Though Aidan, hero of The Door Within, has returned from the Realm (a parallel dimension where good and evil duke it out), his new friend Antoinette crosses over to fulfill her (supposedly predestined) role: fighting a dragon and/or saving Aidan's friend Robby. Stilted dialogue, black-and-white plotting, and stagnant characters make this a thoroughly unmemorable read.

4Q 4P M J S Do any of VOYA's faithful readers know the story of King Eliam? He was a powerful ruler in the great kingdom of Alleble. All of his subjects were loyal to him, save one. Darkness fell over the great Realm and King Eliam was slain. His death brought about the Schism, a belief that the Realm was now split between two worlds. The Realm would not become whole again until all believers were united and the darkness defeated. Aidan Thomas, an average teenage boy, has become a part of this story. He had read the stories of King Eliam, but did not believe until he was thrust into the world of Alleble. Now it is up to Aidan and his friends to destroy the evil that threatens Alleble and the Realm. Batson peppers his books with Christian symbols and ideals. The concept of placing one's faith in a situation that will bring about everlasting life is found in almost every other chapter. Many readers may find these novels derivative of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. What might be of most help to the reader are lists of characters and places that Batson includes in his novels. He even provides a pronunciation guide for those names that are especially difficult to decipher. The novels are well written, and the narrative moves quickly. Readers will become engrossed in King Eliam's world because of the vivid imagery that Batson uses to describe the Realm and its people.-Jonatha Masters.

Gr 6-8-The sequel to The Door Within (Tommy Nelson, 2005) opens a few weeks after Aidan Thomas has returned from the kingdom of Alleble, located in The Realm, where he trained to be a knight to fight the minions of the evil Paragor the Betrayer, King Eliam's nemesis. He meets Antoinette Reed, a classmate who also has knowledge of The Realm. This time, the plot turns on her adventures as she travels from Alleble to Yewland to convince the queen to align herself with King Eliam and discover whether Paragor has awakened the Wyrm Lord as a weapon against Alleble. However, Antoinette's task is somewhat muddled by Aidan's entreaty for her to find his friend's Glimpse and convince him to turn away from Paragor. There are some good imaginative elements here, but the Christian allegory is heavy-handed and unwieldy: science and logic are incompatible with faith and belief, and much emphasis is placed upon whether or not the people of Earth actively believe in the stories of Alleble (and therefore, ensure their salvation) without the compelling Gospel counterparts. The dialogue is much improved from the first book, but it still clunks along in parts where contemporary dialect is invoked. An additional purchase for collections that are in need of more fantasy trilogies.-Farida S. Dowler, Mercer Island Library, WA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.