"he House of Power" by Patrick CarmanPersonal Response: "The House of Power" was a book of high interest and adventure. I liked the book as far as storyline and length go but feel as if it could have been much better if the author didn't include himself or a character narrating the whole book. The interruptions between chapters and breaking the fourth wall were just enough to get me to stop reading but didn't.Plot: The story takes place throughout the satellite world of Atherton; a small chunk of earth floating 22,300 feet above the surface above a dying earth. On this satellite, a boy named Edgar is off climbing trees when an old man yells at him to get down and get to work on more fig trees. Edgar is just a small boy that can work extremely fast and loves to climb. This is his biggest secret that he has kept all his life. His love for climbing is forbidden among the people of Tabletop. Edgar soon breaks a second rule by finding a book inside the cliffs going to the Highlands. Owning a book in Tabletop is like having the biggest bar of gold to those in the Highlands. Isabel, a small girl who lives in the same grove as Edgar, is spying on Edgar from afar when she gets the urge to go talk to him. Edgar is usually a solitary boy and Isabel didn't like that at all. She wants to be his friend and get him to socialize. She soon shows him that she has known his secrets for a long time, even the sling that he made from fig tree bark and twigs. Samuel, a lonely boy from the Highlands, is staring down the side of the cliff when he thinks he sees something moving up the side. Upon a closer look he sees a boy of his age. When the boy reaches the top, the two exchange names and talk to each other as if they didn't have many things separating from one another; one thing being that they are from two completely different worlds and are forbidden to acknowledge one another. When something strange happens to Atherton, Edgar is the first to notice it; the Highlands are moving down into Tabletop. When the Highlands hit Tabletop, Tabletop starts moving downward into the Flatlands. Edgar went to the Flatlands to find something that was not there but was. When Edgar gets twenty feet from the Flatlands he slips and falls into a crevice. When he is finally done falling, Edgar realizes that he's dislocated his shoulder and severed his pinky from his hand. After some time, creatures follow the scent of blood and find Edgar hanging completely unaware of the hunter that was stalking them. Vincent kills the last of the Cleaners and picks up Edgars unconscious body and brings him back to his living space. When Edgar wakes up he is in a different place than what he remembered. He was in a cave and a person came up to him. This person explained what happened and told Edgar his name; Dr. Luther Kincaid and his assistant, Vincent. After a few days, Tabletop was in chaos against the Highlands when war spread. In the House of Power, Lord Phineas has sealed himself into the water control room with a huge stock of food. Samuel finds Isabel and they take off to find Lord Phineas and get him to turn the water back on. Samuel leaves Isabel in a tunnel because he hears a superior of the House of Power coming. Edgar goes back to the grove to find that his two friends left for the House of Power. Once back at the grove Edgar unveiled his adventure to the people though people were still speculating that he was just spinning wild stories.Setting: The story takes place on a satellite world 22,300 feet from the surface of Earth in the year 2105. The satellite world also has three different places on it: the Flatlands, Tabletop, and the Highlands.Characterization: Edgar, Isabel, Samuel, Lord Phineas, Sir Philip, Sir Emerik, Mr. Ratikan, Dr. Kincaid, and Vincent. Edgar is an eleven year old boy who is unaware that his entire life is about to change with the discovery of a book and a person in an uninhabitable place. Isabel and Samuel are the first two friends Edgar really has and are willing to risk their lives for him. Lord Phineas is the main antagonist and is the cruel oppressor of the people of Tabletop. Sir Philip and Sir Emerik are the two subordinates of Lord Phineas and follow his every whim. Mr. Ratikan is the leader o the grove that Edgar lives in and has it in for Edgar but has other plans for the rest of the grove. Dr. Kincaid is a man who is found in the Flatlands after Edgar climbs down and is the man who set Edgar on his quest to find the book of secret things. Vincent is the protector of others and is a hunter of the destructive Cleaners which eat everything in their path.Theme: The theme the author was expressing through the main character was that of loneliness and sadness. Through other characters there was stubbornness and anger and hatred. Recommendation: I recommend this book to anyone who wants a good book to read and is optimistic about the changes of the world and don't take much for granted. Anyone who is over the age of 12 should read this as well as any gender.
