It's 1937, New York City, in a suite of the luxury Manhattan Tower Hotel. Two gun-toting gangsters are about to rub out Our Hero, Bobby Pendragon. Fortunately, the gangsters are unaware that fellow Traveler Vo Spader is preparing to topple a sofa onto them. One gangster cocks his gun, preparing to shoot Bobby -- will Spader act in time? It looks like another tum-tigger for Bobby Pendragon!

The Never War is the third book in D. J. MacHale's Pendragon series, following The Merchant of Death, and The Lost City of Faar. This novel again combines time travel elements into the science fiction series, requiring the Travelers to negotiate the hazards of "First Earth," the Great Depression-era version of "Second Earth," Bobby Pendragon's native "territory." Once again, Bobby and his fellow Travelers must unravel the evil plot of their nemesis, Saint Dane, and stop him from sending the territory into chaos.

The previous two Pendragon books had established a narrative device of alternating voices, switching back and forth between Bobby's adventures and the story of Mark and Courtney, Bobby's two friends on Second Earth who receive and read Bobby's journals. In Never War, however, Mark and Courtney are almost completely removed from the story line until the end of the novel. This leaves Bobby's adventures to fill the pages.

Within those pages are several representations of the era, including rival gangs, a female aviator, Nazis and a zeppelin, and even an elevator operator ironically named Dewey (likely a nod to Tom Dewey, a N.Y.C. prosecutor who became the bane of the underworld in the 1930s). While such figures are not completely historically accurate, they offer more potential for excitement than the basic pencil-selling soup-liner of the Great Depression.

Within this iconic and exciting world, though, Bobby Pendragon, now fifteen, combats the evil plots of Saint Dane. Fellow Traveler Spader returns from the second book, and new Travelers Gunny, Aja, and Patrick are introduced to either assist Bobby in this story or to begin developing characters for the later titles in the series. Gunny is a middle-aged African-American hotel employee, the Traveler from First Earth, and a departure for the series, which began as a mostly white-bread, small-town story of a junior high student pre-destined for greatness.

Pendragon series readers are by now familiar with MacHale's plot twists, which he executes through Saint Dane's shape-shifting abilities. MacHale shows his realization of readers' expectations, so Bobby, too, now expects such twists, and is constantly on his guard for disguised Saint Danes. The plot twists are not completely predictable, but since the reader and characters now expect them, they come as no real surprise.

MacHale does a good job of playing around with history. Bobby and the Travelers face the question of whether or not a famous disaster could have been stopped and, if so, whether or not they should do the stopping. With lives at stake, the decision proves too difficult for Bobby to execute alone. Because of his own actions, Bobby decides that ultimately Saint Dane has achieved a victory on First Earth. None the less, Bobby becomes the leader of the Travelers in Never War, despite his continued ignorance of many aspects of the origins, goals, and definitions of being a Traveler. As he assumes his leadership role, Bobby faces another difficult decision relating to one of his fellow Travelers.

Whether or not Saint Dane has actually won the battle for First Earth is open to interpretation. But Never War is a pivotal book in the Pendragon series. Bobby's new leadership role is one reason for this, but another is an announcement made by Mark near the end of the novel. This announcement suggests that Mark and Courtney will have more emphatic roles in future additions to the series, and that the three teenagers from Stony Brook will be working more closely together in Bobby's quest to save the universe.

Never War, like other books in the Pendragon series, is not Great Literature, but is highly enjoyable reading designed for a Tween and Teen audience. The popularity of the series for readers in that age group is well deserved.

My Pendragon Reviews:

Book One:Merchant of Death
Book Two:Lost City of Faar
Book Three:The Never War
Book Four:The Reality Bug
Book Five:Black Water
Guide to the Territories of Halla
Book Six:The Rivers of Zadaa
Book Seven:Quillan Games

Recommended: Yes