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For more Red House reviews and news visit Red House Reader Aaron Marchant (12 yrs) reviews Fight Game "Think of the best book you have ever read. Rate it on a scale of 1 to 1000. Then times your answer by infinity. Now you are close to the electrifying 'Fight Game'. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Alex Rider and Hardy Boys. Red House Reader Andrew Lewis (13 yrs) reviews Fight Game We want you to stop the fight. The fight that never ends. These words are the ones that turn young freedoms life upside down. Having been falsly accused of murder, Freedom Smith is rescued by Phoenix. A company that fight crime that the police cannot control. His target the fight that never ends. A modern day gladiator arena, with more sinister secrets than first meet the eye... A brilliant read for those who enjoy action thrillers, and I am glad to see that this book features a gypsy for the main character, and hopefully this will go some way to helping young teenagers to understand Gypsys. A great read and thoroughly enjoyable. |
Review by Cindy Mitchell Location: UT, For more Ya Book reviews and news visit Fight Game by Cindy Mitchell Bare-knuckles Action: Perfect for Boys Wild, Kate Fight Game, 304 p. Scholastic - Freedom Smith's small Gypsy family has been trying to find a place where they can settle for a time, to let the little ones grow up in peace, but the townfolk around them have other plans. Defending his family, Johnny is now in major trouble with the law, but he is offered a deal. Use the fight skills he inherited from his famous many-greats-grandfather and infiltrate the seedy, dangerous world of an underground fight that has been going on non-top for decades. What Johnny doesn't know is that those weird dreams he has are really flashbacks - and something sinister, with his own genetic makeup, is waiting to challenge him. Definitely a book for the harder edged kids. I really like the fact that though the book is extremely gritty and dangerous, the author doesn't not use swear words as a crutch and the violence is just what is needed to make the point, without become excessive and voyeuristic. Note: This post corrects my website that listed the main character's name incorrectly. You can visit Kate Wild's site at www.fightgame.co.uk. |
Review by John Lloyd. For more book reviews and news visit http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=5759258 Fight Game by John Lloyd When bashing away on computer consoles do you ever imagine a past existence, a continuing narrative to the hero’s you’re controlling or the villains you’re obliterating? Kate Wild has definitely projected the animated grapple of Freedom Smith, a gypsy adolescent who materializes from the gaming realm. Hounded all his life by the attentions of the police and the public’s hostility towards his family’s Romany existence Freedom finds himself entrusted with an honorable mission; to infiltrate the domain of coldblooded illegal fighting. ‘Fight Game’ supplies the trappings of true gaming absorption revealing a story that avails the intelligence and appeal of Robert Muchamore’s action packed writing. ‘Fight Game’ is more than an off shoot of multimedia entertainment, promising a succession of stories and addition website attraction. Kate Wild has remarkably created a worthy island of literature to an otherwise illiterate pastime. |
Review by Dean Mortlock. For more info about Deathray visit Fight Game by Kate Wild - DeathRay July 2007 "The book is clearly aimed at the Playstation generation, and there's a possibility it might drag enough teenagers away from their joypads for long enough to enable them to finish it" |
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The Lovereading comment: Fans of Alex Ryder will love this new all-action hero, Freedom Smith created by debut novelist Kate Wild. Believe me, this is high-octane, mind-bending, fast-paced action adventure that will have you biting your nails and screaming for breath. The plot is original and although at times possibly a little too surreal, it is still an utterly unputdownable read and the writing is very straight forward. Boys, in particular from 10 or 11 upwards will love it, and girls will relate well to Java, the heroine in the story who stops at nothing to get to the truth. |
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What an unexpected treat this book turned out to be! It looked like a rip-off of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, and honestly there is some similarity. The author used the same setting but somehow created a novel that is quite original and entertaining. Freedom "Fred" Smith is our story's sixteen-year-old hero. He's a Gypsy living with his family in England, taking care of himself as much as possible when he gets in trouble with the police after he's involved in a fight with a street thug. Fred has some experience as a boxer, and as it happens the police need some help infiltrating an underground gambling ring in which the rich and powerful gather to bet on boxing matches. Preferring the spy game to jail, Fred accepts the police's offer. The story gets a lot deeper than that, though. The illegal club is host to a lot more than just gambling. Headed by the sinister Darkus Night, he and his followers kidnap boys off the street, brainwash them, and load their bodies up with steroids to make them strong and vicious, and microchips to monitor their behavior and control them. In time, Night is hoping to build a super-charged boy army. In the mean time, he perfects his formula by keeping the young men in cages and forcing them to constantly fight one another. The police mean well, but their hopeless incompetence and corruption cause difficulties for Fred at every turn. Additionally, there are gangs of racist skinheads after him because of his Gypsy origins. Before long, Fred begins to suspect that Night has agents working on the police force: he even sees a prominent judge attending the club's boxing matches. This is a fast-paced techno-thriller that works on a number of different levels. The bad-boy anti-hero gives the story some amazing street-cred, and his Gypsy family is a rather fascinating, softer side to his life so he's not a one-dimensional caricature. There's a lot about boxing in here, plenty of nerve-wracking fights where Fred is pitted against three guys twice his size. The nanotechnology brainwashing scheme is imaginative, and there's a terrific villain's lair built in subterranean tunnels under an abandoned chemical plant. Not the sort of place you'd want to be caught as a spy, and Wild describes the tension in dazzling, vivid detail. So if you're looking for an adventure story with brutal violence and lots of subterfuge, this is a great choice. Brooding, strong-silent teen heroes are always a favorite as well. |
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