Stewart, Sean Books

Yoda: Dark Rendezvous (Star Wars: Clone Wars)

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 63 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Five Stars 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A great Clone Wars book. We got to learn more about Yoda which is always interesting. Count Dooku has requested a meeting with Yoda. Although Yoda knows its most likely a trap he decides to meet Dooku anyways because Yoda thinks it might put an end to the war. Its was very interesting as Yoda reflected on his former padawan which is very interesting. You have to wonder what a master would think and reflect on a padawan who ends up taking the wrong path despite all of the training. Dooku also takes the time to reflect on moments from his Jedi pasted which gives us an insight into Dooku and perhaps what lead him to the Dark Side of the Force. We also get more of a veiw inside the Jedi Temple which I enjoyed and a sense of how overwelhemed the Jedi are with Jedi masters fighting in the war or dying this is leaving a void for the padawans for their are far too many padawans and not enough masters. We got to meet Scout a Jedi who has a limited amount of the Force in her. This was an interesting twist as most of the Jedi we read about are very strong in the Force. Scout's worried that her limited connection in the Force will leave her to be a Jedi washout. I enjoyed reading about her. The same with Whie a padawan who's been having dreams of being killed by a Jedi. We of course know this is Anakin's future raid of the Jedi Temple when he turns to the dark side. I found it very interesting that a padawan was actually having a premontion of Anakin's future Sith deeds as we see in Revenge of the Sith Whie will be seen being killed on the security hologram. But to Whie this must mean he his evil because he can't think of any other reason why a Jedi would be trying to kill him. It also raises the question that if Whie had told someone else could anything had been changed? Could the Jedi Purge had been prevented? We'll probably never know the answers.
Scout and Whie go with Yoda and their masters in order to sneak Yoda out of the Temple and off Courscant without anyone finding out. The meeting between Yoda and Dooku was predictable after all Dooku can't be saved but it was still very good.

Editorial Review:

As the Clone Wars rage, Jedi Master Yoda must once again face one of his greatest adversaries: Count Dooku. . . .

The savage Clone Wars have forced the Republic to the edge of collapse. During the height of the battle, on Jedi Knight escapes the carnage to deliver a message to Yoda on Coruscant. It appears that Dooku wants peace and demands a rendezvous. Chances are slim that the treacherous Count is sincere but, with a million lives at stake, Yoda has no choice.

The meeting will take place on Djun, a planet steeped in evil. The challenge could not be more difficult. Can Yoda win back his once promising pupil from the dark side or will Count Dooku unleash his sinister forces against his former mentor? Either way, Yoda is sure of one thing: This battle will be one of the fiercest he’ll ever face.

Cathy's Key: If Found 650-266-8202

Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This is love!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I love this book, beacause people who don't even like to read will, read it too... its interactive( go on call the numbers you know you want to!!)

Editorial Review:

Cathy’s Book was literally a word-of-mouth success story, with over 120,000 copies of the groundbreaking, interactive teen novel in print. Perhaps less noticeable was the heart of the book: a good story well told. Now fans of Cathy Vickers will return to the exciting, unpredictable world that made the first book such a success. Cathy was your average high school student-doodling in the margins of her journal, crushing on a cute boy, and hanging out with her best friend Emma. As this story begins, she’s trying to keep a job, her journal is stolen, the cute boy is not who he seems to be, and even Emma’s side project/start-up company, Doubletalk Wireless, is about to get caught up in the mystery surrounding Cathy and her search for the truth about her father. Her presumed-dead father. It’s just a simple story really: Girl loves Boy, Boy disappears, Girl discovers secret that will alter the course of humanity....

Perfect Circle

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perfect Circle 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I came across Sean Stewart after his striking work writing the Halo 2 ARG (Alternate Reality Game), ILovebees. Stewart's latest offering shares little in common with the virtuoso science fiction setting he crafted for the world of Halo, but his main asset as a writer remains well intact: his stories focus on the human aspect of the events they depict, and they're quite believable.

Enter William "Dead" Kennedy (DK for short), stage left. He's seen ghosts his entire life, black and white specters that are easy to mistake for the living at night. Though I'm no English major, Stewart seems to draw heavily from magical realism, a genre in which magical elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting.

