Syren (book)
Encyclopedia
Syren is the fifth book in the child fantasy Septimus Heap
series by Angie Sage
. It was released on September 29, 2009 by HarperCollins
and Bloomsbury Publishing. She went on a book promotion tour for Syren as well as a contest to promote it further.
The story continues from the previous release Queste
and deals with Septimus going to pick up his friends from a distant land. While coming back they are trapped in an island and there they learn of an evil plan to destroy their homeland, The Castle. The rest of the story deals with how Septimus and his friends save their home and destroy the evil coming their way. The book was critically acclaimed by contemporary critics who praised the storyline, the development of the fast-moving plot and Sage's crisp style of writing.
with "tentacles&mdash: lots of them". Commenting on the book, she says:
who gave away fifteen copies of the book to the winners.
ended. Jenna
, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle are in the harbor known as the Trading Post, where Jenna encounters her father, Milo Banda, who persuades them to spend the night on his ship. Back in The Castle, Septimus
gets a promotion to Senior Apprentice by Marcia Overstrand
, for being the only apprentice wizard to complete the Queste. This enables him to head off on an adventure of his own. His escapade begins as he plans a simple flight on board his dragon, Spit Fyre, to retrieve his friends from the Trading Post.
Around this time, Aunt Zelda sends Wolf Boy from the Marram Marshes. She is giving him a challenging test for becoming the first male Keeper. As soon as Wolf Boy leaves, Zelda retrieves a SafeCharm, which appears to be a tiny, pear-shaped gold bottle. She needs to deliver it to Septimus, however, by the time she arrives he has already left. Due to an unfortunate mix-up, the SafeCharm falls into the hands of Merrin Meredith who stole it believing it to be a rare perfume. When he takes the top off to sniff it, a jinnie
comes out of it. "Jim Knee" as he is called by Merrin, sets off on his own adventure. Meanwhile, Wolf Boy bumps into Simon Heap in the Port; he was looking for his fiancee Lucy Gringe who had been missing. Wolf Boy approaches the House of the Port Witch Coven. There he reads Zelda's letter which tells him to feed a creature called Grim and cut-off its tentacle tip. The Port Witch takes him inside her kitchen and wakes the Grim, which is a giant octopus. The witches bring forth a captive Lucy to feed to the Grim. Under the pretense of feeding Lucy to the Grim, Wolf Boy and Lucy escape from the coven. They are chased by a senior witch, Linda, but they escape by riding straight into a leaving ship.
While flying towards the Trading Post, Septimus sees a bunch of seven islands on the sea and hears a voice calling him. Ignoring the voice, Septimus continues his journey and reaches Milo's ship The Cerys. There Milo shows Jenna a big trunk which is full of tiny lead tubes and which he declares to be brought specially for Jenna's safety. Jenna, getting tired of Milo's hospitality decides to leave the ship and fly off home with Septimus and Beetle on Spit Fyre. But while flying home, they get caught in a raging storm. They try to find the Cattrokk Light, a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, and fall onto a nearby island when Spit Fyre's tail gets struck by lightning. Septimus tries his best to cure the tail with Physik
but his attempts fail. He is also perplexed by a voice calling his name continuously. One day Septimus sees a girl approaching him. The girl introduces herself as Syrah Syara; Septimus remembers meeting her when he went back in time 500 years, during the events from Physik
. She fled from The Castle during the Queste and hid on the island. Syrah heals Spit Fyre's tail and reveals that she is under a terrible enchantment by the resident evil ghost of the island known as Syren. The Syren, a singing ghost who attracts sailors by her voice and leads them to their doom by possessing them, stays in a tower atop the hills of the island. Syrah takes Septimus there to show him an opened ice-tunnel latch beneath the island; she mentions that danger is approaching the Castle. Before Septimus can close the ice-tunnel, the Syren takes hold of Syrah while Septimus flees.
