"Five Worlds" series by Mark Siegel, Alexis Siegel, Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, and Boya Sun

So, yeah. As you may see, "5" is a bit of a theme number for this series. Five books, five worlds, five authors, five different types of sand (it makes sense in context), five |races| in book 4, five |filters| in book 5... yeah. There are a lot of fives. I think the only important non-fives are The Living Fire (see the blue fire on book 5) and the main characters (which I understand, as five of them would have been kind of an ensemble cast).

But anyway, I suppose I should tell you what the series is about. Oona (the girl), Jax (the blue-haired guy who's |secretly an android|), and An Tzu (the guy with red hair) have to save the worlds from the Mimic, an evil spirit/force/corruption/thing who's trying to mind-control the worlds and, eventually, the universe. 

Oona can control sand (although, initially, she's kind of bad at it), which usually manifests itself as ribbons (see the Book 5 cover) or little sand people, the latter of which are called "aniforms". Also, if you're good enough at it, you can make giant sand people to ride around in (the Sand Warrior), and it looks really awesome. Did I mention these are graphic novels?

Jax is really really good at the fictional sport of Starball, and is as previously mentioned |an android|. He also gets a prosthetic hand that lets him shoot lasers. He also |fuses with a Salassi energy spirit/creature/thing| in the prologue of book 3.

An Tzu is slowly vanishing, can talk to plants (if by "talk to it" you mean "play music at it"), and |is actually a Felid, who are a race of uberpowerful energy beings from the sun|. He also has a tendency to start being an idiot if left alone for too long. 

Also there's Stan Moon, an evil tentacle monster centaur guy (look on the covers of books 2 and 4), Ram Sam Sam (an extremely happy little green sentient blob), the Felids (giant light people who look kind of like humanoid cats; there's one in the book 4 cover background), and a whole host of other minor characters.

Aaaaaaand the fifth world, Grimbo (E) (Yes, the "E" does get explained eventually, but I'm not going to), is covered in moss. Like, its nickname is "The Moss Ocean". Pretty much anyone who knows me knows I am borderline obsessed with moss. Needless to say, if I was in this series, I would live on Grimbo (E).

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for fantasy violence and the aforementioned tentacle monster and Mimic. It'd probably make a fun videogame, as long as the makers didn't royally mess it up.

The series gets to join Kiki's Delivery Service, The Adventurer's Guide to Successful Escapes, and The Mystwick School of Musicraft in getting five stars (fitting, considering the theme number). No, this does not mean that each book gets one star, nor that there are five stars within the book (although I think there are). This rating is a series average, meaning that were I to rate each book, they would all get five stars (with the possible exception of The Red Maze, which might get four).

Favorite lines:

   The phrase "old-fuel shoeboxes". It's spawned dozens of jokes, including a hypothetical shoe company called "Old Fuel Shoes".

  Page 61, The Sand Warrior

   "Your highness? Are you feeling indisposed?". This one's also spawned a lot of jokes, mostly due to the extremely silly face and pose of the guy who says it.

  Page 156, The Sand Warrior

   "Everywhere you'll go-- urg glrg". It was supposed to be a terrifying threat, but the thing giving it started to fall apart before finishing it.

  Page 218, The Cobalt Prince

   "We no longer have an air force, sir...". I don't know why, but this line just struck me as really funny.

  Page 147, The Amber Anthem

    "Beautiful! A whole world carpeted with moss." I agree with Jax wholeheartedly on this one. (In the process of finding lines, I ended up rereading the entirety of The Emerald Gate; 10/10 would reread yet again.)

  Page 12, The Emerald Gate

 

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