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Big Game

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Big Game

By: Dan Smith
Narrated by: Michael Bakkensen
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13-year-old Oskari is sent into the cold wilderness on an ancient test of manhood. He must survive armed only with a bow and arrow. But instead, he stumbles upon an escape pod from a burning airliner: Air Force One.

Terrorists have shot down the President of the United States. The boy hunter and the world's most powerful man are suddenly the hunted, in a race against a deadly enemy.

©2015 Dan Smith (P)2015 Recorded Books Inc Action & Adventure Literature & Fiction Survival Stories
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Dan Smith's YA novel is like a cross between The Hunger Games, Die Hard and the Jean Claude Van Damme film Hard Target with a dash of Air Force One. Smith combines some well-forged action sequences with a fairly well structured coming-of-age narrative. Although there is some fairly obvious foreshadowing, and a slightly hokey final act twist regarding who is behind the plot (a nod to 24, maybe - the President is a ringer for President Palmer) there are enough twists to keep the listener intrigued.

I've not seen the film, so I don't know how close the story matches. The reading takes a little getting into (at least, for a UK listener) but once I'd engaged with the narrator's voices, it was enjoyable.

I particularly liked how the setting and culture of Arctic Circle Finland was presented. I don't know how much of this is Smith's invention and how much is based on reality, but Oskari's world has a veneer of truth.

Tradition is tradiiton - an enjoyable romp

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