"Fight! Fight!" yell the excited crowd of klees, a race of big jungle cats. But it isn't the klees doing the fighting. Instead, it is Our Hero, Bobby Pendragon, their prisoner, who stands facing his fellow prisoner, a knife-wielding gar. The victor receives freedom; the loser death. Fortunately, the gar is tired and weak, and Bobby might be able to wrest the knife from him. But is that knife the real danger? Control your anger, Bobby Pendragon!

Black Water is book five in D. J. MacHale's Pendragon series. Here again, Bobby Pendragon, the fifteen-year-old Traveler from Second Earth, is attempting to stop the evil Saint Dane from destroying a territory, much as he tried to in The Merchant of Death, The Lost City of Faar, The Never War, and, most recently, The Reality Bug. In the fourth book, Reality Bug, Saint Dane had apparently finally won a battle and, as the villain had always promised, the rules were beginning to change.

The battle between the Travelers and Saint Dane this time occurs on the territory of Eelong, an alternate universe "peopled" with klees, enormous walking and talking cat-like beings. There are also humanoids on Eelong, the down-trodden gars and, just to add some excitement, a dinosaur-like creature called a "tang." The social system of this forest world allows MacHale to explore some new themes, including prejudice and ecosystems management. The issue of prejudice comes in as Bobby is assumed to be inferior to the klees, since he most resembles a gar, a being considered only nominally useful and one controlled by laws, technology, and master / "pet" traditions. But some consider the gars only pests, and there is a movement among the klees to utterly destroy the gars. This is where the issue of ecosystems management comes in, as the klees do not understand the integral nature of the gars to their environment. If they destroy the gars, the klees destroy Eelong.

Of course, it is up to Bobby to save Eelong, itself an integral part of Halla, the overarching force that binds ten territories together. Bobby is not alone. Appearing at some point in the novel is every Traveler from the previous books in the series except Alder from Denduron, featured in The Merchant of Death. Add the presence of the Travelers and Acolytes (the Travelers' support team) from Eelong, and Bobby has a substantial number of allies.

Among these allies are Bobby's best friends, Mark and Courtney, residents of Stony Brook, Connecticut. Courtney is beautiful and bold, and she and Bobby have a long-running "thing" between them. Mark is nerdy and smart and has been Bobby's best friend since they were wee lads together. Now of high school age, Mark and Courtney are no longer following Bobby's adventures from the sidelines. Instead, they find that they, too, can travel to different territories -- previously thought impossible -- and commence some journeys of their own. Why these two can "travel," and whether or not they should, is a puzzle Bobby cannot solve by the end of Black Water. But Mark and Courtney are in the middle of the action in this novel, which is an interesting development in the Pendragon series, as is Courtney's apparent attraction to Spader, the charismatic Traveler from the territory of Cloral. (If there had to be a love triangle, Mark likely couldn't carry the role of Bobby's rival.)

As in all Pendragon books, the emphasis is on action. In at least one point, there is too much action for MacHale to handle (Bobby is gagged but then begins talking, for instance). By and large, though, Black Water moves at an incredible pace, especially in the closing chapters where the Travelers race to halt the genocide of the gars, even as the gars begin their exodus to the promised land. These pages include a helicopter dogfight, an organized tang ambush, and a poison gas attack, all set in a race against time. It is MacHale's best of many action sequences throughout the series. Even when the race has been run, and the seemingly mundane wrap-up begins, the action starts afresh. The final pages serve as a cliffhanger for the promised book six (of a projected ten-book series), The Rivers of Zadaa, due for release in Summer, 2005.

The Pendragon books are a different type of series than the other popular series on the market today, including Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl, and A Series of Unfortunate Events. It is old-fashioned, Dr. Who-style science fiction with a decided leaning toward action and danger. Pendragon should not be dismissed from among the weighted-down bookstore shelves as mere thrillers, however. It is as good or better than two-thirds of those series listed above, and a good candidate for multi-media tie-ins. The Reality Bug and Black Water increase Pendragon's qualities enough for the whole series to deserve high recommendations for avid Tween and Teen readers -- and it might even be appealing to the not-so avid.

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