Daniel X Book Report

September 19, 2011
THE DANGEROUS DAYS OF DANIEL X
James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
I would give this book a thumbs up because it had the ability to keep my attention, and most books don’t keep my attention. THE DANGEROUS DAYS OF DANIEL X is about a young boy named Daniel who is 15 years old. He is on a mission to kill aliens following a list until his parents’ killer is finally exterminated. This scientific fictional novel starts off with Daniel being a three year old boy, and his parents are attacked by an alien known as the Prayer. The Prayer wanted a list that Daniel’s parents had; a list called “A List of Alien Outlaws on Earth”. This list contained all of the names of aliens that were located on Earth. The Prayer was unsuccessful
at getting the list, but he still killed Daniel’s parents. Daniel was born with a special talent that allowed him to create anything with his mind.
He could also run extraordinarily fast, and he had superhuman strength. When the Prayer was in his house, Daniel transformed into a tick and latched onto the Prayer, escaping death. Once Daniel gets to be fifteen, he takes upon the role of being the Defender of Earth. He starts off playing this role by killing Orkng Jllfgna, the number 19 alien on the list, in the sewers of Portland, Oregon. Daniel was living by himself in Oregon, and he would “create” his family by using his brain, to keep him from being lonely. The Portland Runaway Juvenile Unit confronts Daniel at his house, and he barely passes their tests with his “imagined” parents. Feeling unsafe in Portland, Daniel heads to Los Angeles in search of Ergent Seth, the number six alien on the list. Once in Los Angeles, Daniel has to go to school to fit in with society, and at school he meets a pretty young girl named Phoebe Cook. Phoebe is new to the school as well, and Daniel ends up asking her to go on a date with him. One day when Daniel was looking for clues of Ergent Seth, he finds a child-slave and drug-dealing operation taking place. Daniel brainwashes the leader of the operation and goes on with his business. When Daniel returned home from school the next day, he
noticed his house was destroyed by two alien cat-like creatures that were working for Ergent Seth. The aliens warned Daniel to leave Los Angeles, but he didn’t pay them any mind. Daniel finds out that Phoebe’s sister, Allison, had been kidnapped a few months before she moved to Los Angeles, and Daniel automatically links the case with Ergent Seth. After school on his way home, Daniel is attacked by Ergent Seth’s men, but Daniel escapes the scene. Later on that day, Daniel receives a call from Phoebe stating to meet her at the coffee shop, where she would give Daniel all of Allison’s files from her kidnapping. When Daniel returns home, he noticed his house was damaged again, so he slept at Phoebe’s house. The next day when Daniel awakes, he notices that Phoebe wasn’t home. When Daniel arrives at school, Phoebe transformed into Ergent Seth (Phoebe was really Ergent Seth all long in disguise) and Seth shoots Daniel in the stomach and takes him to his spaceship where they fly away from Earth. When Daniel awakes, he is in a cage aboard the ship. Once the ship lands on Alpar Nok (Daniel’s homeland) Daniel escapes and hides from the aliens. Daniel is surprised to see his homeland of alien hunters destroyed by Seth’s men. Daniel finally makes his way underground where the few survivors of Ergent Seth’s attacks now reside. In the small village-like community, Daniel runs into his grandmother (Blaleen). His grandmother takes him to her hut and performs surgery on him and removes the bullet that was lodged into his stomach. Once Daniel heals and regains his powers, he summons a thousand-man army with his brain. He then calls Seth out to a one man fight, and Seth accepts the duel. Once the fight starts, Ergent Seth immediately starts winning the duel, until Daniel puts his mind to it. Daniel quickly shape-shifts into a tick and jumps inside Seth’s ear and he crawls into his head. He then transformed into an elephant, immediately killing Ergent Seth. The people of Alpar Nok celebrated the victory, and Ergent Seth’s henchmen agreed to listen to Daniel. They delivered all the stolen children back to their homes on Earth, and Daniel returned to Earth to defend his world. I think the genre of the story would be science fiction. This book was a definite page turner for me because with all the action taking place, like all the alien attacks and whatnot, there was never a slow or boring moment in the story line. It wasn’t hard to concentrate on the story because it wasn’t written for college professors. The intended audience for this story, in my opinion, is anyone who has a vivid imagination and is literate. This story was far from boring, beings that it kept my attention with all the violence and it kept my mind imagining all of the events due to the imagery portrayed by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. I think the majority of THE DANGEROUS DAYS OF DANIEL X’s readers are most likely pre-teen boys, mainly because the story is about a teenage boy who kills aliens, it has tons of violence, Daniel is all alone in the book (his family died and he had to raise himself) and maybe some teenagers can relate to feeling lonely at times, and last but not least, there is a cute girl that Daniel has a crush on. This book was a great read in my opinion because of the originality of the text. This story is a one-of-a-kind thriller that you do not want to miss.