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- Arturo el Rey
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- Author: Joan Upton Hall
- Reviewer: Rita Porter
- Publisher: Zumaya Publications, Garibaldi Highlands, B.C.
- Format: Adult, Fiction, Paperback, 380 Pages, 2005, $17.99
- ISBN: 1554102588
- Rating: * * * * Quills
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1554102588/scriquil
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- The year is 2010. Lance Corporal Art Reyes is standing militant riot control duty on the steps of one of the few remaining hospitals taking in refugees from the plague. He is simply taking orders from his supervisor until either he or his supervisor drops dead of the plague. The next order to come down from far above is for Reyes to get out and try to find some place safe.
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- With the gang wars killing some of the survivors of the plague, mankind is brought down to its animal-like behavior, killing what can be killed before it kills you. Reyes meets up with the Knights, a group of people he knew before the plague struck, and he reforms this gang from his childhood. Trying to survive and help the people who are trying to help themselves, the Knights and Reyes travel across the land fighting off marauders. No known home base for him and his kind.
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- In Texas, the Knights come across a compound run by Richard Cranston and opt to stay there for a while, helping his people with much needed repairs, in trade for horses that wouldn’t require gasoline to keep running and were much easier to maintain. As time passes, the Knights refuse Cranston's offer to stay on, in order to pass along the information they have gleaned from their time inside the compound and not live under one man's ruling. The only downfall to this decision is Cranston's daughter Shanna, with whom Reyes is in love and wants to marry. Cranston sets an almost impossible mission for Art to do before allowing the marriage to take place.
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- The meld of characters works very well for this story, each complementing the other and bringing together wholeness to individual ones, equal parts good and evil for the characters, and not leaving out the fatal flaws of anyone. Their conversations flow with a rhythm that accounts for each separate voice.
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- Joan Upton Hall has given the reader a book that may appear slow to start but will quickly pull them deep into the lives of the characters as the different parts of the story begin to assemble like a puzzle. The inclusion of the past mixes well with the here and now and is easy to follow as each character steps through Hall's tale.
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- A very nice mix of drama, adventure and fantasy with romantic touches, Arturo el Rey hands the reader a multitude of aspects in one book.
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