The Never War (Pendragon Book 3)

#117
Title: The Never War (Pendragon Book 3)
Author: D. J. MacHale
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 2003
Genre: young adult, fantasy & science fiction
336 pages

This third installment of the Bobby Pendragon series has the usual glitches--for example, as the whole second book made clear, Courtney and Mark are not the only people who know where Bobby is, since Mitchell does, too; Bobby worries briefly that Jinx might be Saint Dane but decides that "nothing about her set my radar off" (119) though his "radar" was highly inadequate in book two, etc. However, there are far fewer of these errors than in the first two books, and higher internal consistency.
In the present volume, Mark and Courtney are almost absent, relegated to just a narrative bracket around Bobby's story. Fortunately, Mark is dissatisfied, too, and at the end of the book begins to explore ways to support Bobby more directly. The conflict this time takes place on First Earth in the 1930's and involves an enjoyable alternate history of the World War II era. Star Trek fans may hearken back to the original series episode The City on the Edge of Forever at times.

Unlike the first two books, Bobby's internal emotional battles seem realistic and genuine. This inspires the reader identification and empathy that have been lacking to this point. The present volume is a bildungsroman. That couldn't be said for the previous two.This makes me cautiously optimistic about the direction of the series, and hopeful about reading further.