Groovy Jake

A Newcomer's Review of Bionicle - Book 2 - What Lurks Below Didn't enjoy this one as much as Book 1, but I did enjoy the story of the Bohrok and Bohrok Kal, and there were some shining moments throughout it. The threat in this book did feel much bigger than in the first. The Bohrok are such a large scale threat across the island, completely destroying a ton of locations we really got to see in the first book, and it's really neat seeing the Toa being extremely outnumbered. I also liked how the Bohrok Kal were even more of a threat. The fact that nothing the Toa do can even remotely stop them, with even the fusion Wairuha being no match for them, really puts into perspective how screwed they are throughout it. And with the Toa losing their powers, it was really interesting seeing a story where the powerful Toa are just no match for the enemies throughout the book. I thought Lewa being briefly mind controlled and always having the lingering thoughts of the Bohrok in his mind was pretty interesting as well. Seeing the normally very silly and fun Lewa become so disturbed by this really makes you realize how bad everything is. My biggest problem with this book compared to the first one was two things. The first is that, unlike the first book, which felt like one complete story, this definitely felt like two books/stories merged together. The first half comes to a pretty good conclusion, and then the Bohrok Kal show up and it feels like a new story is starting. Again, not the fault of the compiler, but compared to book 1, this book definitely felt less like one full story. The second issue is that the Matoran aren't focused on as much as they should. Most of the story we get of them is through the Wall of History segments, and they really feel like a summary of what should be a larger story. I watched some of the flash animations this were released with, and I felt like there was so much in those animations that was missing here, such as full scenes portraying the events, such as some relationship setup for Jaller and Hahli, of which I believe comes up in the next book. I also really wish Takua had a bigger role in this book aside from just being "The Chronicler" writing the events down. I feel novelizing the flash animations would've been a better move here, but I understand that wasn't the goal with this project. Still, the book was quite enjoyable and I did like the story. I know the next book includes the first Greg Farshtey penned novel, so I'm curious to see how his writing style differs from Hapka. Also curious how Hapka handles a novelization of the first Bionicle movie.

Oof, fixed the writing errors in my review lol.

I recently decided to get into the Bionicle story, after passively looking over wikis and this very forum for quite a few years. Since there's no official way to read it all, I decided to read this compilation, "Biological Chronicle", which I've heard is the best way to read/enjoy the Bionicle story, using the final version on TuragaNuva's website. A Newcomer's Review of Bionicle - Book 1 - The Coming of the Toa I really enjoyed this book. For one, I really liked the characters and story. The Toa are all pretty fun and interesting, and with their elemental powers and element based personalities, it reminded me a lot of Lego Ninjago, another Lego series which I grew up watching. I liked the overall story of them learning to work together. I think Tahu, the hot headed fire Toa, and Kopaka, the distant and lone wolf type ice Toa, were probably my favorite. I found their bickering and eventually their learning to work together to be one of the best dynamics in the story. I also found the world and lore of Mata Nui to be quite intriguing. Speaking of which, Takua's story was a good way of getting to actually know the world of Mata Mui, with him being a Matoran, and I found his story of fighting his own equally important battle alongside the Toa to be quite well done. I like the personalities of the other Matoran as well, and it was really neat to get to know the local pass times and interests of these various groups of people. Really makes it feel like a living breathing world. I felt it all tied together really nicely in the end, with Takua's mental link with Gali allowing the two stories to really mesh well near the end. Two bits I really enjoyed were Pohatu's speech to his Shadow Toa counterpart (which was probably his shining moment), and the encounter with Makuta. Finding out he wasn't totally evil but simply a necessary part of the universe, being the destruction to Mata Nui's creation, is a super intriguing concept. I hear later stories undo this idea, which is a shame, since a villain who's almost more of a force of nature is genuinely really cool. The main issue I have with the book... well, it's not the fault of the compiler, but it becomes really obvious at points what was written as a book and what was written as a walk through. The sections focusing on the Toa are super well written with great introspection, I believe being mostly written by C.A. Hapka with bits by Greg Farshtey, and I feel it really helped me connect with the Toa as characters. Unfortunately, most of the story related to Takua feels pretty basic. The dialogue itself is great, but there's very little introspection and the text doesn't really have a unique style to it. I also wish Gali and Takua's mental link was established earlier on. I know this is because the sections with the Toa largely come from a proper book, while Takua's sections come from a walkthrough of the Mata Nui Online Game, but it does make the writing seem inconsistent at times, especially since the former is written in 3rd person, while the latter is written in 1st person. The comics surprisingly weren't a super jarring shift, but it was strange how Lewa spoke pretty normally in the comics and MNOG walkthrough, while he has his own broken style of speech in the book sections. The comics themselves were pretty great though, with incredible art and writing on par with the books and MNOG. Honestly, I think any jarring shift had less to do with them being comics, and more with them often being told by Turaga or from Makuta's POV. The Kopaka comic's inclusion in the book was actually was pretty seamless by comparison. Despite the occasional change in writing style and the overall weaker writing of the Takua plotline, I still got quite invested in Takua's story. I feel the only place where the lack of detail in the MNOG sections kinda hurt the book was in the Makuta fight section. I saw the original MNOG cutscene on YouTube and it's such a great scene with amazing dialogue and beautiful imagery, and it kinda sucks it wasn't novelized with a bit more effort put into it. Still, I really enjoyed the book. Bionicle is a really cool story, and this book is a great introduction from what I read. I definitely wanna see how the story continues going forward. Currently reading Book 2, I'll post my thoughts on it once I finish it. Note: I decided to read the "with optional extras" version of the text, because I heard the Quest for the Toa game was important to the story. But, tbh, I think the Standard version probably benefits from being excluded. While it's nice to have, I feel that the story is ridiculously repetitive and uninteresting, until the very end with it setting up the events of the book. I feel this section being truncated to just the necessary details (Why Takua became an outcast, him helping the various Matoran and Turaga, and the ending with the canisters being released and Takua winding up on the beach) would be a better epilogue. But I know this is only a compilation, so I can't complain too much lol. I'll definitely stick to the Standard versions going forward.