Scan barcode
lippi's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I wanted a lot for this book and instead of got a man boy with a samurai sword and weird tension with a unicorn.
adelayedteacher's review
5.0
Wow. I had never heard of this book until I stumbled onto it's sequel "Elegy Beach" in the library and suddenly I was in a world of unicorns and magic. The idea of "Ariel" is that for whatever reason (it's never really explained which I love) the world suddenly stopped being real. Technology, weapons, electricity and just about everything man created that moved, whistled and beeped no longer works.
Guns don't work. You can load it and fire it. Nothing happens. The titular character of this book is Ariel, a unicorn. She takes our friend Peter on a journey of epic discovery that teaches him about life, truth and the reality of the world we live in without nary a thought to how it all really works.
I found myself staying up late to finish this book as each arc turned and twisted through the pages. I enjoyed the ending if only because it was the only way it could have ended. You may have a bittersweet feeling but don't worry. Nobody dies. There's dragons, wizards and other assorted creatures of fantasy to inspire your imagination. Read it for the post apocalyptic story of good versus evil and what happens to Man in the end when the world's natural lines are blurred and erased.
Guns don't work. You can load it and fire it. Nothing happens. The titular character of this book is Ariel, a unicorn. She takes our friend Peter on a journey of epic discovery that teaches him about life, truth and the reality of the world we live in without nary a thought to how it all really works.
I found myself staying up late to finish this book as each arc turned and twisted through the pages. I enjoyed the ending if only because it was the only way it could have ended. You may have a bittersweet feeling but don't worry. Nobody dies. There's dragons, wizards and other assorted creatures of fantasy to inspire your imagination. Read it for the post apocalyptic story of good versus evil and what happens to Man in the end when the world's natural lines are blurred and erased.
henryarmitage's review
2.0
The main thing you need to understand about this book is that it's a unicorn story.
I got the more recent edition which pictures kind of a tough-looking guy standing in the
street of a ruined NY City, with a drawn sword, so the unicorn part was not evident to me
right off the bat.
There's a End Of The World As We Know It called The Change in which the laws of physics
change. Guns and internal combustion engines don't work any more, but magic does. There
are magical creatures like dragons, griffins, rocs, and, yes, unicorns.
This is the story about a guy who meets and bonds with a unicorn when he is high school age
and they become inseparable.
They have a bunch of adventures and stuff in the post-apocalyptic world. The central conflict
of the book is that the narrator Pete is now around 20 years old. To the unicorn, being around
anyone who is not a virgin is like kryptonite, so Pete has had to maintain his virgin status
in order to not lose the unicorn, and it's really getting to be a strain.
There's sort of a Peter Pan theme running through this story where the hero is torn between the
magical world of childhood and the corrupted but realistic outlook of an adult.
Anyway, if you think you would enjoy a story about a boy and his unicorn, this book could be
for you. I managed to get through it, but not really my cup of tea.
I got the more recent edition which pictures kind of a tough-looking guy standing in the
street of a ruined NY City, with a drawn sword, so the unicorn part was not evident to me
right off the bat.
There's a End Of The World As We Know It called The Change in which the laws of physics
change. Guns and internal combustion engines don't work any more, but magic does. There
are magical creatures like dragons, griffins, rocs, and, yes, unicorns.
This is the story about a guy who meets and bonds with a unicorn when he is high school age
and they become inseparable.
They have a bunch of adventures and stuff in the post-apocalyptic world. The central conflict
of the book is that the narrator Pete is now around 20 years old. To the unicorn, being around
anyone who is not a virgin is like kryptonite, so Pete has had to maintain his virgin status
in order to not lose the unicorn, and it's really getting to be a strain.
There's sort of a Peter Pan theme running through this story where the hero is torn between the
magical world of childhood and the corrupted but realistic outlook of an adult.
Anyway, if you think you would enjoy a story about a boy and his unicorn, this book could be
for you. I managed to get through it, but not really my cup of tea.
vylotte's review
4.0
I first read this back when I was in my teens, and it's probably 75% of the reason I named my daughter what I did. Still holds up in reread, and I will definitely seek out the sequel.
sharonrose47's review
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.5
End of the world story with unicorns in urban America; very different
peterseanesq's review
4.0
Ariel by Steven Boyett
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RKKZZ28X73YNR?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
Sometime in the past - before 9/11/01 - the world changed. Magic appeared in the world; guns and internal combustion engines stopped working.
Life in the post-Change world is nasty, brutal and short. Pete has been wandering since the world changed. The one thing that made life livable for him was meeting Ariel, a unicorn. Ariel and Pete become "familiars" with a bond and loyalty to each other. However, because Ariel is a unicorn, Pete has to remain a virgin, which periodically causes tension.
In their wandering, we see what life in the post-Change world is like. Society is starting to feudalize. Unicorn horns are a source of magic. A necromancer is beginning to create a power base in New York, and Ariel and Pete are right in the center of an assault on the Empire State Building.
This is a fun well-written book. It is more amazing for the fact that it was written by Steven R. Boyett when he was twenty. The book includes an epilogue where Boyett talks about how the story came to be written, which is enjoyable by itself.
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RKKZZ28X73YNR?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
Sometime in the past - before 9/11/01 - the world changed. Magic appeared in the world; guns and internal combustion engines stopped working.
Life in the post-Change world is nasty, brutal and short. Pete has been wandering since the world changed. The one thing that made life livable for him was meeting Ariel, a unicorn. Ariel and Pete become "familiars" with a bond and loyalty to each other. However, because Ariel is a unicorn, Pete has to remain a virgin, which periodically causes tension.
In their wandering, we see what life in the post-Change world is like. Society is starting to feudalize. Unicorn horns are a source of magic. A necromancer is beginning to create a power base in New York, and Ariel and Pete are right in the center of an assault on the Empire State Building.
This is a fun well-written book. It is more amazing for the fact that it was written by Steven R. Boyett when he was twenty. The book includes an epilogue where Boyett talks about how the story came to be written, which is enjoyable by itself.
starwolvie's review
3.0
I did enjoy reading this book! I felt it to be a better than average fantasy.
Pete did grate on me a bit, but overall good world-building.
Pete did grate on me a bit, but overall good world-building.
raitalle's review
3.0
This book is probably really a solid 3.5, but I could see it easily having been a 4 or 5 star read if I had read it as a teenager. Based on the notes from the author at the end of the ebook edition I have, this is fairly in line with the author as well, with him talking about how writing this in his late teens ended up with a book his earlier teen self would have loved. There are definitely a lot of fun parts in the world of the Change (I had to accept pretty early on that the Change just meant some laws of physics just selectively didn't work, or maybe that others just seemed to still work but were now powered by magic? Don't think about it too hard?). Some things I might have done differently, such as the treatment of the few female characters, but I can appreciate at least the author agreeing with that.
dennisb's review
5.0
Check out this opening line: "I was bathing in the lake when I saw the unicorn." One of the best opening lines I've ever read and had me hooked right from the get-go. Fascinating tale of the future where all mechanical and electronic devices have stopped working, and magic has returned to the world. Couldn't stop reading it till I finished. Great!