Skip to main content

Book Review: The Spectraland Saga 2: The Mystery of the Moonfire by Brian Tashima



Back in September 2012, I reviewed book one of the Spectraland Saga, The Secret of the Songshell and now, after about 3 years, the sequel is finally out and I'm pleased to bring you a review of it. 

 The Spectraland Saga is a young adult series by Brian Tashima The books are probably aimed at the better readers in the young adult market as they're about 300 pages each. The genre is fantasy and the reason why they're being reviewed here is because they contain a main character with Asperger's syndrome (in fact, it's quite likely that they contain two main characters with Asperger's syndrome). 
The Mystery of the Moonfire starts about six months after the end of “Songshell” and it more or less relies on a good knowledge of Spectraland. If it's been a while since you read the first book, you might want to re-read it before venturing further.  If you haven't read the first book at all, I think it's a pre-requisite. 

The second book in the saga feels longer and more action-packed than the first with the wave bows being out of action for a large part of the story, reducing the reliance upon magical solutions. In my opinon, this grounds the story and makes it a whole lot better.

Joel and Felicity spend a lot of time with the natives but there are also a lot of quiet moments where they rely more upon each other. This was a big change from the first book and personally,I thought these moments were the highlights of the book.

The characters of Joel and Felicity have Asperger's syndrome. Joel is clearly diagnosed and a lot of his self-talk reflects this, there's real examples of concentration techniques, anxiety-breaking distractions and most of all, the questioning of social behaviours and body language.

Felicity’s Asperger’s seems to be undiagnosed. It's never stated in the book and it may be a figment of my imagination but I've noticed that a few other readers have made the same connection. It's pretty likely that she has Asperger's.  Felicity traits are more typical of females with Asperger's which makes it less detectable and usually less limiting but it nevertheless comes into play at opportune (and sometimes inopportune) moments.

I love what Brian is doing with these books, spinning a fantasy with main characters that people on the autism spectrum can relate to.

In terms of fantasy, the books lie somewhere between “the Enchanted Wood” and “Harry Potter” and seem well suited to a young to mid teen audience depending upon their reading levels.

The Spectraland saga 2: Mystery of the Moonfire by Brian Tashima is available from Amazon and Goodreads. You can also follow Brian's activities on his blog.

I'd recommend this book to lovers of Fantasy in general but particularly to kids on the Autism spectrum.



Honestly clause; I was provided with a copy of this book free of charge for review purposes. 



Labels:

Comments

Children with special needs said…
Thanks for taking time to review this book. I was looking for some reviews for it and yours is the best.
January 25, 2016 at 7:16 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why do Aspies Suddenly Back Off in Relationships (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the role that Change Resistance plays in causing aspies to suddenly go "cold" in otherwise good relationships. This time, I want to look at self esteem and depression; Self Esteem The aspie relationship with themselves is tedious at best. People with Asperger's commonly suffer from low self esteem. As discussed in earlier posts, this low self esteem often results from years of emotional turmoil resulting from their poor social skills. Aspies are often their own worst enemy. They can over analyze situations and responses in an effort to capture lost nonverbal communication. This often causes them to invent problems and to imagine replies. Everything made up by aspies will tend to be tainted with their own self image. This is one of reasons that people with Asperger's will sometimes decide that they are not good enough for their partner and that they must let them go. Sometimes, the aspie will develop a notion of chivalry or self-sacrific
134 comments
Read more

Aspie Myths - "He Won't Miss Me"

I apologise for the excessive "male-orientated" viewpoint in this post. I tried to keep it neutral but somehow, it just works better when explained from a male viewpoint. Here's a phrase that I've seen repeated throughout the comments on this blog on several occasions; "I know that he won't miss me when I'm gone because he's aspie" Today, we're going to (try to) bust that myth; Individuals I'll start off with a reminder that everyone is an individual. If all aspies were completely alike and predictible, they'd be a stereotype but they're not. Each is shaped by their background, their upbringing, their beliefs and their local customs. An aspie who grew up with loud abusive parents has a reasonable chance of becoming loud and abusive themselves because in some cases, that's all they know. That's how they think adults are supposed to behave. In other cases, aspies who grew up in those circumstances do a complete about-fa
150 comments
Read more

Why Do Aspies Suddenly Back-Off in Relationships? (Part 1)

One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is why an aspie (or suspected aspie) suddenly goes "cold" and backs off on an otherwise good relationship. It's a difficult question and the answers would vary considerably from one person to another and would depend greatly on the circumstances. Nevertheless, I'll try to point out some possibilities. Negative Reasons I generally like to stay positive on this blog and assume that people are not necessarily "evil" but simply misguided. Unfortunately, I do have to acknowledge that there are some people out there who take advantage of others. I read a book a few years ago on "sociopaths in the workplace" and I was stunned by the figures. They suggested that sociopaths were so common that most workplaces (small business) had at least one or two. The fact is that there are lots of people out there who really feel very little for others and who are very manipulative. I'd like to say that aspies aren
64 comments
Read more