The City of Ember

Second (or is it third?) read, second time with daughter - this time as an audio book while driving across the state. Not as good as I remember...

The world is a single undground city, and it's breaking down. Due to mismanagement by a mayor, the current citizens are decades beyond the original planned time to exit the city, and even those instructions have been lost. When found (and chewed up by a toddler), they from the basis of the mystery to be solved. This is the best part of the book, really.

These characters have been trapped underground their whole lives - not even knowing they were underground, just a city in the darkness. On this reading, I see how two dimensional they are - the raging Doon, the impulsive and often clueless Lina. All the other characters have even less dimension. Truly, the mystery is the thing here.

As a story, this comes to a neat conclusion, and even though there are sequels, it stands alone quite well. I liked it, but not as much as I first did. The movie has some excellent elements (and a great cast!) but it also added a giant star-nosed mole. Bleh.

For WWE, I think this is much closer to Science Fiction than Fantasy.