I read the book “The House of Power.” It was written by Patrick Carman. I thought it was a very good book about an artificial world that was meant to save mankind, but like most things that are first of their kind they don’t always work. The book starts out in a place called the grove with a boy named Edgar. He lives of an artificial world called Atherton. On this world there are three levels. The lowest level is call the Flatlands, the second level is called Tabletop, and the third is called the Highlands. Edgar is an orphan who lives with the leader of the grove called Mr. Radkin. The grove is on the second level of this world. One day while Edgar is climbing the cliffs that separate the three levels he finds a book. He takes the book up to Highlands, because he can’t read. He learns that the highlands are sinking from a boy he meets in the highlands. While they are deciphering the book it gets taken by a man and Edgar doesn’t get to find out what the last page says. He is then lied to and told there is another book in the flatlands and he climbs down to find it. While he is down there Tabletop sinks to the flatlands, but what the people of the upper two levels don’t know is that there are monsters in the flatlands that devour everything in their paths.The main characters of the book are Edgar, Isabel, and Samuel. Edgar is an orphan boy who lives in the grove. Isabel is a young girl that has a crush on Edgar and also lives in the grove. Samuel is a boy from the highlands that Edgar meets to translate the book.The setting is on the world Atherton. It is an artificial world created to save the human race. There are three levels of the world, but the book mostly takes place on the second level, Tabletop. The time of the book is not stated. The book has a good message about a friend can mean all the difference. Edgar starts out alone on the world and learns that having friends to help him on his adventures is much nicer and more fulfilling. I thought it really fit into my life, because I think life would just not be worth living if I didn’t have someone to share it with.I thought this was a very good book about an artificial world and how not everything may be as wonderful as it seems. I would recommend this book to anyone at the middle school level and above that enjoys reading science fiction books. I would rate this book four out of five stars.
What do You think about The House Of Power (2007)?
"In Mr. Ratikan's grove there lived a boy. He was not well-to-do, but his needs were met and he was happy most of the time. His name was Edgar.Carman has already captured my attention. Edgar is not a very common name nowadays. I'm listening. Some would say that Edgar was skinny like all the other boys who worked in the grove, but they would only be half right, for everyone knows that there are two kinds of skinny children: some are fragile as paper while others are nimble as wire. Edgar was the wiry kind, strong and quick as a jackrabbit."Ah. Everybody loves a good main character. "Deep in the heart of the grove, a thick canopy of leaves hung low overhead, and in the heat of the day it was a cool, quiet place to lie in the grass and take a nap. But Edgar was not the kind who enjoyed sneaking off to nap under the trees like some of the others. He was far more likely to be found doing something mischievous, which is precisely where we find him as our story begins."I'm intrigued. A mischievous main character with a funny name? =P
—Lydia
The story is about an orphan boy, Edgar, who lived in a cake shaped island called Atherton. These three tiered worlds in Atherton was created by Dr. Harding and Edgar lived in the middle Tabletop level. Edgar who was a gifted climber discovered the true nature of Atherton and found out that his world was about to be destroyed. This is an interesting story paints possible future human world that our beautiful earth planet can become uninhabitable. We may be forced to live in a man-made world like Atherton if we do not protect our planet. And we should stop intoxicating it. This book is the first of the 3-book series. I would recommend this book to friends and I would like to continue to read the next book.
—Jasper Wu
Edgar is an excellent climber, which is a problem in Tabletop because no one is allowed to climb the cliffs and the punishment for trying is severe. But Edgar is looking for something, a treasure left to him by a man he can barely remember. And for that, he is willing to go places where no one from Tabletop has ever gone before: the mysterious Highlands, the land above Tabletop which rules them. When their world is turned on its head, though, Edgar's boldness brings the two worlds together in ways no one anticipated.This is a dystopian novel, so certain elements of the society are practically standard fare: a regimented society, a culture struggling to make it day to day, and a boy who has no regard for the traditional boundaries. In this case, the boundaries are physical as well as social, as gigantic cliffs separate the Flatlands, Tabletop, and the Highlands. Illustrations provided throughout offer a nice set of visuals for various places and things.I'm not a huge fan of dystopian books, and some elements of the society and lifestyle felt oversimplified. Oversimplification is a flaw in dystopian novels generally, that I've noticed. For example, there was an attempt to explain the lack of variety in food and animals, but it's still hard to believe most of the humans aren't dying of malnutrition since the only plants eaten on Tabletop appear to be the figs and fig tree inner parts, and it didn't seem to be something they shared with their neighbors who raised rabbits or sheep. And even the fig-farmers don't eat most of their figs. So where are the vegetables? As long as they're growing grass (which presumably the sheep and rabbits aren't after every square inch of it) why not have gardens too?Another frustration is that the book makes no attempt at resolving much of anything. This is better understood as part one, and it more stops than ends. The oddest part of this is that it almost feels like it could tie up in a few more chapters, once the water supply is reached, and provide a better ending, or at least a more solid cliffhanger. At this point I suppose this would be a more minor irritation because the rest of the trilogy has been published, but be forewarned: this will leave off at an odd place and more or less require the second book to be on hand. Overall, the book itself isn't that bad, but I don't buy into the overall system presented. And it's annoying to read about extremely cruel bullies who are at best offered a minor setback (presumably he will go down by the end of the trilogy but I don't know that I want to wait that long). I rate this book Neutral.
—Aelvana
