Magic Gone Wrong in The Runner by Patrick Lee

📌Category: Books
📌Words: 963
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 16 February 2022

In a way, magic is like writing a story: like a story, there are numerous elements of a magic show which makes it good or bad. In the novel “The Runner”, by Patrick Lee, the author does not portray a good sense of magic because of his inability to create a coherent plot, which creates the effect of a magician hopping from trick to trick. In addition, his decision to use a novel, which is not a very rapid medium, resulted in an effect similar to a magician spending 15 seconds on each trick. The novel stars Dryden, a retired widow who finds a 12 year old girl named Rachel, who is the result of a government defense contractor experiment gone wrong. She escaped from a detainment facility and Dryden finds her, picks her up and tries to hide her. The novel is about Dryden and Rachel, along with others, hiding and evading the government forces. The author is trying to instill the sentiment that the government is too powerful and secretive by using Dryden and Rachel, innocent civilians chased by and silenced by powerful government forces.  Although there were some relatable, likeable characters and a very good opening to the novel, like a flighty magician who hops from trick to trick without connecting them, the plot was very not coherent and fell flat on the ending. Furthermore, the author chose a novel to tell an apace thriller, and should have opted for a different medium like a screenplay, because certain elements like the graphics and the music which reinforce or dull the mood of the scene can be controlled. This is like a magician trying to do a trick over the phone.

To start, the plot of the novel falls flat at the end and thus the whole novel is very confusing. For example, the author doesn’t provide any closure about what happened to all the high-level characters inside the government operation and the contractor's/employees of the government contractors. Gaul, the leader of the project to capture Rachel, is not mentioned at all at the end of the novel. The problem with this is it is implied if Gaul and the other government officials didn’t kill the girl, it would have been a calamity and could not happen at all costs. Although they did “quarantine” the problem by forcing Rachel to move to a different country, this is only a temporary solution. At the very least, the author should have tied everything together by giving an insight into their future or maybe imposing serious repercussions. Like Gaul, there are many such government officials who are stuck in difficult situations, but aren’t mentioned at the end of the novel. This is like a magician building up to a trick really well, but then falling flat and doing a confusing reveal. Furthermore, there are many secondary characters whose purpose in the novel are ill-defined, with no mention of them ever again in the novel. For example, there were multiple recruits who were hired who would test a certain drug that the Tyre and Barne company (one of the government contractors) created. These characters had some sort of insight into the government project but never the complete picture. While they could not say anything about the operations due to a non-disclosure agreement, the author should have elaborated on a few of these characters and explain what happened to them afterward. The author talks about these certain characters for sometime, and then never bother to mention them again. This is like if a magician all of a sudden started a brand new trick, hopped to another trick and never touched the old trick again. At the very least, the author should have fleshed out one of these characters and used them throughout various points in the book. Overall, while explanations for certain questions do exist, often these are incomplete, lazy answers that make the novel feel incomplete and make it fall through, like a magician doing a very predictable trick.

In addition, the novel is too fast paced. In the novel, there are multiple chase scenes, rapid plot twists, hectic moments which make it an extremely faced paced novel. There are lethal dangers every two pages of the novel, countless characters dying, countless plot twists and characters completely changing from ally to villain. The problem with this is that the novel struggles to keep up. For example, it's very hard to pinpoint the climax of the novel, since multiple points of the novel can be the climax. The first potential climax is when a pair of villains shoots off against Dryden and Rachel, another is when helicopters find Dryden and Rachel but they somehow escape and the last one is when Holly, a doctor who took care of Rachel before, and Dryden escape from more helicopters (there are more examples).  The problem with using a novel is that it is hard to control multiple hectic scenes with only words. Although some novels manage to create a fast-paced plot which makes sense with only words, The Runner’s plot is far too swift  in order to do so. With a movie, graphics and music can be used to control the mood of the scene to make it more dramatic or less dramatic. The author does not do a good job portraying the mood of such a brisk plot like this one. This novel’s plot is as if a magician tries to be very loud,  and energetic to compensate for the fact that he is doing magic over the phone. No matter how hard he tries, it simply won’t work. All and all, the author should have used a livelier medium like a movie because he could have controlled his environment better and made the plot make more sense.

In conclusion, though the novel was somewhat enjoyable, it was not good magic. The author needed to flesh out the plot to make the stellar start to the novel end with a bang, like a magician having a grand ending to his show. Furthermore, the author should have made the novel into a screenplay, because the author can control certain elements like the graphics and the music which reinforce or dull the mood of the scene.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.