Jango Synopsis
A man named the Brother once resided on the island of Anacrea, and one night while he was sleeping, a lost child came to him, asking him for help. He let the Lost Child in, and later that night, in a dream, the Lost Child spoke to the Brother, and changed form. Following the dream, the Brother built a garden for the Lost Child to live in, believing him to be the one true god. Others came to the island and they too pledged to protect the Lost Child.
One day, a powerful warlord named Noman came to the island. He forced his way into the garden to see the child. He stayed there for a day and a night and when he came out, he never spoke of what he saw. But soon after, he disbanded his army and formed a community to protect the god, which became known as the Nom, of which he was the leader.
Noman learned the secret of true strength and he passed his knowledge to his brothers and sisters and they too became strong and became known as the Noble Warriors. In defence they used no weapons or armour; they used only true strength. Their vow was to use their powers to bring freedom to the enslaved and justice to the oppressed and to defend themselves against the Savanters who seek to destroy the Noble Warriors. They have similar powers to the noble warriors and they are referred to 'as noble warriors gone bad'.
The second book in The Noble Warriors series - Seeker, Morning Star and the Wildman are reunited in this mesmerising second volume of The Noble Warriors trilogy. Having finally gained entry into the Nomana, the friends discover that the mysterious warrior sect is not quite what it appears from the outside. In different ways, for different reasons, they leave to find their own destinies in the world. But now at least they have acquired the remarkable physical skills of the Nomana - and they're going to need them: the mighty warlord of the Orlan nation is gathering his forces, and has vowed to destroy Anacrea and all who come in his path. Seeker is the first novel in the trilogy and Noman is the third and final part.
KEY CHARACTERS IN NOBLE WARRIORS TRILOGY
Seeker after Truth is the protagonist of the Noble Warriors Trilogy and he turns 16 at the beginning of Seeker. He discovers that he has power without limits which he uses to kill the savanters. By the end of Noman, he has killed all of the savanters and he also discovers that himself, Jango and Noman are all the same person, and that he is the Assassin, just as Noman was 200 years ago.
Morning Star has a gift which enables her to see other peoples auras or what they are feeling (their colours). She became Seeker's friend after they met on Anacrea after both being rejected by the Nom. They both go after the secret weapon in Radiance with Wildman, though she gets kidnapped on the way by tribute traders. She falls in love with Wildman during Jango, but at the start of Noman, she leaves the spiker army willingly. She joins the Joyous and tries to stop Seeker killing Manlir, the Joy Boy, but obviously fails. She also loses her colours temporarily in Noman but regains them when Seeker gives her some of his lir.
The Wildman is a famous spiker who wants to become a Noble Warrior after fighting, and losing to, some of them. He joins up with Seeker in destroying the secret weapon and he is accepted into the Nom. In Jango, he attempts to break into the garden but is stopped by his teacher. He then escapes from the Nom to prevent himself being cleansed. By the end of Jango, he is the head of the spiker army which he uses to fight the Jahan, who he defeats but he his unable to prevent the Nom being destroyed. In Noman, he joins the Joyous with most of his army. He tries to stop Seeker killing Manlir but dies in the process. He is later resurrected by Seeker who gives him his lir.
Jango seems at first to be a crazy old man. He lives with his wife in a house by the door in the wall which was built by Noman. He is very wise and in Jango, he gives Seeker cryptic advice on how to defeat the savanters. He also has lots of lir, though not as much as Seeker, as he can knock Seeker down just with his mind. In Noman, it is revealed that Jango is actually Seeker grown older.
Noman was once a very powerful warlord who went to Anacrea 200 years ago, entered the Garden, founded the Noble Warriors and wrote their Rule. He first appears in Noman and reveals himself to Seeker through a mirror. He also gives Seeker advice and explains more about the experiment. It is later revealed that Noman was once the Assassin and that when went into the Garden 200 years ago, it was he who killed the All and Only in his quest for knowledge. Noman is also Seeker but grown much older.
Manlir is one of the savanters. In Noman, he is leading his followers, the Joyous, to the Great Embrace which is when they believe that they will become gods but it is actually when Manlir will harvest their lives. When he is eventually defeated by Seeker, he goes back into his body and sails off with Noman, his brother.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781405231275 |
| Publication date: |
8th August 2007 |
| Author: |
William Nicholson |
| Publisher: |
Egmont Childrens Books |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Suitable For: |
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| Recommendations: |
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About William Nicholson
William Nicholson was our Guest Editor in April 2010 - click here - to see the books that inspired his writing.
