Shade's Children 
                        by Garth Nix
Synopsis
    Everything has seemed to change so quickly. There was no sight of adults, but just humanoid creatures patrolling around. Many terrified children was seen captured by these patrolling creatures into the meat factory …
    In the brutal city of the future, evil overlords rule the world whereby no child may past his of hers fourteenth birthday. Young Gold- eye escapes this horrific fate and joins a party of guerrilla fighters directed by Shade.
Under Shade’s training, the young fighters were fighting hard in order to free themselves from the evil overlords. However, as the children got closer to the key to the overlord’s downfall, the more ruthless Shade seems to become.
    The fate of the future lies in the four children hands. In order to destroy the overlords, they must grapple with not only betrayal, but also the loss of some members in their team during the battle.

Setting
 An ugly and cruel place filled with humanoid creatures. The alien overlords freeze time and make anybody over fourteen vanish off the Earth. In every corner of the city, groups of machine- like creatures are stationed there to capture the terrified children. It makes one carry on reading as the setting as an imaginative one, filled with tension and fantasy.

Plot Structure and Development
 More tensions are built as the story develops. Gold- eye has to fight against those humanoid creatures, carry out tasks for Shade even though the creatures might catch him during his mission. To return to reality, he had to be brave and determined, making the right move in order not to get anyone harmed or killed. He had to use his soon- to- be power to help his group and gain their trust and confidence to win the battle.

Mood/ Atmosphere
    This novel combines plenty of comic- book action in a science- fiction setting to produce exciting reading. There is an even mixture of tension, suspense and romance throughout the story. The narrative follows the children battles with their enemies and Shade’ s betrayal, making the reader attracted to read on to find out more.  The unity of the group and Shade’ s character changes are small events that happen to us, thus is close to our hearts.

Style of writing
    The author uses simple words to make the story understandable to all instead of bombastic words. The vivid descriptions of the machine- like creatures and the setting give the reader a clearer view of the whole storyline.

Characteristic
    As the novel is a science- fiction one, there are many funny creatures appearing throughout the story. There are the trackers that track down the children and the wingers, which capture the children. All these creatures seem to be evil, however all of them used to be a human being before. The overlords are the evil one whereas Shade is the protector of the children although he has betrayed them at first.

 Opinions
    The part I like best is the children encounter with the overlords towards the ending. Gold- eye and Ninde were both captured by the wingers and were almost killed.

    However, the evil overlords wanted to make use of them for further experiments and research. At this critical point, Drum and Ella were the only two person left to destroy the enemy. The future of the children lies on their hands. Fortunately, their betrayal, Shade, has realized his mistake and assisted them towards the key of the overlords’ downfall.

    Even though Shade knew that he would die after the Grand Projector is destroyed, he did not really care about his life, as he wanted to return freedom back to the children.

    After reading the whole novel, we know that Shade is actually a good man, just that there are distinct personalities in him. He had four entities inside him and each entity has its own thoughts and memories. Therefore, there is some confusion in the middle of the novel as to who Shade really is. Shade or rather Robert Ingman, has managed to struggle out of the battle with his evil entity. The little confusion in the novel makes one captivated to read on to solve the riddle.

    Most readers’ character would be either Ella or Gold- eye as they were one of the main casts. Ella, as being described as a strong- willed girl and the oldest and mature of all, is the leader of the group. She makes most of the important decisions and everyone in the team would listen to her commands. Gold- eye is somehow similar to Ella just that he lacks of leadership, He is a brave and courageous and seem to be the hero in the novel as he tried saving Ninde despite getting himself involved.
 
    If you like to read books like X- men and aliens type of science- fiction ones, don’t miss this one, as it is filled of unspeakable future with suspense and adventures!

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