Reviews

The Edge Chronicles 11: The Nameless One: First Book of Cade, by Paul Stewart, Chris Riddell

librarycobwebs's review

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

afshamae's review

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

roisin94's review

3.0

So happy to return to this wonderful series! I always thought The Immortals was going to be the last book in the Edge Chronicles, so I was delighted to find out they were continuing. The only thing I don't like is the new cover illustrations- why have Chris Riddell's gorgeous illutrations been replaced?!

ailsaod's review

adventurous hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

 I planned to reread 'The winter Knights' next but then I found 'The descenders' in the library (which I have yet to read) so I decided to reread this book in the hope of understanding book 3 in the trilogy without reading book 2. We shall see how that goes.

'The nameless one' is a bit of a weird entry into the series that I think is best described as swiss family Robinson but fantasy (but also somehow more realistic) and actually good (don't come at me if you like that book, I had to read it in primary school and I hated it!). Cade Quarter (the nephew of Nate) has to leave Great Glade after the suspicious death of his father and stows away on a Sky tavern and subsequently finds himself in many predicaments. Despite being 350 pages I read this in two days (and it probably could have been one if I'd felt like it!) but this might be because of all the lovely illustrations.

A lot of things happen in this book but a lot of it seems to be set up for later as the conflict of this book appears and is resolved fairly swiftly. I enjoyed the worldbuilding (as always) and how the book showed how Cade had to learn how to survive in the Deepwoods. I don't understand why this book has the title it does though - for all its relevance to the plot it might have been named Rumblix (Cade's powlgrin) and the last minute deus ex machina was strange, though I might appreciate it more if I remembered more of the earlier books! 

ganoesparan115's review

3.0

I loved this series when I was younger, so when I learned Stewart and Riddell had started another trilogy, I had to pick it up.

The original Edge Chronicles books all had interesting adventures, mysteries, and characters (especially great villains). They were also very dark, with violence and their haunting images often depicted in the illustrations. I thought all of this made the series stand out from other light-hearted kid books.

Unfortunately, this book had nothing of what I used to love from the series. It’s because I’m too old, either, since I recently reread one of the earlier books and still enjoyed it. This book lacked the mystery and interested foreshadowing from the others. None of the characters felt particularly interesting, and there was no main villain or overarching plot to tie the events of the story together. In addition, most of the smaller adventures felt copy-pasted from Beyond the Deepwoods.

I’m giving this 3 stars because I feel like it’s still *almost* on par with other middle-grade books, but it doesn’t even compare to the rest of the series