The Quillan Games

This is the first time I have lost sleep worrying about what will happen in a book. I should have just read the whole thing and stayed up the whole night! Yeesh!

But this book is just amazing. This whole series is amazing. Each book goes to a new territory that has a problem and each problem is something we can all relate to. This book actually got me terrified--because its situation reminds me of what might happen if a huge company like Wal-mart takes over everything.

And the characters in this series are hugely complex and developed, and really seem like real people. There is no "one-faced" characters. And because of that it's even easier to relate to them and to be gripped by the story.

There are so many things in this book that throw show more you off-balance. D.J. MacHale includes so many mind-blowing twists and turns you feel positively overwhelmed! I think it's this, the feeling like you are going through the same troubling feelings as Bobby does, that makes this series so popular. It's incredibly addicting, and it does not let you go.

This book is one of the best in the series.

And this series is the best. xD show less

Two words: Scary Good!

For those who haven’t read the Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale, you simply must. Plot twists I don’t see coming, well developed characters and a developed plot that keeps everything moving. MacHale is amazing! Every book takes place on a different world, territories that exist in the same universe, tied together by "flumes," which people like Bobby Pendragon can travel. Bobby, the main character, is a Traveler, who has the responsibility to keep the universe safe from a bad guy, Saint Dane. Each book is incredible, riveting, but the interesting thing is how each world has characteristics that make it close to our own. Overpopulation, or pollution, or too many video games... each world has a problem that will show more cause it’s downfall, and it’s not consequential that our own world has to deal with all of them.

Book 7’s world, Quillian, is a world where games reign supreme. People stake their meager incomes, even their children or their own lives, on the games, in a winner take all bet that would insure that families and children would eat well, or doom them into servitude or worse. The parallels to gambling in this world, or even more striking, the need to waste millions of dollars on the lottery (which is state run), are very obvious. But that’s not all. The games are run not by the government, but by one company, a company called BLOK that was, at one time, no more than one of many businesses trying to compete in a free market economy. But by undermining the other companies on prices, buying out manufacturing processes, and slowly creating a monopoly on everything from clothing to food to automobiles to whatever, BLOK became the only company on the planet, and therefore, had all the power, even more than the governments. When Saint Dane was telling all this to Bobby, all I could think of was that this was Walmart taken to the nth degree. This was the free market system, without regulation or anti-trust policies in place, and then progressed to the point where Walmart was the sole governing system in the world.
The economy that MacHale describes is one where communism has been reached by the control of capitalism. It makes sense, that if Walmart were to control everything, they could regulate it so you had no money, and while you might be somewhat provided for, they in turn would have all the money, and so it would be the equivalent of communism, but with a dangerous and lethal twist. Robots could take care of all the dangerous and lethal problems in the world, but humans are cheaper to make and if there’s an endless supply of them (Consumerism), then it makes economic sense to use humans to do things that would kill them otherwise. But since they wouldn’t want to do that, you make it a punishment for losing in a profit winning game that would provide entertainment to the down-trodden, as well as give them an incentive to bet what money they had, or even their lives, for a chance of living better, if even for a short time.

This book ranks up there with Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984. This series is a must for any middle or high school student, and every teacher should read them and maybe even use them in school.

I’m reading a book right now, 100 Cupboards which is also very good, and I’ll review it later. show less

This is the beginning of the end.

So believes Bobby Pendragon as he enters the unbelievable, twisted, amazing territory of Quillan. On Quillan, the people play games where the stakes could mean life and death; betting in order to continue their very existance. Mindless robotic dolls called dados keep order. A sadistic and creepy pair named Veego and LaBerge pit Challengers against each other...and Bobby has stumbled into the middle of their deadly games. Meanwhile, tragedy strikes on Second Earth as Mark and Courtney struggle to understand the immensity of their best friend's duty and the depths of Saint Dane's evil. The demon Traveler's plots are spiraling outward to become ever more complex and astoundingly clever.

Really, this series show more is one of the most imaginative I've ever read in terms of sheer originality for every volume. And the style is awesome. You can see how far Bobby has come from the first book, and yet he still has deeply realistic vulnerabilities and thoughts in different situations. And although you keep on thinking that you really should've gotten Saint Dane's measure by the 7th book, each diabolical twist of his was still a surprise to me. And now, unbelievably, the action and intrigue seem to be about to be taken up another notch for the 8th book! show less

The Quillan Games stood out to me from the very beginning because of the odd sense of familiarity the territory had for me. On Quillan, a corporation has taken over, controlling the entire population by being the only place to work or to buy food. People are unhappy, hungry, cramped, and desperate. They can increase their station in life by a small amount or a large amount through gambling on games. Some of these games they must compete in themselves; others are staged games broadcast over televisions.

