Product Placement 2

There comes a time when I have to abandon a book. Such was unfortunately the case with A Canticle for Leibowitz. Don't get me wrong: it's an interesting religious satire set unusually in a post-apocalyptic scenario, but I've read so many post-apocawhatsit novels recently -- not to mention an unusually heavy helping of science fiction in general, for me -- that I just had to give in to my instinctual urges and run to the library to pick up some new books, to keep things fresh. It's possible I'll finish A Canticle for Leibowitz sometime in the near future, because it's divided helpfully into three sections and three time periods, and I only finished the first. Until then, know that Leibowitz (by Walter M. Miller, Jr.) is a smart book, and was in fact one of the first recipients of the Hugo Award. I anticipate that some truly interesting themes, which were beginning to surface, would have come to the fore.

In the meanwhile, I started reading down my stack of new books from the library. Three of them are sequels -- it's a way of getting myself back into series I've already started. This first book is a sequel, and isn't ashamed to admit it: its title is Kingdom Keepers 2: Disney at Dawn. To my knowledge, most authors would be averse to the idea of putting an arbitrary number after their book's title. But most authors are not writing about Disney World, the capital city of The Land of Product Placement. To his credit, Ridley Pearson mentions in his dedication that he was pressured by fans to write the novel, and I'm sure the park pushed it too, so this may not be entirely a creative choice on Pearson's part. (Then again, he did leave the ending to the first book open.)

Pearson's first story, Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark told the story of five teenage kids. They were selected to be filmed as new holographics hosts for the park. Some months later, the kids find themselves physically in the park after they fall asleep -- as their holographic (DHI) selves. An individual named Wayne has activated their forms to help save Walt Disney World from being taken over by rogue villains and Animatronics. The question of why these villains want to take over Walt Disney World, of all places, is still a little beyond me -- as is the identity of Wayne -- but whatever; it's Disney, so suspend your disbelief from the highest mountain peak and go with it.

In this book, the idea is not for the kids to get to sleep, so there's decidedly less DHI action this time. The Overtakers might have (and, as we eventually discover, did) create a second server for the DHI's that would keep them stuck in a sleeping form. So the book takes place mostly around dawn while the kids run around the park trying to apprehend villains and find the server. Although, "run around" is a definitively relative term. So much of this book takes place in chat rooms and over the internet that it's surprising the kids even left their bedrooms to save the world. Nintendo DS apparently got a hand in the product placement, because the kids use them constantly to keep track of each other. They do so with a new texting feature, and Pearson is careful to detail exactly how it works.

The featured park this time is the Animal Kingdom, which admittedly gives Pearson a lot less to work with. In the previous book, he could utilize various iconic rides, like Splash Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, and Small World. In this one, we could confuse the setting for a zoo, save for the final rollercoaster showdown, the recurring Disney villain, and the intricate park mechanisms the kids encounter often. It's these backstage park workings that are a draw for the book. Unfortunately, it's much less interesting to find out where the trainers go than it is to find out where the water drains from Splash Mountain.

Somewhere in the midst there are characters, but none of them really stood out for me. The villains are non-existent; Maleficent shows up maybe three times, and Chernabog once. I remembered by the end that Finn was the leader, and deduced that Philby and Willa had a budding romance (for some arbitrary reason), but that's about it. The mystical sisters' origins weren't explained to me, and were usually offscreen, so they weren' t interesting to me.

Nothing about this book is really unique, actually. It's a solid romp through a Disney park, but it doesn't have the same variety (such as it was) that the previous book did. Still, it's decent escapist fantasy, and while I may be setting my bar a bit low, I enjoyed the book. I don't have a strong urge to read the next one, unless it's set in Hollywood Studios (as is foreshadowed), which might prove more interesting than the Animal Kingdom. The product placement is really the worst part: it gets distracting to read the IM-flavored dialogue after two or three pages. I wish there was more action in this book, and less internet-surfing. That gets a bit too close to home for me.