Max & the Midknights: Battle of the Bodkins is a Children's Fantasy Novel by Lincoln Pierce. It is the first sequel to Max & the Midknights.
After saving the kingdom of Byjovia from Prince Gastley and restoring King Conrad to the throne, Max is now attending Knight School of Byjovia, where she is learning the finer points of sword fighting with other kids... none of them are the other Midknights, though (Simon dropped out after finding he had a knack with animals). And if that weren't enough, she has to learn alongside Sedgewick, whom she loathes because he's really good at sword fighting.
It's not all bad, though. Kevyn has opened Byjovia's first public library, and has written a book about Max's adventures. He has Millie cast a copying spell on the book to make more, but when she does, one of them is off. After it forms a large face out of paper in front of the visiting Queen Nerelia of the land of Tresk and makes an ominous speech, it's taken to Mumblin' the wizard, who informs them that the book is a Bodkin: an Evil Doppelgänger of someone/something from Byjovia, which were created from all the evil traits of Prince Torin many years ago and banished to the Land of Shadows.
It seems that, for every Byjovian, another such clone is created, its body kin to theirs, which explains the name Bodkin. King Conrad then reveals that the Bodkins are building an army with the intent of invading Byjovia and taking it for there own. So, the Midknights are called to action again to save the kingdom from this growing threat.
The book was published on December 1st, 2020. The book has a sequel, Max & the Midknights: The Tower of Time.
Max & the Midknights: Battle of the Bodkins contains examples of:
- Catapult Nightmare: Max wakes up from her nightmare about her friends leaving her for her Bodkin this way.
- Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: In chapter 5, Seymour plays the bagpipes loudly, causing all the Crags around him to crumble.
- Evil Doppelgänger: The Bodkins.
- Flying Face: At one point in the book, Mumblin' appears to Max as his floating head. He has Max toss a pill into his mouth to get the rest of him to appear.
- Funny Afro: Sir Budrick gets one temporarily when Millie tries to magic him up a new hat to replace the one that someone stole.
- Girls with Moustaches: Max is given one as part of her dwarf disguise. it doesn't last once they're in Knot, though.
- Impostor Forgot One Detail: The entire gimmick of the Bodkins. They've never mastered how to become exact copies, so there's always something odd about them. Sometimes it's something off about their appearance (Sedgewick's Bodkin having a freckle on his cheek), sometimes it's the absence of a habit (Millie's Bodkin holding her wand incorrectly), sometimes it's unusual behavior (King Conrad's Bodkin wearing clothes the real King Conrad hates), and sometimes it's just a plain lack of skill (Mumblin's Bodkin being unable to do magic properly).
- Lightning Can Do Anything: Before Boris could go through the mirror to Byjovia, it was struck by lightening, which shattered the mirror to pieces and killed Boris. This necessitated him being replaced by Knothead, and the search for all the other pieces.
- Mix-and-Match Critter: The Midknights encounter one in the Land of Knot known as a Clatterback. It has the head and body of an alligator, the front hooves of a horse, the back legs of a tiger, and the tail of a squirrel(?). Simon manages to tame it to get it to ride them to the portal back to Byjovia.
- Nightmare Sequence: Max has one in chapter 4, where she's kicked out of knight school, and her friends leave her for her Bodkin.
- Phantom Zone: The Land of Shadows, or as the Bodkins know it, the Land of Knot, where the Bodkins have been trapped for who-knows-how-long by Prince Torin, and is only accessible by walking into a tree. There's a mirror that the Bodkins have been trying to repair in Knot to get back to Byjovia, but so long as the last shard is out of reach, only child-sized Bodkins can go through it.
- Rock Monster: Crags, whom Max and Sir Gadabout face in chapter 5.
- Spot the Impostor: Many. From Simon to Kevin to King Conrad himself, no one is safe from being replaced by these doppelgängers.
- Trap Door: Back in the castle of Byjovia, Knothead pulls a lever and drops the Midknights, Sedgewick, and Sir Budrick into one.
- Truth Serums: Two examples.
- Mumblin' casts a truth-telling spell on Millie's Bodkin to get it to tell them about its peoples' plans. However, the Bodkin passes out before it can tell them anything useful.
- In the Land of Knot, it's revealed that the Bodkins have a truth serum they feed to their prisoners to learn all they can about Byjovia from them. However, it doesn't work on humans. It DOES work on Bodkins, however.
- Would Hurt a Child: The female archer Bodkin is ordered to shoot Max after Knothead thanks her for getting rid of Gastley and Fendra. It's thanks to the gemstone she received from Queen Nerelia intercepting the arrow that Max survives it.