Meanwhile Marcia goes to the Manuscriptorium vaults and finds that the ice tunnel latches, which pass from The Castle to the Seven Isles of Syren, through Cattrokk Light to the House of Foryx, are opened. Suspecting that the evil ghost Tertius Fume may be behind this, she returns to the Wizard Tower to find Zelda who informs Marcia about Septimus' danger. Together they find the jinnie and lock him in a sealed chamber in the Wizard Tower and devises a plan to help Septimus. Lucy and Wolf Boy continue their journey aboard the ship whose captain is a pirate. They reach Cattrokk light and there, the pirate's henchmen throw the lighthouse guard overboard. Lucy and Wolf Boy hide from them in one of the rooms of the Lighthouse. Surprisingly, they find that the lighthouse guard, Miarr, who is half-cat half-human, is still alive because cats have nine lives. The ship's captain and his henchmen take the light from the lighthouse and transport it to the island where Jenna and Beetle reside, and they see them coming. Miarr then leads Lucy and Wolf Boy to an underwater machine which allows them to approach the island unseen.
The Cerys travels towards The Castle under Nicko's steering. However, near Cattrokk Light, Nicko hears the Syren's song and believing mistakenly that the light on the island is coming from the lighthouse, he sails the ship onto the rocks. The pirate ship's captain and his henchmen then ambush Cerys' passengers, but Septimus and the others are able to lock them in the hold and save them all on board. The captain and his henchmen open the trunk, which contains thousands of bottles of jinnie and release them. To their horror, Septimus and the others find that the jinnie warriors come on board and address Tertius Fume as their master; he is on the island directing them towards the Syren tower ice tunnel. Meanwhile under Marcia's order, Septimus' jinnie finds him. Septimus and Beetle come to the conclusion that since Jim Knee was in a golden bottle, he has the power to overcome the warrior jinnie because gold is purer than lead. Septimus orders Jim Knee to go and freeze one of the warriors so that all the others will be simultaneously frozen. The front line of warriors had already reached through the ice-tunnel to the Wizard Tower, where just as they are about to kill Marcia under Fume's supervision, Jim Knee freezes the last jinnie; hence freezing all the other jinnie warriors. Marcia triumphs and informs a surprised Fume that she will see to it that his ghost is eradicated forever. Septimus and the others rejoice and Lucy and Wolf Boy help Miarr to put back the light atop Cattrokk. Septimus also orders Jim Knee to go and capture the Syren and force it into a small sealed bottle; hence Syrah is saved from her terrible enchantment. However, learning that more than 500 years have been passed since she arrived there and that Julius Pike is long dead, Syrah becomes comatose
. The whole company returns to The Castle, where Marcia, Sarah and Silas Heap and Aunt Zelda meet them.
said: "As we've come to expect from this series, 'Syren' offers gripping adventure, whimsical characters, a mesmerizing plot, derring-do heroics, and tons of delightful humor." Charlyn Trussel from Goodreads
was impressed by the book and said "I nearly devoured the entire book the first weekend after I got it and then realized that it would be gone too soon and doled out the rest of the book through the week to be finished today. I recommend it for those who have made it through the rest of the series and still want more." Hilary Williamson from The Bookloon commented that "Angie Sage gives readers, pre-teen and up, non-stop action, a rich plot, and delightful details, as in Young Army sayings like 'Use Your Head or You Are Dead' and the amusingly uncooperative jinn Jim Knee. Septimus Heap fans will have great fun with this latest exciting adventure, Syren." Stefan Bagman from The Bookbag felt that "Syren is a fun, fun book and the best yet in the series. [...] This is a brilliant continuation of the series and definitely a must-read for anyone who has enjoyed the Septimus Heap books thus far. But again, don't start here if you are new to it all. Book one is almost as good." Sage's writing style was applaueded with Bagman saying that "[Sage's] writing is what makes the whole thing such a delight. It's just as good at conveying flat-out hilarious moments (like a genie-summoning scene towards the beginning) as it is with the tense and slightly creepy ones. She's also great with her characters, describing all of them, even the naughty ones, with a certain warmth and humaneness." Nannette Morges from Wilton Villager commended the maturity of the characters.
