariel loves. They meet Russ Chafney in the library in Atlanta and he takes them to Malachi Lee who teaches Pete to use a sword in a dangerous world in which guns being machines fail to work. However, a dangerous necromancer has learned of the unicorn and sent his minion led by the Griffin rider to either capture the beast or steal the horn. Malachi insists he will fight the necromancer alone in the evil one's stronghold in Manhattan. However, Pete and Ariel follow him to New York City as he is their brother in arms.

This reprint of a strong post-apocalyptic fantasy is an engaging tale as good and evil center on a struggle to either befriend and protect; or incarcerate or kill the unicorn. The story is fast-paced especially once the lead couple reaches Atlanta, DC and NYC. Pete is a terrific as he must stay virgin pure to remain Ariel's companion while the unicorn brings a coming of age (some not realistic) feel to the plot. Although the audience needs to ignore the reasons why the Change occurred as they are not forthcoming, ARIEL is a super tale with wry humor that asks whether a return to nature is the only way to save the planet from humanity.

Harriet Klausner

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Not a Fantasy Fan But This Was Great

I have to say that I hate fantasy. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Haven't even read any Tolkien because, well, I hate fantasy.

That said, I sat down and started reading this because a friend told me this was the book for someone who hates fantasy, but would like a good read. And he was right. The book grabbed me from the start, and held my attention all the way to the end. While I wasn't too happy with the ending, it was consistent and correct for the book.

Go ahead. Buy it and read it.

Fun, But Not Everything That It Could Be

This is a fun and unusual story. There is; however, a strange sense of dislocation in time as part of the novel takes place at The World Trade Center.
The book was written when the author was nineteen years old, and I think that shows. Having said that, the story remains entertaining, and I intend to buy and read the much more recent sequel, Elegy Beach.
A road trip set in a post-apocalyptic world that includes such things as unicorns and griffons. S.M Stirling (allegedly a fan) later told this kind of story much more successfully and with more skill.

Michael Travis Jasper, Author of the Novel "To Be Chosen"

Ariel: Not just a horse of another color

As you would expect, a book about a unicorn in a world returned to sorcery from technology must have a virgin somewhere. This one happens to be a young man for a change. Although the switch from science to magic is never explained in the book, if you take it for granted that it happened, the rest of the tale of a team of talking unicorn and his boy forming a symbiosis and traveling to New York to fight an evil sorcerer of unknown power while meeting a host of interesting characters along the way falls into place as it does in this book. The characters are realistic with modern language and the characters have their strengths and weaknesses. All in all a good read for a week or two.

AHHHHHHHH I hate it and I love it.

Cant say too much without spoilers but lets just say the ending killed me and not in a happy way. Yet overall this book was so well writen it kept me past my bedtime for 3 nights. I read the whole thing in 3 nights by the way. Hard to put down book and the story is just great. Few bad things about this book you will wish there was more story. It reads almost like a short but yet it isnt. Also the way things move it is almost too quick. He could have spread the story out to 2 or 3 books. Boyett definately has the gift for telling of tales, you can just see it in his writing. I look forward to see what else he comes out with.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

JUST PLAIN BAD

In just a few words this reader would like to express that this novel is bad, just plain bad; awfully written and the characters are poorly done. Plus, the whole nonsense about unicorns only allowing virgins who are pure to ride them is tiresome and boring; not to mention that being pure should have nothing to do with whether or not a person has performed intercourse or lost their virginity; purity can also mean pure of the spirit, of the soul, and of the heart, which is far more profound than whether or not you have ever engaged in sex.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

A Mediocre Read

This book isn't bad, but neither is it very good. Ariel is an animal companion book set in a strange Earth; fire burns but internal combustion engines do not and lighting flashes across the sky but won't travel across a copper wire. The story follows a young man, and his unicorn, as he grows into adulthood.

The pace of the book is good, and the story is entertaining yet doesn't have much depth; the book did not make me introspective of anything after reading it, nor excited for any sequel.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

It was a good book if you like Fantasy

was kinda dark as well more for adults the kids I love my copy of the book

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