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 enlarge | Author: J.k. Rowling
Creator: Stephen Fry
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Category: Book
List Price: £65.00
Buy New: £45.27
You Save: £19.73 (30%)
New (20) Used (4) from £37.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  845 reviews
Sales Rank: 3884
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 17
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 4.9 x 3.3
ISBN: 0747582599
EAN: 9780747582595
ASIN: 0747582599
Publication Date: August 22, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 brill book January 13, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Harry's sixth year in school is filled with problems and adventures. There Snape is the Defence against Dark Arts teacher and the Potions teacher has something important that is needed by Harry. Slughorn is very impressed by Harry's potion making and rewards him with a lucky potion. He has parties for good students which to every single one Harry and Hermione are invited but not Ron. The guests can bring along a friend but Harry has more important things to do with Professor Dumbledore including seeing and visiting the past of Voldermort and trying to trace the Seven Horcruxes. Fleur (Beauxbatons champion) and Bill (Ron's brother) get engaged and they start planning the wedding. Near the end of the book, someone who is much unexpected and trusted kills Dumbledore. But who? Read the book to find out! Rating: 10
Horcruxes November 8, 2007
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth Harry Potter book in the series. I got a copy of this book just before I turned 17, shortly after the release (a little over two years ago now). This isn't as good as book 5 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, but it's my favourite after this. Out of all seven books, this book is my third favourite and book 5 is my second.
Once again it was great when I got it, not just because it was a new Harry Potter book, but because of the way the previous book ended. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (book 4) ended with the return of Lord Voldemort and book 5 continued with that story, in which very few people believed Harry. The book ended with the truth being announced to the wizarding world, as Voldemort had been seen by Cornelius Fudge (minister of magic) as well as a few employees at the ministry. Fudge was forced to accept the truth and deny it no longer.
In this book, we learn that now the truth's been annonced the ministry now sees Harry as a symbol of hope. The prophecy that Harry may be the one to destroy Lord Voldemort for good has leaked out somehow. Now the prophecy is flying around the wizarding world.
The book starts of with the Prime Minister (who I assume to be John Major as this is set in July or August in 1996). In the first chapter (and I was pleased with this part as I took a severe dis-liking to the character in book 5) we learn that Fudge has been demoted (ha ha) and a wizard named Rufus Scrimgeour has replaced him as minister of magic. We also learn that the dementors have joined Lord Voldemort. It's in that chapter when the Prime Minister is alerted of Voldemort's return.
In the meantime Narcissa Malfoy (Draco's Mother), along with Bellatrix Lestraneg visit Snape in a desperation to have Snape make an unbreakable vow (a promise he has to keep and according to Ron those who break it die) and watch over Draco and ensure that he completes the task Lord Voldemort has set him. Is Snape a Death Eater after all? Or is he working as a spy for Dumbledore?
That same evening (thanks to Harry's persuation), Dumbledore is able to bring an old teacher Horace Slughorn out of retirement and have him return to Hogwarts.
Harry spends the rest of the summer with the Weasleys and it's that summer when he realizes that Draco has joined the Death Eaters, although neither Ron nor Hermione take Harry seriously.
They return to Hogwarts for their 6th year in which Harry is able to do Potions in NEWT level after all (he needs a NEWT grade in potions if he wants to become an auror, a dark wizard catcher), due to Slughorn being the new potions teacher, although Harry is outraged that Snape has become the new defence against the dark arts teacher.
Harry orders a copy of Advanced Potion Making, required for his sixth year and in the meantime has to make do with one of Hogwarts's copies. His however has been graffitied; made up spells have been written in the book and potion methods have been scribbled out and altered.
Harry learns from the book that it once belonged to someone known as the half-blood prince. Who that is is a mystery to Harry, although the half-blood prince does seem to be very clever as his or her instructions produce Harry top results in potions and wins him a bottle of luck potion (felix fellicis) in his first ever lesson.
