The ugly old black leather bag on the doorstep moaned; Zenith is sure of it. He doesn't know where it came from or
who it was for or why it was left in front of the house, but he knows that it moaned when he first saw it. When he
tries to pick it up, it pricks his finger - and seems to wake up, disgorging a monstrous thing of slime and hair and
too many legs around a darkly beating heart. This is the last thing a boy who's already been grounded for
mischief-making needs... and when the "shlurp" grabs his older sister and babysitter, Apogee, and pulls her back into
the bag, Zenith has to get her back. Thus he finds himself leaping into the land of GrahBag, a world of surreal
horrors, where every monster is worse than the last and even "friends" may turn out to be foes.
Review
I needed a palate cleanser after the previous disappointing audiobook, and this looked like a quick way to fill
out the rest of a work shift, having a great title that promised spooky shenanigans. Happily, it delivers in
full.
Kicking off from the first sentence of the first page, the boy Zenith finds himself with a monstrous bag to deal
with... and, soon, a monster from within the monstrous bag. Almost as bad is Apogee, the sister he used to be close
to until an incident a few years back that transformed her from his comrade-in-mischief to a preteen prison
guard/third parent who would rather lecture him about responsibility than play. As creeped out as Zenith is by the
bag and the "shlurp" monster, he's initially more worried about how letting a horrible bag into the house will
affect his grounding sentence, even as he wishes he could still confide in his sister. Before long, the matter is
taken out of her hands when Apogee is abducted. Zenith wastes little time jumping into the bag afterward... and if
he found the outside creepy, with its mismatched assortment of hides and leathers, the inside is even worse... and
that's before he makes the transition to GrahBag proper, a place that makes nightmares seem downright quaint.
Zenith tries to outwit and outthink the place, but the land of the sickly green skies and red sun always seems to
have another twisted trick up its sleeve, and even when he thinks he's getting ahead, he may be digging himself
into more trouble. He picks up a companion of sorts in the form of a little gargoyle, but he can't expect others
to fight his battles or solve his problems. Nor is Apogee entirely helpless or stupid. The pacing's pretty quick
(as one would expect from a middle grade title) and there are a few fun moments (and a few bits of crude humor -
again, as one comes to expect from middle grade), but it also has genuinely creepy encounters and moments where
Zenith must confront his own mistakes and fallibility. The ending sets up the conflict for the second book
nicely, doing a good enough job baiting the hook that I've already downloaded the next two titles in the
trilogy.
Prepare for Battle! reads the note on Zenith Maelstrom's nightstand, but for the life of him he can't
remember why he wrote it. Did it mean a game with his friend Kevin Churl? They've spent much of their summer
together, except when Zenith has to watch his kid sister Apogee... but something in the back of his mind
bothers him, like he's forgotten something very important. It's not until he finds Apogee in the basement
trying to open an ugly old leather bag that he remembers about their terrible journey through the land of
GrahBag - and how it's his fault that his sister is four years old instead of fourteen. He promised her when
they left that he'd fix it, that they'd go back, but for some reason it's hard to hold onto that thought when
he's in the real world and away from the horrible bag. Then Apogee forces his hand; she sneaks back through to
the other world while he's asleep. With Kevin tagging along, he reluctantly goes back into the realm of
monsters, only to find it's even worse than before. The Wurm lives on as a soul-sucking Wraith, and the very
land seems to be dying. He and Apogee only barely escaped with their lives last time, and this time they may
not be so lucky...
Review
Taking up a short while after the previous volume ended, it also wastes little time getting going, though
Zenith dithers a bit overlong once he realizes that he can't even trust his memories when he's out of sight of
the horrible bag that's the portal to GrahBag. He also finds that he has two memories of the past, one in which
Apogee is his protective kid sister and another where she's always been a little kid (the latter of which being
the reality that their parents and the rest of the world accept)... which is he to believe? Which does he want?