Septimus Heap
Septimus Heap is a series of fantasy novels featuring a protagonist of the same name written by English author Angie Sage. Six novels, entitled Magyk, Flyte, Physik, Queste, Syren and Darke, have been published, the first in 2005 and the most recent in 2011...
series by Angie Sage
Angie Sage
Angie Sage is the author of the Septimus Heap series which includes Magyk, Flyte, Physik, Queste, Syren, and Darke. She is also the illustrator and/or writer of many children's books, and is the new writer of the Araminta Spook series.Angie Sage grew up in Thames Valley, London and Kent. Her...
. It was released on September 29, 2009 by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
and Bloomsbury Publishing. She went on a book promotion tour for Syren as well as a contest to promote it further.
The story continues from the previous release Queste
Queste
Queste is a fantasy novel by Angie Sage. It is the fourth book in the Septimus Heap series. The book was released on 16 April 2008, in the United States. The cover of the book is modeled after the in-story Restored notes of Nicko bound by Ephaniah Grebe into a book, with the Queste stone lying on...
and deals with Septimus going to pick up his friends from a distant land. While coming back they are trapped in an island and there they learn of an evil plan to destroy their homeland, The Castle. The rest of the story deals with how Septimus and his friends save their home and destroy the evil coming their way. The book was critically acclaimed by contemporary critics who praised the storyline, the development of the fast-moving plot and Sage's crisp style of writing.
Development
Angie Sage had compared book five to Robinson CrusoeRobinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character—a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and...
with "tentacles&mdash: lots of them". Commenting on the book, she says:
I've planned the ending, and I'm already just drawing everything in, so with number seven, I can pretty much think what's going to happen. But on the other hand, there's always the unknown. I write in the character's shoes, so I'm never entirely sure what they're going to do.After the book's release, a book tour was conducted by Sage around different cities of America. The tour continued from October 13 to October 29, 2009. A contest was arranged along with Sage and the website Kidsreads.com
Kidsreads.com
KidsReads.com is a website, designed for children aged 6-12, containing information about children's books and authors, and some related games. The website was founded in 1996 by Carol Fitsgerald. As of 2009, Kidsreads.com had a following of over 350,000 readers each month. Its mascot is a...
who gave away fifteen copies of the book to the winners.
Synopsis
The story picks up where QuesteQueste
Queste is a fantasy novel by Angie Sage. It is the fourth book in the Septimus Heap series. The book was released on 16 April 2008, in the United States. The cover of the book is modeled after the in-story Restored notes of Nicko bound by Ephaniah Grebe into a book, with the Queste stone lying on...
ended. Jenna
Jenna Heap
Jenna Heap is a leading character in the Septimus Heap book series by Angie Sage. She is the adoptive sister to Septimus and the adoptive daughter of Silas Heap and Sarah Heap. Jenna has many friends in the book, yet also a lot of enemies...
, Nicko, Snorri, Ullr and Beetle are in the harbor known as the Trading Post, where Jenna encounters her father, Milo Banda, who persuades them to spend the night on his ship. Back in The Castle, Septimus
Septimus Heap (character)
Septimus Heap is the main protagonist in the bestselling book series Septimus Heap, by Angie Sage. He is the Apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand...
gets a promotion to Senior Apprentice by Marcia Overstrand
Marcia Overstrand
Marcia Overstrand is a fictional character in the Septimus Heap series by Angie Sage. She is the current ExtraOrdinary Wizard and an extremely powerful one at that. She has Septimus as her Apprentice for the next seven years.- Description :...
, for being the only apprentice wizard to complete the Queste. This enables him to head off on an adventure of his own. His escapade begins as he plans a simple flight on board his dragon, Spit Fyre, to retrieve his friends from the Trading Post.