Hermione believes that the owner of the book is dangerous as is the book itself. Personally I felt that Hermione was just annoyed that Harry uses is to cheat his way through potions, although I do agree with her that Harry shouldn't test an unknown spell without looking up what it does.
In the meantime Dumbledore gives Harry secret lessons, in which they observe people's memories with the pensieve, which are all linked to Voldemort's past and according to Dumbledore this is all very important. These memories are very important as they give Harry knowledge about Lord Voldemort and will help him destroy the evil git for once and for all.
These events in the book are actually important in the story. Particually the one in which Tom Riddle (Voldemort) asks Slughorn what Horcruxes are. Dumbledore sends Harry in an urgent mission to retrieve the real memory of Slughorn as he's tampered with the one they observe. In this book we learn what a Horcrux is, which is basically an object containing a piece of somebody's soul. They have to commit a murder and perform a spell, in which a piece of their soul is torn and incased in an object. Creating a horcrux gives immortality to the wizard that makes one.
Throughout his year Harry's still convinced that Draco is a Death Eater and is determined to prove it and find out where Draco is always dissappearing to and what he's always up to.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an excellent book and it's great, not just for the storyline, but due to the fact it explains a few things, such as how Lord Voldemort got so powerful and how became to be mutated looking during the years. It's all in here. It also features some romance.
Harry falls in love with Ginny in his sixth year, which is ironic as it was Ginny who fancied Harry in books 2 and 3. Also Ron begins dating a girl in his year Lavender Brown. I won't tell you wether or not Harry does get Ginny. You'll just have to find out.
The book has a few mysteries. Amongst them are the following...
What's Malfoy up to?
Who is the Half-Blood Prince?
Is Snape on Dumbledore's side?
How did Dumbledore severly injure his right hand?
There's also a couple of other mysteries such as the cursed necklace and the poisoned mead. The horcruxes I've already explained. They're all revealled by the end of the book, which ironically ends with a new mystery; what does the initials R.A.B. stand for?
This book is very brilliant and very eventful throughout. It has a brillant yet tragic ending also. J.K Rowling is a brilliant author, with a great imagination. She's writes the books brilliantly in my opinion; she doesn't drag them out (if you catch my drift. I don't mean the actually length of her books but the way they're written) and she doesn't quicken her books either. Excellent book.
 A bridge from book 5 to book 7, that's all. October 30, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was so looking forward to this book and feel very deflated for having read it again. After the first read when it was released I was not the happiest of Potter fans because it took such a long time to get nowhere and lacked anything particularly appealing. So I left it a couple of years and went back to it as I read the whole 7 books again and yet it seems even worse now, reading it knowing what was coming up in Deathly Hallows. A lot of this is simply making the story last long enough to see Harry inton his final year! And yet again Dumbledore messes up by holding information back from Harry. I've read that ploy before in books 4 and 5! And the concept of the horcruxes really should have been introduced a few books ago and been an ongoing quest or thorn in Harry's side, rather than emerging near the end of this one. I hope the film makes the book seem better because going back to visit this particular year at Hogwarts wasn't time well spent. THBP is an exercise in drawing a story out to its required length, and that's it simple as that.
My favourite HP book. October 24, 2007
This ( in my opinion ) is JK Rowlings greatest book. Despite it being not as exciting as some of it's predecessors it was just as enjoyable ( if not more enjoyable ) and I was very excited to know what happened next. The end of the book had the biggest cliffhanger feeling of any HP book.
In this novel Harry and his friends ( and enemies ) return to Hogwarts, and everybody is aware of Voldemorts return to power, and it is really starting to have an effect on the magical world. Aswell as that, last year Harry realised it was his fate to defeat Voldemort, but it is not going to be easy, to defeat him Harry discovers that he must locate and destroy the 7 horcuxes ( parts of Voldemorts soul ) and Dumbledore thinks it will help Harry on his mission if he shows him some memories involving Voldemorts tragic past, I think that that part is fascinating and great to read about. Another great part is the ending, which is exciting, thrilling, and un-put-downable.