DK is one of those thirty-somethings who has slowed down so much life is starting to pass him by. He can't even keep a job steady enough to pay his air conditioning bill, leaving him to roast in the Houston heat. (Regionalism permeates the novel with great lines like "East Texas has four great natural resources: heat, oil, mosquitos, and cousins.")

Though vengeful spirits abound, this is no mere campfire horror story. Poor DK realizes that to his ex-wife and the rest of the Kennedys he's nothing more than a ghost everyone can see, and his subsequent struggle to reconcile with his daughter Megan is alternatively touching and heartbreaking. Neal Stephenson's seemingly outlandish claim on the cover that Perfect Circle is "Stephen King meets Ibsen" might not be so far off after all...

Editorial Review:

William "Dead" Kennedy has problems. He’s haunted by family, by dead people with unfinished business, and by those perfect pop songs that you can’t get out of your head. He’s a 32-year-old Texan still in love with his ex-wife. He just lost his job at Pet-Co for eating cat food. His air-conditioning is broken, there’s no good music on the radio, and he’s been dreaming about ghost roads.

When Will’s cousin ("My dad married your Aunt Dot’s half-sister") calls in the middle of the night about a dead girl haunting his garage, it seems like an easy way to make a thousand dollars. But nothing is ever that simple, especially when family is involved. Will’s mother is planning a family reunion of epic proportions. Will’s ex-wife is married to a former Marine. His twelve-year-old daughter Megan thinks Will needs someone to look after him. And recently his dead relatives seem to want something from him.

Mockingbird

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

There are some gifts which may not be refused 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Once in a while, I reach a point in a book when I have to stop and realize "Oh, this is going to be GOOD." Sometimes that is early on, sometimes it is not until halfway through. Some books make that promise but don't deliver, and others never even make the promise in the first place. Sean Stewart's "Mockingbird" not only has that moment, but it delivers on it brilliantly.

It happens on page three, with the description of Geronimo, the zombie frog.

What seems at first like something clever, funny, almost cute in its concept (the idea of a zombie frog) becomes something far more disturbing and real when examined more closely. This simple event, something that happens fairly early in Toni Beauchamp's life, sets the stage for the story and the tone for the rest of the novel. It was my "Oh, this is going to be good" moment...and oh, it was.

As the story begins, Toni Beauchamp's mother dies, and she is left to figure out what to do with her debt, both spiritual and financial, as well as what to do with her inheritance -- her mother's gift for magic. Thing is, she doesn't want that gift. Her mother, a famous (in some circles) voodoo practitioner, has kept magic a part of her life and her daughters' lives, and Toni wants to be done with it. She finds, however, that she doesn't have much choice, and her family's gift has a way of creeping back into her life again and again.

Sean Stewart is at his best when he dances along the edge of the fantastic, but he always manages to keep his feet in the real world as well. Just as he did in the excellent "Perfect Circle," his story in "Mockingbird" treats magic and mysticism as only a part of his characters' lives, and not even the most significant part. His characters still have jobs, they still have friends, families, and all the little details that make up all of our lives -- and as if that didn't make things complicated enough, they have to add magic into the mix as well. In "Mockingbird," as in the best of Stewart's stories, a real-world sensibility is what grounds the story, even when the story is about magic. It is a difficult feat to pull off, but I have never seen anyone do it better than Stewart does.

When you can tell a story about voodoo, family, pregnancy, dating, possession, and even have a zombie frog in there, and make it all work together, you know you've got something good. "Mockingbird" is a novel that gets all of it right, and you'll know it right from somewhere on page three.

Editorial Review:

There was no question that Toni Beauchamp's mother, Elena, could work magic. She used magic the way other people use credit cards, ringing up huge bills to get the things she wanted. But the debts had to be paid off sooner or later, and in this case payment meant letting one of the six lesser gods known as Riders take possession of her body. When Elena died, Toni and her sister Candy thought the magic died with her. But their mother left them a gift that couldn't be refused, and now Toni finds herself endowed with the same powers she once despised in her mother. And if that wasn't enough, her mother also left behind emotional, financial, and familial disasters that she and Candy must find some way to cope with. --Craig E. Engler

Resurrection Man

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Rewarding Puzzle 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The first chapter of this book has to be one of the most incredible I've ever read anywhere. There's a lot that will shock and intrigue readers in this book, even with its modest number of pages; I thought the story was wonderfully packed and layered.