Around this time, Aunt Zelda sends Wolf Boy from the Marram Marshes. She is giving him a challenging test for becoming the first male Keeper. As soon as Wolf Boy leaves, Zelda retrieves a SafeCharm, which appears to be a tiny, pear-shaped gold bottle. She needs to deliver it to Septimus, however, by the time she arrives he has already left. Due to an unfortunate mix-up, the SafeCharm falls into the hands of Merrin Meredith who stole it believing it to be a rare perfume. When he takes the top off to sniff it, a jinnie
Genie
Jinn or genies are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings that occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur'an mentions that...
comes out of it. "Jim Knee" as he is called by Merrin, sets off on his own adventure. Meanwhile, Wolf Boy bumps into Simon Heap in the Port; he was looking for his fiancee Lucy Gringe who had been missing. Wolf Boy approaches the House of the Port Witch Coven. There he reads Zelda's letter which tells him to feed a creature called Grim and cut-off its tentacle tip. The Port Witch takes him inside her kitchen and wakes the Grim, which is a giant octopus. The witches bring forth a captive Lucy to feed to the Grim. Under the pretense of feeding Lucy to the Grim, Wolf Boy and Lucy escape from the coven. They are chased by a senior witch, Linda, but they escape by riding straight into a leaving ship.
While flying towards the Trading Post, Septimus sees a bunch of seven islands on the sea and hears a voice calling him. Ignoring the voice, Septimus continues his journey and reaches Milo's ship The Cerys. There Milo shows Jenna a big trunk which is full of tiny lead tubes and which he declares to be brought specially for Jenna's safety. Jenna, getting tired of Milo's hospitality decides to leave the ship and fly off home with Septimus and Beetle on Spit Fyre. But while flying home, they get caught in a raging storm. They try to find the Cattrokk Light, a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, and fall onto a nearby island when Spit Fyre's tail gets struck by lightning. Septimus tries his best to cure the tail with Physik
Physik
Physik is the third book in the Septimus Heap series written by Angie Sage. It is the sequel to Flyte. The novel was released on March 28, 2007. The sequel of Physik is Queste...
but his attempts fail. He is also perplexed by a voice calling his name continuously. One day Septimus sees a girl approaching him. The girl introduces herself as Syrah Syara; Septimus remembers meeting her when he went back in time 500 years, during the events from Physik
Physik
Physik is the third book in the Septimus Heap series written by Angie Sage. It is the sequel to Flyte. The novel was released on March 28, 2007. The sequel of Physik is Queste...
. She fled from The Castle during the Queste and hid on the island. Syrah heals Spit Fyre's tail and reveals that she is under a terrible enchantment by the resident evil ghost of the island known as Syren. The Syren, a singing ghost who attracts sailors by her voice and leads them to their doom by possessing them, stays in a tower atop the hills of the island. Syrah takes Septimus there to show him an opened ice-tunnel latch beneath the island; she mentions that danger is approaching the Castle. Before Septimus can close the ice-tunnel, the Syren takes hold of Syrah while Septimus flees.
Meanwhile Marcia goes to the Manuscriptorium vaults and finds that the ice tunnel latches, which pass from The Castle to the Seven Isles of Syren, through Cattrokk Light to the House of Foryx, are opened. Suspecting that the evil ghost Tertius Fume may be behind this, she returns to the Wizard Tower to find Zelda who informs Marcia about Septimus' danger. Together they find the jinnie and lock him in a sealed chamber in the Wizard Tower and devises a plan to help Septimus. Lucy and Wolf Boy continue their journey aboard the ship whose captain is a pirate. They reach Cattrokk light and there, the pirate's henchmen throw the lighthouse guard overboard. Lucy and Wolf Boy hide from them in one of the rooms of the Lighthouse. Surprisingly, they find that the lighthouse guard, Miarr, who is half-cat half-human, is still alive because cats have nine lives. The ship's captain and his henchmen take the light from the lighthouse and transport it to the island where Jenna and Beetle reside, and they see them coming. Miarr then leads Lucy and Wolf Boy to an underwater machine which allows them to approach the island unseen.