William Nicholson was born in 1948, and grew up in Sussex and Gloucestershire. He was educated at Downside School and Christ's College, Cambridge, and then joined BBC Television, where he worked as a documentary film maker. There his ambition to write, directed first into novels, was channelled into television drama. His plays for television include Shadowlands and Life Story, both of which won the BAFTA Best Television Drama award in their year; other award-winners were Sweet As You Are and The March. In 1988 he received the Royal Television Society's Writer's Award. His first play, an adaptation of Shadowlands for the stage, was Evening Standard Best Play of 1990, and went on to a Tony-award winning run on Broadway. He was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of the film version, which was directed by Richard Attenborough and starred Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Since then he has written more films - Sarafina, Nell, First Knight, Grey Owl, and Gladiator (as co-writer), for which he received a second Oscar nomination. He has written and directed his own film, Firelight; and three further stage plays, Map of the Heart, Katherine Howard and The Retreat from Moscow. His novel for older children, The Wind Singer, won the Smarties Prize Gold Award on publication in 2000, and the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award in 2001. Its sequel, Slaves of the Mastery, was published in May 2001, and the final volume in the Wind on Fire trilogy, Firesong was published in May 2002. A further epic trilogy – Noble Warriors – has seen been published to much acclaim and began with The Seeker, continued with Jango and culminates in Noman. He lives in Sussex with his wife Virginia and their three children.
Q&A
Where do you get your ideas?
There’s where, and there’s how. Where is easy to answer. The material that forms my ideas comes from my life, from the people round me, from the books I read, and more than I sometimes realise, from newspapers and magazines. I pick up a lot of strange stuff from news reports. Also of course, travel opens the mind to other ways of doing things, and I have travelled a lot in my life.
But then, when you have such a vast mass of trivia lodged somewhere in the memory, how do you pull out the bits you need at the time you need them?
I find the answer is day-dreaming. Often I know what I want to happen next, but not how or where it will happen. For example, I might know I want my hero to face a terrible danger - but what danger? So I let myself daydream. I let the situation float about in my head for a while, sometimes for days. Then along comes some random thought that goes click! and connects. It’s not quite as random as it seems. By preparing, by being ready, the useful idea has somewhere to go when it comes along. I think it’s important not to force this process; and equally important to be willing to make changes later, when a better idea surfaces. Finally, there’s something about this having-ideas game that people often forget to mention: it’s blissfully satisfying.
What inspired you to write ‘The Wind Singer, your first novel for teenagers’?
There were two spurs to writing the first book. One was simply a desire to write something for myself, not for a film production company, in which I could make anything happen – anything at all. I wanted the fun of invention, of story-telling my way. The second spur was an irritation with the amount of tests my children were put through at school. I don’t like or value exams, and I hate to see the way children are being judged by their performance at these strange rituals. So I invented a world that took the obsession with exams to its logical extreme, and started writing. Then of course, the story went off in unexpected directions. And that’s the fun of writing. Who is your favourite character? I love all my characters, of course, but I have a way of loving best the ones I've been writing most recently. So that means I love Seeker, Morning Star and the Wildman most right now.
How do you come up with the names of your characters?
I take a lot of trouble over names. Often I’ll change a character’s name several times during the writing of the book, until it settles down and feels right. The meaning of the name, or the associations of the sound, have to connect with the character – so Kestrel is fast and dangerous and beautiful, like the hawk, and Mumpo is mumbly and pooey, at least to start with. Also I try to give people from the same group similar names. All the Manth people have names ending in –th or –ch or –sh, and all the mud people have names ending in –um. This is very much what happens in the real world.
How long does it take you to write your books?
It all depends how many other things I’m writing at the same time – I also write film scripts, and plays – but in general, a book takes me about a year to finish. Have you always wanted to be a writer? Yes, I have. Even as a child of five I was trying to write books. But it’s taken another forty-five years to get anyone to publish them.
Did you know The Wind Singer would be part of a trilogy?
When I started writing The Wind Singer, I thought of it as one book. I didn’t know if anyone would like it or want to publish it. Then when it was accepted by a publisher, I realised there were many unanswered questions in the story. So then I planned the other two books. Are your characters based on real people? None of my characters are direct portraits of real people, but nothing comes from nowhere, so of course there are characteristics in them from people I know. The person I use most in creating characters is myself. I have many different types of people inside me – so do you – so does everybody. I’m shy and I’m confident. I’m gorgeous and I’m hideous. I’m young and I’m old. I’m male and I’m female, and sometimes I’m a cow or a pig. It’s all there if you look for it.
What tips would you give someone starting out as a writer?
If you want to write books, you have to do two things: read books, and write. It sounds obvious, but only by writing a lot will you get any good. The better the books you read, the better your own writing will be. Then it’s just a matter of keeping on writing. You won’t get good by giving up. I was useless for a long time, but slowly I got better. You can do it too. If you feel strong enough, show your work to others, and listen to their criticisms. It hurts - but if you listen, you'll get better.
What is your favourite book by another author?
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
Click here to read a Q&A with the author from top children's publisher Egmont.
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