The downside is that this is going to be a tougher book to read and understand than most sf/fantasy/urban fantasy books--Sean Stewart has got a very different Earth here, and only reveals it piece by little piece. A lot is unexplained (this book is almost absent of all "info dumps" so conspicuous in sf/fantasy); most information about the world must be inferred, at the same time Dante is trying to understand the mysteries happening inside him and within his family.

The patient reader will be rewarded--this book is emotionally gripping, imaginative, funny and intelligent, and the quality and intensity never lets up. Once I reached the middle of the book, I lost hours of sleep trying to finish the rest of it in one night because I couldn't put it down. The puzzle pieces do fall into place in the last chapter. The whole book was a unique and incredible experience, unorthodox in a lot of places, which was really part of its strength.

This was the first book I've read by Mr. Stewart, and I'm looking forward to reading his other books.

Editorial Review:

After World War II, magic began leaking back into the world. By 1990, Dante Ratkay's father, a physician, gives charms to his patients as well as prescriptions, and cops investigate crimes with the help of angels, people who are possessed and changed by magical ability. An angel stirs within reluctant Dante, and his sly, rivalrous adopted brother Jet shows Dante his own corpse, called into being by Dante's magic. Magic always has meaning, but what does Dante's corpse signify? What magic marked Jet as an infant, stalking him through life? This brilliant novel about magic, family ties, and identity has the answers, but they aren't easy.

Night Watch

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Enchanting and intensely real 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

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One thing I've noticed is that Stewart's fiction tends to polarize readers. People either get annoyed with the story and walk away rolling their eyes, or they get very excited about what Stewart accomplishes with his prose, his characters, his distinctive humor, his understanding of life.

I certainly fall into the latter category. Night Watch appealed to me immediately with its enchanting jumble of science fiction and fantasy, and quickly pulled me in deeper with its lyricism and the solid reality of its characters.

To benefit most from The Night Watch, you must be attentive. And patient. If you mainly gravitate toward shoot-em-up action or heart-pounding romance, The Night Watch might not be for you. It has action, true, but actions always have consequences, and Stewart forces us to see that. It deals with romantic relationships, as well, but not the kind of formula romance that goes down like emotional cotton candy. Stewart deals with love: hard, real, something that is a choice, something that takes a lot of hard work to preserve. This is not a book that merely reflects the influence of other books. It's a book that reflects life.

Who will like The Night Watch? I have no idea how to predict. It took me entirely by surprise to read some of the reviews on this page and see that the very things I loved about this novel were things that annoyed or bored other readers. Maybe the lyrical writing will seem dull to you; maybe the story's firm grounding in physical location will seem tiresome; maybe the characters' hard choices, their struggles to figure out life, won't be exciting enough.

But if you want a book that looks hard at the real issues of life, unflinching and wryly humorous, The Night Watch could be just what you're looking for.

Editorial Review:

In Sean Stewart's Resurrection Man (a New York Times notable book), magic began creeping back into the world shortly after World War II, although no one was quite sure why. In The Night Watch, it's the year 2074, and magic holds as much sway as technology. On the Southside of Edmonton the magic has been tamed by a hard ruler named Winter, whose high-tech soldiers often serve as mercenaries for neighboring communities. But in Vancouver, magic is encroaching on what used to be the Chinatown district and the monsters it brings with it are decimating the remaining humans. When Winter sends 100 of his best soldiers to police the streets of Chinatown, the two cities are forced into an uneasy relationship of cooperation. When the Southside's heir apparent, Emily Thompson, flees her grandfather Winter's forceful rule, it puts the two sides at odds, and only the death of a young girl may save the day.

Clouds End

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

No action, shallow characterization, poor writing 1 out of 5 stars.
4 of 8 people found this review helpful.

Sean Stewart is a talented writer, and his novel Nobody's Son is excellent. Cloud's End is therefore more of a disappointment. The action is very slow. Nothing much happens. All the characters seem indistinguishable from each other. Very dull reading, with no rewards.

