THE GAME OF SUNKEN PLACES

Take equal parts of JUMANJI and A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS; add in trolls, elves, automatons, and lost civilizations; remove all humor; and you get something like M.T. Anderson's offbeat adventure. Two boys from Boston take a trip to Vermont to stay with Uncle Max. They arrive at the strange mansion to find a Victorian lifestyle and an old wooden game board that leads them to ceremonial mounds, strange creatures, and an ancient battle between warring kingdoms. The story is purposefully off-kilter, with Marc Cashman's dry, precise, and percussive style complementing Anderson's writing. Anderson and Cashman are both skilled at their crafts, overall, the result is an unsettling and unsatisfying challenge. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/ JUL 07]