Episode 3 Season 6 – Fablehaven Grip of the Shadow Plague

By Andrea E. Menzies 01/31/2023

Audio Introduction is here:

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-vzy2d-137bb1b
This is the introduction the full review is here:

What books should fiction fans read now that the top spots are up for grabs? For years authors like J.K. Rowling and Anne Rice ruled the fiction world. However they are not dominating the fiction game anymore. Many websites say Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven series is good for Potter fans looking for new fiction. An unseen magic world that the un-magic knows nothing of swallows two young adventurers who have to save the world from evil magic. So check this book’s full review at (seen here) https://frozenhistory7publishing.wordpress.com or Google Frozen History 7 Book Review Podcast at WordPress to Google the podcast blog.

The Fablehaven series contains the books Rise Of The Evening Star, Grip of the Shadow Plague, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, and Keys to the Demon Prison all by Brandon Mull. I recommend and give a good rating to the series, but the first interesting thing I noticed about “Shadow Plague” is it is about a pandemic, and I read it IN the pandemic. It was written just a few years before the pandemic, and seemed strangely prophetic of real life events in metaphors. Combined with Steven King’s The Stand I am starting to think some fiction writers really have prophetic abilities, but lets face it science has predicted this sort of thing for a while now.

The second interesting thing I noticed is there is a great deal of fantasy overlap between J.K. Rowling and Mull’s fantasy worlds. Centaurs roam the woods near Hogwartz, and Centaurs roam the magic woods of the Shadow Plague. Dragon’s magic, Fairies, and other magic names appear in BOTH books. However Mull’s fiction tends to have an AD&D angle to the myths, and Rowling’s is more King Arthur and Merlin in mythological base. Dumbledor signs his letters as “Order of Merlin” where Seth Sorenson Mull’s main character uses magic missiles and weapons to battle giants, and dragons.

Another contrast is that Mull’s characters are more independent, and lack social help. Harry Potter learns about magic at a magic school with hundreds of other students. He gets swim powers from Longbottom’s gillyweed. In Mull’s Fablehaven universe few humans outside the Sorenson Family know about magic. The family members keep getting kidnapped, and so the kids have to battle alone.

In the book plot hundreds of years ago dragons, centaurs, and other magic beings roamed the Earth freely. Unfortunately evil ones tried to hurt humans, and so all humans began to fear magic. The humans drove all the magic people and animals onto magic preserves where spells make them look like normal animals and bugs. Seth belongs to the family that is the nature park’s custodians. The magic skips a generation, and so Seth’s grandparents have the only other family magic besides Seth’s sister Kendra. The kids were not supposed to learn about magic until they were old enough to inherit the property. Plague, emergency, and magic wars left them defending the nature preserve extra young, and all too quickly. The world starts to be destroyed in every book. However by the end of the book victory always happens.

The tone of the books is not too dark for kids, but is scary at times. The plot twists are frequent, and are interesting to readers of all ages. The plot manages to stay surprising, and NOT predictable. I give it five stars, and recommend it to fiction fans.