Sounds very Vegas, right? Unfortunately, it's not. People don't have money to gamble with so they fall back on things like slave labor, their children, or their lives. It is a horrifying society in a way that is oddly more real to me than show more the other territories we have seen. Technically, it's the same old story of Pendragon: two cultures exist, one of which is somehow 'superior' to the other and enslaves the rival culture. Badness ensues. The oppressed culture gets pissed. But this time the superior culture is one I can see in my own life. I would see the letters B L O K to refer to the mega-company, but my mind would say "Walmart".

This was probably my favorite in the Pendragon series; although I did finally figure out why I'm not as in love with these books as I should be - the repetition. The reader is bombarded with the same messages over and over again from Bobby - I shouldn't be here. I want to go home. I'm not worthy. I am worthy. blah blah blah. It's not just once a book that we here these things; it's more like once a chapter. I think if you cut out all of the unnecessary repetitions of Bobby's feelings, these books would probably be half as long as they are. But I'm willing to deal with this annoyance for the good points of the story. show less

Bobby Pendragon is no ordinary teen. Since his literary debut in The Merchant of Death, young Bobby has ceased to be solely a figment of DJ MacHale’s imagination but an inter-dimensional hero, an American teen from Stony Brook Connecticut who carries the fates of the entire universe on his adolescent shoulders. In MacHale’s masterpiece, the young Stony Brook Point Guard is roped on an out-of-this world adventure with his Uncle Press who turns out to be a Traveler, an individual who is able to travel to different Territories: a sort of inter-dimensional/time-traveling/space-man who works with his fellow Travelers to preserve balance in the Territories in order to preserve balance in Halla, the connector of all the Territories. Halla, show more protected by Travelers is in the sights of one Saint Dane, a Traveler whose main goal is to instill chaos and havoc in the once peaceable Territories. It is in this plight that Bobby finds himself pitted relying on instinct good friends and all too familiar sense of adolescence.
In line with the other books of this series of journeys out of this world, and dimension, The Quillan Games by DJ MacHale provides readers with a twisting, unrelentless attack on the reader. The Travels and adventures of Bobby Pendragon, Second Earth’s Traveler, come to a pseudo climax in this novel in which MacHale lays the framework for the future of Bobby’s exploits and his mission as a Traveler.
The Quillan Games also provides new prospective on the problems that we face here, even on little old Second Earth. The novel centers on a city that is colossal in its magnitude; where human life is governed not by democracy but a single corporation. BLOK, the de-facto leader of the territory Quillan rules with an iron fist, literally. Using sophisticated Robots as peacekeepers and police officers, the monopolistic corporation insures both the further consumption of their product as well as the continuation of undisputed hegemony. BLOK is claimed, by MacHale, to have started out as a small supermarket where the business radically reduced the costs of its commodities in order to allure- in reality, to coerce- prospective clientele into buying the astronomically low priced goods; while at the same time, bleeding out competition that had no hope of operating at sustained losses. Although the trusts and monopolies of the early 20th Century, i.e. Standard Oil, are long gone along with their outright, unchallengeable command policies, the possibility of resurgence of BIG Business is a looming one, a worry that MacHale invites us to ponder.
Although The Quillan Games is one of the better books in the Pendragon Series, it would be advisable and beneficial to prospective readers to begin their Travels with Bobby and company with the first of the series: The Merchant of Death.
All great journeys start with a single step, missing the first jump into Halla would be a mistake that would surely distort the bold, new vision of the world MacHale imparts on to his numerous, categorically fervent disciples.
The Quillan Games is a fantastic read and recommended for all those already familiar with Bobby Pendragon: Hero, Traveler, and Normal Teenager show less

Grade: 9/10Thoughts: [a:D.J. MacHale|74046|D.J. MacHale|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1245921998p2/74046.jpg] once said in the interview the hardest one to write was [b:The Quillan Games|215540|The Quillan Games (Pendragon, #7)|D.J. MacHale|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172777420s/215540.jpg|738489], and clearly the efforts are reflected within the book. We see MacHale, after the weak books before it, finally going back to the roots of what Pendragon is and bring a pulse back to the Pendragon series. He brings a charm back to the story leaving the readers mesmerized and aching to read the next installment.Final Thoughts: My favorite one of the series by a long shot. The non stop twists and tension within this book make it well show more worth the trip. Extremely entertaining. Heck, this book is enough to even get into the series. It’s that good. show less

The Quillan Games is considerably faster than the previous volume in the series, but still sloppy. There's sloppy proofreading for homophones, sloppy plotting, and dull writing. Again MacHale has been given too many pages and not enough editing. I'm very sorry to report that the next book in the series, The Pilgrims of Rayne, has 576 pages. I didn't enjoy or believe in the premises of this installment, or the protagonists' seeming inability to retain important information about how Saint Dane operates. Still, the action moves forward reasonably well and MacHale has done a good job of integrating material from previous books that appeared unremarkable at the time but now forms the basis for some plot points. I applaud this, and the show more reveals about the nature of the Travelers, and hope that the three remaining books continue this trend. show less