View source for Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest) by Adam Blade

{{infobox1
|title=Creta the Winged Terror (Beast Quest)
|author=Adam Blade
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=A decent light fantasy read for the reluctant reader, with a good insectoid nasty.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=192
|publisher=Orchard
|date=January 2010
|isbn=978-1408307359 
|website=http://www.beastquest.co.uk/
|cover=1408307359
|aznuk=1408307359
|aznus=1408307359
}}

Our hero, Tom, is finding his fishing trip with his father bugged - literally - by a plague of sickening cockroach things.  What's more, the whole land of Avantia is suffering some form of horrid heatwave.  Can Tom, recognising yet another threat to his country from the evil Malvel, defeat his nemesis yet again - especially as said baddie has as a new weapon of darkness a massive host of the roaches, swarming as one giant monster?
 
I still have a quibble about this franchise.  I still don't feel happy it is forty-three books long and rising, all with gaming cards included.  Is it the cards the makers are selling, in all honesty?
 
Still, this volume, a double-issue bumper tome to accompany series six, is better by far than the other one I sampled recently, when issued for World Books Day.  There's a commendable novelty to the circumstance of the plagued community, before it descends into token, monster-of-the-week formula.
 
It is at times very mediocre fantasy.  I don't paraphrase one character too wildly when I make him say 'There's a place you might have to go to for the only way to help, but it might not exist at all either - never mind, I'll wizard you right to it, and get you wizarded back the very instant you've finished your hero-with-no-outside-help business'.  But, the pace never flags, with hardly any wastage and/or descriptions to get in the way of things.
 
What's more the plot does carry some fresh ideas in amongst its hectic action - Adam Blade (surely the best surname for heroic fantasy writers - if only he actually existed!) uses his insects to very good effect.
 
The parent checking this for suitability will not take an hour to speed through, and will find nothing to perturb them - beyond, perhaps, the nature of a hero aged ten at most, swearing three oaths on his lifeblood during proceedings.  7+ is the right number for the back cover, if we need such prescribed numbers.
 
I don't know quite how long these books would stay on a youngster's shelf, full set or not, but this individual one provides harmless, basic entertainment from a strongly fantastic realm, and while not exactly high literature, contains enough zest, and some clever plot tics that made me give it four valued Bookbag stars, and a recommendation.
 
But then, I am not in the position of being pestered to buy forty further books as a result...
 
I must thank the kind people at Orchard Books for my review copy.  We also have a review of [[Kragos and Kildor the Two-Headed Demon (Beast Quest) by Adam Blade]].
 
If you know a child who is so completely reluctant to read, they will only pick up a book coming united to a card collecting game, internet puzzles, et al, I can see the need for investment.  You are not too late to start with [[The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues) by Rick Riordan]].

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