The Cerys travels towards The Castle under Nicko's steering. However, near Cattrokk Light, Nicko hears the Syren's song and believing mistakenly that the light on the island is coming from the lighthouse, he sails the ship onto the rocks. The pirate ship's captain and his henchmen then ambush Cerys' passengers, but Septimus and the others are able to lock them in the hold and save them all on board. The captain and his henchmen open the trunk, which contains thousands of bottles of jinnie and release them. To their horror, Septimus and the others find that the jinnie warriors come on board and address Tertius Fume as their master; he is on the island directing them towards the Syren tower ice tunnel. Meanwhile under Marcia's order, Septimus' jinnie finds him. Septimus and Beetle come to the conclusion that since Jim Knee was in a golden bottle, he has the power to overcome the warrior jinnie because gold is purer than lead. Septimus orders Jim Knee to go and freeze one of the warriors so that all the others will be simultaneously frozen. The front line of warriors had already reached through the ice-tunnel to the Wizard Tower, where just as they are about to kill Marcia under Fume's supervision, Jim Knee freezes the last jinnie; hence freezing all the other jinnie warriors. Marcia triumphs and informs a surprised Fume that she will see to it that his ghost is eradicated forever. Septimus and the others rejoice and Lucy and Wolf Boy help Miarr to put back the light atop Cattrokk. Septimus also orders Jim Knee to go and capture the Syren and force it into a small sealed bottle; hence Syrah is saved from her terrible enchantment. However, learning that more than 500 years have been passed since she arrived there and that Julius Pike is long dead, Syrah becomes comatose
Coma
In medicine, a coma is a state of unconsciousness, lasting more than 6 hours in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light or sound, lacks a normal sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. A person in a state of coma is described as...
. The whole company returns to The Castle, where Marcia, Sarah and Silas Heap and Aunt Zelda meet them.
Reception
Terry Miller Shannon from Kidsreads.comKidsreads.com
KidsReads.com is a website, designed for children aged 6-12, containing information about children's books and authors, and some related games. The website was founded in 1996 by Carol Fitsgerald. As of 2009, Kidsreads.com had a following of over 350,000 readers each month. Its mascot is a...
said: "As we've come to expect from this series, 'Syren' offers gripping adventure, whimsical characters, a mesmerizing plot, derring-do heroics, and tons of delightful humor." Charlyn Trussel from Goodreads
Goodreads
Goodreads is a privately run "social cataloging" website started in December 2006 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer and entrepreneur. The website permits individuals to sign up and register books to create their library catalogs and reading lists. It also allows users to create their own...
was impressed by the book and said "I nearly devoured the entire book the first weekend after I got it and then realized that it would be gone too soon and doled out the rest of the book through the week to be finished today. I recommend it for those who have made it through the rest of the series and still want more." Hilary Williamson from The Bookloon commented that "Angie Sage gives readers, pre-teen and up, non-stop action, a rich plot, and delightful details, as in Young Army sayings like 'Use Your Head or You Are Dead' and the amusingly uncooperative jinn Jim Knee. Septimus Heap fans will have great fun with this latest exciting adventure, Syren." Stefan Bagman from The Bookbag felt that "Syren is a fun, fun book and the best yet in the series. [...] This is a brilliant continuation of the series and definitely a must-read for anyone who has enjoyed the Septimus Heap books thus far. But again, don't start here if you are new to it all. Book one is almost as good." Sage's writing style was applaueded with Bagman saying that "[Sage's] writing is what makes the whole thing such a delight. It's just as good at conveying flat-out hilarious moments (like a genie-summoning scene towards the beginning) as it is with the tense and slightly creepy ones. She's also great with her characters, describing all of them, even the naughty ones, with a certain warmth and humaneness." Nannette Morges from Wilton Villager commended the maturity of the characters.