Editorial Review:

A story of divisions and unions, of opposites and identities, and a modern-minded homage to one of fantasy's best-loved authors. At the heart of this ambitious novel, the slow, though mortal, competition between Brook and her haunt-twin Jo reverberates through everyone around them and through the war that unbalances their world. Though at story's end equilibrium is attained, we have learned how fragile that is, and, setting the book down, the reader can guess at the characters' future and value their present peace in a way that they cannot. Stewart's mythically rich world of lives and stories is engrossing, and the cleanly lyric prose is at times breathtaking. Memorable characters, a world of wonders, and solid plot make the best fantasy, and Clouds End contains all.

Galveston: A Novel

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Novels from fantasist Sean Stewart resemble icebergs: four-fifths of their content is hidden, adding psychological mass that is felt, even if not seen. His seventh novel is his best yet.

Galveston, Texas, is an island already rich in history and eccentric characters when, during Mardi Gras in the year 2004, sudden magic floods the streets. The world is changed--divided between the real city, where technology and its products become unreliable and scarce, and the city doomed to endless carnival, where it is always 2004 and there are still such wonders as cigarettes, cold beer, and aspirin. Twenty years later, three major figures hold the city in precarious balance: Momus, the king of carnival and god of magic; Jane Gardner, ex-lawyer and unofficial mayor, fighting to maintain essential services in the real city; and Odessa, angel and arbiter. When Gardner develops Lou Gehrig's disease, her daughter, Sloane, strikes a desperate bargain with Momus, and the delicate balance is destroyed; cataclysmic change ensues.

Stewart is at his considerable best when he focuses on character. He is able to make metaphor concrete using symbols that, in lesser hands, might be considered simplistic and clichéd. The author is less sure, however, when he attempts to paint a grander canvas: the hurricane towards the end of the book is not strictly necessary, and it flings the novel around a curve that it was perhaps not meant to follow. Despite this, the book has much to offer, with tips on poker, herbal medicine, and island survival to augment the powerful themes of loyalty and luck gliding beneath the surface. --Luc Duplessis

Passion Play

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Passion Play - best I've read in years 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Gets a nine for the annoying, unhappy ending.

Seriously, this is a great book. While on the surface it's a book about a murder, it really engages on other levels. One of the central themes is biblical vs. civil justice, and whether murder is ever right.. Not that this is a religious book. Far from it, thankfully. Faust is another theme that is explored, but it's really just a great book. Stewart has a gift for concise, powerful description.

The main character is unique. Dianne Fletcher is a shaper - a sort of empath discovered by a psychiatrist about 20 years before the novel begins. Shapers can 'read' emotions. Dianne Fletcher comes up with an analogy for how a person acts. For example, a very religious man she 'sees' as a wick, burning brightly in a white wax candle. (Stewart puts it better than I do.) She's a Hunter, basically a private detective, but they're licensed by the government, and work more closely with the police. Basically, they get all the difficult cases that the police can't handle because they're busy arresting people for adultery and other stuff. The world is really well thought out, and isn't that far from the technology level of the present day 1990s, so If you don't like far out SF, don't worry. This is just a nicely detailed backdrop for the story.

Anyway, the book is really, really good. Every time I read it it never lasts long enough. And I'm always mad at the way the ending turns out. But the ending is consistent with the world the book takes place in.

Editorial Review:

When great actor and Redemption government spokesperson Jonathan Mask is found electrocuted, police hire free-lance hunter and shapeshifter Diane Fletcher to track the killer. Reprint.

Nobody's Son

Sean Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A story which starts where most end 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This is a fantasy story which starts where most end: when the hero vanquishes the evil in the land and goes to claim his prize.

The Ghostwood has been the evil in the heart of the kingdom for a thousand years, and for most of that time, the best, bravest and most noble heros have gone to try and vanqish it, for the prize is no other than any wish they may make of the king. For all that time none of these great heros succeded or came back - till Shielder's Mark did.

And there's the problem, because Mark is no noble hero in the traditional sense, instead he is a pratical pesant with big dreams. Mark claims his princess and finds out how much the fairy tales *didn't* say.

This is a well written novel. Aimed for "young adults" it can be read by anyone who enjoys an original, well written fantasy story. All the characters have a depth and honesty to them that is refreshing, and the writing style is descriptive without going overboard.

Having read this book, I now plan to look up more works by this author, who appears to be a hidden gem of the fantasy/young adult market.

Editorial Review:

An award-winning novel tells the story of a peasant who is rewarded by the king for breaking an age-old curse on the kingdom, only to find that living happily ever after is not so simple. Reprint.