First of all, the author keeps referring to Greg being in medieval Paris. While I can’t help but appreciate any author that brings Dumas’ characters to the attention of 21st century kids, I couldn’t get over several changes to the original story that drove me crazy. At the end, they don’t go back to the 21st century, which makes me think that Gibbs has a sequel up his sleeve. There’s plenty of action, as Greg and his new-found friends swashbuckle their way to saving Greg’s parents. The book of matches in his pocket make the 17th century characters he meet think he’s a magician, as does his ability to swim. Gibbs does a good job with the whole fish-out-of-water time travel tropes, with Greg disgusted by the smells of Paris, the privies, and the fleas, among others. Mix in a nefarious brother of Cardinal Richelieu (the Cardinal being a central character in Dumas’ novel), and a young Milady de Winter (the original villainess in the Three Musketeers), some tropes of fantasy fiction (a stone that grants eternal life), and voila! a 21st century musketeer rehash. Greg himself becomes known as D’Artagnan (in the original a fish-out-of-water himself, as a bumbling, hot-headed young man from the distant province of Gascony. When his parents are falsely imprisoned for trying to kill the young Louis XIII, Greg must rescue them–by meeting up with three teenagers like himself, Aramis, a young cleric, Athos, a soldier from the lower social classes, and Porthos, a foppish rich young nobleman who’s the life of the party. The story starts off strong, with a terrific first sentence that will grab any young reader: “Clinging to the prison wall, Greg Rich realized how much he hated time travel.” On a trip to Paris with his family to sell the family’s treasured heirlooms to the Louvre, Greg and his parents are pulled through a time warp, winding up in 1615. Author Stuart Gibbs’ fast paced, action-packed tale may well appeal to today’s tweens, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed in the way he interprets Dumas’ classic story for the 21st century.
As a Three Musketeers fan since I was twelve years old, I was of course excited to read this new time travel story, in which a 21st century boy travels back to France of the early 17th century, befriending the future musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
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