Description:

From School Library Journal

Grade 6–9—Bemis's debut novel presents a unique way of creating fantasy by drawing on the themes and archetypes of Southern folklore and American legend. In place of knights and dragons are hoodoo conjurers, pirate queens, and sirens. Twelve-year-old orphan Ray Cobb has a lodestone his father gave him that is pulling him to the South from rural Maine. He jumps from an orphan train and connects with the Ballyhoo, a train that houses a medicine show with a blind sharpshooter, a snake dancer, a fire-eater, and a sword swallower. Ray learns that his father was (and perhaps still is) Li'l Bill, a Rambler who helped John Henry win the competition with the steam engine. Ramblers, like knights of old, are protectors. Their evil adversary, known as the Gog, is a captain of industry—a cold and calculating champion of the machine who desires dominion. The medicine show is hiding the last of the mythical Swamp Sirens from him as he wants her for her ability to lure people so he can feed his evil machine with ruined souls. As the Gog rebuilds an even more monstrous machine than the one John Henry destroyed, a new generation of Rambler heroes, including Ray, takes up the fight of defending the wilderness. While Bemis's setup is fascinating, the novel is as overblown as any tall tale. The convoluted plot is difficult to unravel, and the connection with John Henry and his hammer not clear for the better part of the book.—Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME END

Review

Books Ahoy:
"This is one of the best books I ever read! There are many twists and turns throughout the novel that kept me on the edge of my seat. Once I started I couldn't put it down until I was finished."

From the Hardcover edition.