Parasite Pig

Rating:
Summary: Better Than the First
Review: Barney, the sixteen-year-old star of Interstellar Pig, is back. He is playing the game with friends. The game is safe. It is not the real thing. But before he knows it, Barney is sucked into a real game once again.

This time he has a parasite living in his brain that can control his actions to a degree. The parasite and at least one of the aliens wants Barney to travel to a planet of man-eating crabs. To make matters worse, Barney also has to watch out for another player; a girl he really likes.

Barney must combat his parasite, escape from giant crabs, avoid being killed by other players, and somehow make his way home. But will the Piggy let him?

A very nice sequel that times up some loose ends from the first book. However, I would have liked some explanation as to how the Americans and Chinese got to the planet of giant crabs. That detail just stuck in my mind the rest of the book. But still, it was a quick-paces and enjoyable book. Certainly anyone who enjoyed the first one would enjoy this one as well.

Rating:
Summary: Better Than the First
Review: Barney, the sixteen-year-old star of Interstellar Pig, is back. He is playing the game with friends. The game is safe. It is not the real thing. But before he knows it, Barney is sucked into a real game once again.

This time he has a parasite living in his brain that can control his actions to a degree. The parasite and at least one of the aliens wants Barney to travel to a planet of man-eating crabs. To make matters worse, Barney also has to watch out for another player; a girl he really likes.

Barney must combat his parasite, escape from giant crabs, avoid being killed by other players, and somehow make his way home. But will the Piggy let him?

A very nice sequel that times up some loose ends from the first book. However, I would have liked some explanation as to how the Americans and Chinese got to the planet of giant crabs. That detail just stuck in my mind the rest of the book. But still, it was a quick-paces and enjoyable book. Certainly anyone who enjoyed the first one would enjoy this one as well.

Rating:
Summary: Adds action based on the original plot
Review: Fans of the author's prior Interstellar Pig will find Parasite Pig a suitable sequel: it not only adds action based on the original plot; it goes further in explaining the purposes and dilemmas of the Pig who controls other forces in the universe. Barney is grounded after his summer face-off with a dangerous space game; but when he's kidnapped by aliens, it's danger revisited in this absorbing story.

Rating:
Summary: I don't get it
Review: I've read enough of Sleator to be excited to find this book, but what a disappointment. If you've not read the first & great book, Interstellar Pig, or if you read it so long ago that it's not fresh, then the new book Parasite Pig just doesn't cut it. There are many references to the first book (something I find annoying: when a new title can't stand on its own as a full story). The writing is simple--I felt like Sleator was taking shortcuts, using fairly unimaginative adjectives to quickly advance a plot rather than to thicken the atmosphere. Yeah, if you're a sci fi buff you'll enjoy his techno speak and his creative story. But it's not a book to enjoy for the language; his writing feels like a means to the end.

Rating:
Summary: horror story
Review: mr. sleator took all the old and new characters and changed them from the mysterious, playful, exciting first book to a slightly less interesting, depressing format on another planet. I especially did not enjoy how barney went from being a sweet innocent child in interstellar pig to a cold hearted killer in the sequel.I have questions as to how humans were previously on the planet of the crabs and by the end of the second book it was a little ridiculous that barney should be the only one to undersand the truth about the piggy seeing as how the piggy exhibits such consistent behavior.I felt that the book went from playful in the first book (PG rated) to the new book which could be rated R for violence. The ending was very violent and morbid. I really do enjoy mr. sleator's books since my own teen years but I felt the new book, although good, was too discordant from the first book.