Part of him likes being the older sibling for once, while another doesn't feel at all prepared to protect a
young kid as a big brother should (and as Apogee did when she was the big sister, as irritating as he sometimes
found her). Worse, he realizes that, by abandoning GrahBag after their confrontation with the Wurm, he and his
sister inadvertently made a bad place even worse; those who were loyal to the Wurm were outraged at the loss of
their leader, while those who opposed it tried at last to revolt but lacked a leader, the instigator of the
attack having fled their world after throwing it into utter chaos. What kind of person, let alone brother, is
Zenith if he can't even face the consequences of his actions, however unintentional? As he reunites with old
companions (and some old enemies), he finds new dangers and problems to solve; the titular Eternal Tower is a
truly diabolical prison with mind-warping and devious traps. As before, there's a sense of very real danger for
the kids, and Zenith has to take his lumps and learn lessons the hard way.
The story barely lost a half star for a sense of it being rushed, for Kevin's involvement feeling extraneous
(he's sidelined pretty quickly and hardly mentioned afterwards), and for ending on an actual cliffhanger this
time. I also get a bit irked by plot points that feel drawn out because people won't spit out what they know or
what they need despite ample opportunity (regardless of target age). Still, I'm invested enough to finish off
the trilogy.
Zenith Maelstrom never wanted to go back to the world of GrahBag after escaping the first time; he only
returned to rescue his sister, and inadvertently became tangled up in a rebellion against the remnants of
the Wurm's forces and the Wurm's last vestiges, the ravenous cloak known as the Wraith. Still, that was a
problem for the people of GrahBag, not two outsiders from Earth, both of whom are just children. Only
Apogee betrayed him, literally throwing him out of the nightmare world and sealing the gates. Worse, his
parents are convinced that something terrible happened to him when he witnessed his sister's "abduction";
they discovered his journal recounting his earlier trips to GrahBag and think it's a record of nightmares
triggered by the trauma. Zenith is running out of ways to stall them, and is growing more desperate to
find a way back to GrahBag, especially as days on Earth are months or years there... only the portals in
the bag are still sealed up tight.
Unexpectedly, one day he finds his chance when a new portal opens in an alley - a salty mouth spewing
monster-filled seawater (and foul language). Zenith has nothing on him but the clothes on his back, but he
knows better than to wait for a better opportunity, so he leaps through... only to find that things have
gone from bad to worse. The world of GrahBag is literally coming apart at the seams, and while Apogee's
rebellion is still fighting, the Wraith's minions have seized control of the Collectary tree whose
chalk-slate leaves literally write (or erase) reality... and it won't be long before there isn't even a
world for them to fight over.
Review
The third and (presumed) final installment of the Horrible Bag series pulls the story back on
track after a somewhat weaker middle book, delivering an action-packed, intense finale to a series that,
for a middle-grade title, pulls off some surprisingly dark moments as Zenith and Apogee finally confront
the Wraith and the consequences of their own actions.
Unlike the previous book, Zenith remembers full well what happened to his (once older, now younger) sister
and the world of GrahBag, in part because he took a page from Apogee's book and carefully writes
recollections down every day, with a doodle of the bag itself; if he doesn't see the bag, after a while
the memories slip away to be replaced with a more mundane version of events. He hates seeing his parents
devastated by his sister's disappearance, just as he blames himself for not getting her and his best
friend home safely, but there's nothing he can do except make himself remember and wait for a chance to
get back - only to find himself in literal hot water, emerging in GrahBag's notorious Scalding Sea.
Things only get worse from there, as he learns he and his sister are in no small part responsible for why
the world is falling into chaos around them; the Scribe of the Collectary has found Apogee's old physics
book and is haphazardly inserting whatever scientific concepts strike his fancy into GrahBag's reality.
Zenith encounters the personification of the Grandfather Paradox of time travel (who is, understandably,
rather paranoid) and Shrödinger's Cat (complete with the box in which it both is and is not alive),
the latter of which becomes a surprisingly helpful companion. Zenith tries once more to rescue his sister
- refusing to listen when she tells him she does not need rescuing - but his efforts backfire terribly,
leading to some interesting plot developments that ultimately expose the roots of the Maelstrom siblings'
ties to GrahBag and the origins of the Wurm itself. Things come together for a rather satisfying
conclusion that doesn't erase all the damage done or losses incurred, one which leaves just enough of a
crack in the door for future installments.