The book leaves you knowing much more about the magic world than you did at the beginning, but it leaves you feeling like you know less and wanting to understand everything. My favourite Harry Potter book, if you were put off by the its comparitively weak predecessor ( ootp ), don't be, it is 10 times better than that.
The Star Wars Episode I Equivalent of the Harry Potter novels October 15, 2007
78 out of 79 found this review helpful
While the proceeding five novels of the Harry Potter sequence had interesting stories in their own right, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE, much like Star Wars Episode I, felt much more like a trailer to upcoming events than an interesting story in its own right.
While EPISODE I was undeniably a train wreck, especially with that travesty of Jar Jar Binks, the movie introduced all the key characters of the new trilogy. EPISODE I's principal function was this introduction, and setting into motion the events that would lead the characters to their ultimate destiny. In this regard, EPISODE I and the sixth Harry Potter are remarkably similar.
Of course, the real difference is Rowling had five full novels before hand, whereas Lucas had only one movie to introduce his new set of characters. While the other books in the series always advanced the overall story's arc, Rowling always managed to have succinct, stand-alone novels that stood remarkably well on their own right. HALF BLOOD PRINCE is very much the exception to the rule in this regard. HALF BLOOD PRINCE is so exposition heavy, setting all the foundation work for the seventh book, that it relegates its own plotline as largely secondary. Let me elaborate.
In the proceeding five novels, each title drove the book's overall plot. In PHILOSOPHER'S STONE, the principal mystery was what was the stone and how to protect it. In the second book, the chamber had been reopened and there was a dangerous basilisk on the prowl. The third (and in my opinion the best), Azkaban's escaped prisoner was the fuel driving the events of that novel. Just as much as GOBLET was about the Triwizard Tournament and ORDER OF THE PHOENIX about the resistance to Voldemort, one would expect this trend to continue with HALF BLOOD PRINCE.
To this book's detriment, that is not the case. While there is certainly some mystery to who this prince is, and who ultimately figures in heavily with the book's climax, HBP is much more about the seventh book than anything else. In the American cover art, you have Dumbledore and Harry looking at the Pevensie, which turns out to be the real meat of the book anyway. HBP is far more about laying the seventh book's final outcome than having anything to do with some half-blood prince.
It is disheartening to say that you could actually excise the entire HBP subplot (a subplot is really all it is), and still have largely the same novel. The same could not be said of any of Rowling's previous work. Of course, the irony in all this is once Harry figures out who the HBP is, he does figure very heavily in the plot, but not because he is a half blood prince. Actually, Harry doesn't even really figure out who he is, but now we're getting into spoiler territory so I will say no more.
As far as the death goes (there are two deaths, but the first no one will care about), it is both devestating and shocking. Without revealing to much, it is both tremendously sad and incredibly strange that she would write out such an important and humanizing character. But following the Joseph Campbell mythological plot line that the hero must face his ultimate nemesis alone, without guidance, the death makes sense.
As for the people saying Rowling was stealing from LORD OF THE RINGS with some of the events in this book, I'd say "Yeah, and? What do you think the dementors are? They're just ring-wraiths tweaked a little bit." Without giving to much away, I think Rowling did quite an interesting job with Voldemort's method to immortality.
Ultimately, all HBP does is build up for the final confrontation with Voldemort in Book VII. No other book in this series is anywhere near as exposition heavy as this installment. While Rowling needs to set up the events for the last book, it would have been nice to have a more self-contained novel than this is, which is what the others are.
Overall, I give the book three stars, but that is only for this weakness in the plot of the book itself. I must confess I enjoyed this much more than PHOENIX. I remember buying that two years ago, anxious to return to Hogwarts to see familiar faces, old friends, and exciting times. Unfortunately, Harry was extremely moody and pretty much a flat out ass to everyone, and I felt like why did I want to come back to see such petty bickering? I was thrilled to see HBP did not continue this trend, even if it forget to have its own, more-or-less self contained plot.
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