The Wave Runners - Kai Meyer
Kai Meyer's The Wave Runners
14 year old Jolly is a pirate (and is named after the pirate flag, the Jolly Roger). She was bought in a slave market as a young child and has been brought up by the dashing pirate Captain Bannon. During her years aboard the Maid Maddy she has learnt many of the necessary pirating skills that she needs to survive, but her greatest talent is one she has had all her life: Jolly is a polliwiggle, someone who can literally walk on water. She believes that she's the last of her kind still alive. When the crew of the Maid Maddy are ambushed and everyone else is killed she starts to wonder if the real target of the attack was herself, rather than Captain Bannon and his crew. She manages to escape from her ship and is washed up, nearly dead, onto a small island where she is rescued by a young boy named Munk who, it turns out, is also a polliwiggle. However, in spite of their remote location someone discovers the truth about the pair. After Munk's parents are murdered by an entity called the Acherus, the two polliwiggles decide to try to discover the identity of whoever is behind the attacks. They soon find themselves in the middle of a swashbuckling adventure where they meet up with a number of unusual characters, including the mysterious Ghost Trader.
I enjoyed this story. Jolly and Munk are interesting characters, as is the explanation for their ability to walk on water. The tale is set in the 17th century - but I suspect it's an alternate universe to ours (though I confess I've not found the time, yet, to check out that theory). The Ghost Trader is also a fascinatingly mysterious character - I hope we'll learn a bit more about him in the later books.
This story was originally written in German but it's been beautifully translated into English and manages to maintain a sense of adventure and excitement throughout the story. Kai Meyer has an English website here. This book was received for review from the publisher, Egmont, and it's out in May. It's also available from Amazon.com, but in the US it is called Pirate's Curse (The Wave Walkers)
4 comments:
Oh! I rather liked Kai Meyer's first novel published in English. I'll look for this one!
I had trouble finding it via Amazon.com - leading me to suspect it's published under a different title in the US (confusingly!) I will check again today (I rather ran out of patience yesterday evening, trying to find it) and will post a link to this review if I can track it down.
Jenny very much liked The Flowing Queen but does not seem too keen on reading the sequel, which I got her when it was first published in English. I don't think the 3rd of that trilogy is out yet?
She read The Flowing Queen just after finishing The Thief Lord; I think from what she's told me that both books are quite similar -- not in the copying sense, but in the sense of appealing to the same type of reader or evoking the same type of response.
I have to confess that I've not read anything else of Meyer's. I didn't even know anything of him until his name came up on a prize shortlist for books in translation (and it was mention of that here on my Blog that led the lady from Egmont to contact me and offer me this book). But I do know the library's got at least two books of his on its shelves (probably the two you mention, Maxine), which I will try to get to in due course.
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