Tulku (Unicorn Book)

Rating:
Summary: very well thought out, good plot,but a weak ending.
Review: There is not specifis information as to when exactly this story was set, but certain sections suggest that it was set in the late 1800s. At the beginning of the story, in China, the main character Theodore(or Theo)is all alonebecause his fundamentalist Christian settlement has been burnt to the ground by the Boxers, or the Chinese anti foreign society. Theodore was the only survivor, and among those dead was his father. With his fathers mission destroyed, Theodore has no choice but to flee. As Theodore hide in the nearby woods, he comes across Mrs. Jones, a fiesty good-hearted woman who likes to collect and classify plants. Mrs. Jones invites Theo into her band of travellers and they head off to Tibet while fleeing bandits. Once in Tibet, they meet the Lama Amachi who rules the Buddhist monastery in Dong Pe. He had set out on a journey, as was tradition, to find the Tulku, or the riencarnated spirit of the late Dalai Lama. When Lama Amachi insists that Theo, Mrs. Jones and her Chinese assistant Lung hold the key to his finding of the Tulku, things started changing for Theodore including his beliefs and what he would think to be right or wrong. This story was nicely written and is a very good adventure-historical fiction combonaton. The author compared the Christian and Buddhist faiths with interesting concepts and ideas that wil keep the pages turning. The author is very discriptive, which is nice because it helps you get into the story more and live with the characters. I felt that this was an excellent novel, although the ending was quite weak and fairly unrelated to the story. I also found that the author repeated some words and ideas more often than he should have. For instance, in the beginning of the book, the words "mocking", or "mockingly" were used quite often. Other than that, I found that this was a great book for those interested in religeon, adventure and descriptive stories and I am glad that i came accross this award winning novel. A wonderful love-adventure story that expresses the true power of emotion and the spirit.

Rating:
Summary: This was an ok but slightly weak book
Review: Tulku, by Peter Dickinson, was not all that great a book. It deals a lot with Buddhism with an unnecessary lead-in. It takes some knowledge, however, to understand the religious parts but is somewhat enjoyable without the knowledge of Buddhism if an adventure without a lot of details is anjoyable to the reader. A Christian boy joins up with an English traveller and her porter and they eventually end up at the rich monastery, Dong Pe, where an oracle says the English woman is carrying the next Tulku, a person of high rank in Buddhism. This book deals with the powers of spirits and the beliefs of different religions, somewhat comparing them.