Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Nine Pound Hammer: Book 1 of The Clockwork Dark
    Unavailable
    The Nine Pound Hammer: Book 1 of The Clockwork Dark
    Unavailable
    The Nine Pound Hammer: Book 1 of The Clockwork Dark
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Nine Pound Hammer: Book 1 of The Clockwork Dark

    Written by John Claude Bemis

    Narrated by John H. Mayer

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    What if John Henry had a son?

    Twelve-year-old Ray is haunted by the strangest memories of his father, whom Ray swears could speak to animals. Now an orphan, Ray jumps from a train going through the American South and falls in with a medicine show train and its stable of sideshow performers. The performers turn out to be heroes, defenders of the wild, including the son of John Henry. They are hiding the last of the mythical Swamp Sirens from an ancient evil known as the Gog. Why the Gog wants the Siren, they can't be sure, but they know it has something to do with rebuilding a monstrous machine that John Henry gave his life destroying years before, a machine that will allow the Gog to control the will of men and spread darkness throughout the world.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 25, 2009
    ISBN9780739380772
    Unavailable
    The Nine Pound Hammer: Book 1 of The Clockwork Dark

    Related to The Nine Pound Hammer

    Related audiobooks

    Children's For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Read! Read!

      Mar 14, 2021

      Check out this visual history of the inventions, discoveries and tech that shaped our world! This read brings together breakthroughs in science, IT, entertainment, medicine and everyday life, in one collection. From candle clocks to drones, and spect

      1 min read

    • Article

      Storytime

      Apr 20, 2022

      Professor in Animal Behaviour at the University of Sydney, Ward takes us on a fascinating journey revealing the hierarchy and habits of animals. Long-living elephant families are built around a single female matriarch. “The rest of her family choose

      3 min read

    • Article

      Animal Planet

      May 3, 2020

      Animal Planet
      3 min read

    • Article

      Born Free

      Aug 9, 2021

      Born Free
      6 min read

    • Article

      It’s Showtime!

      Oct 9, 2022

      It’s Showtime!
      2 min read

    • Article

      On The Rocks

      Oct 8, 2021

      On The Rocks
      10 min read

    • Article

      All The Wild Horses

      Nov 23, 2021

      All The Wild Horses
      2 min read

    • Article

      'Where The Nightmares Go' Maps The Territory Of Fear

      Jun 17, 2018

      C. Robert Cargill's new story collection covers the globe and genres of horror from classic to modern, with ghost stories, thrillers, gore and puzzles that would be right at home on premium cable.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Written

      Oct 1, 2019

      American author, pilot and producer, Frank De Felitta, published his best-selling horror novel Audrey Rose in 1975. The book, which sold 2.5 million copies and was adapted into a successful film, tells the story of a man who loses his daughter in a

      3 min read

    • Article

      'Tiger King' Has Nothing On The Insane 1981 Big-cat Adventure 'Roar,' Now Streaming Via Drafthouse Films

      Apr 16, 2020

      Through Wednesday, a big-cat drama at least 22 times more nerve-wracking than the Netflix documentary "Tiger King" is streaming online in care of Drafthouse Films and the Music Box Theatre. I can only speak for my own eyebrows, but mine hit the ceili

      3 min read

    • Article

      Out Of This World

      Nov 2, 2022

      Out Of This World
      3 min read

    • Article

      Out Of This World

      Nov 2, 2022

      Out Of This World
      3 min read

    • Article

      'Empire Of Wild' Tells A Small Story — But Not A Slight One

      Jul 29, 2020

      Cherie Dimaline's new novel seems small in scope — it's about a woman who loses her husband and is determined to bring him back, nothing more than that — but it's rich, tightly written and powerful.

      4 min read

    • Article

      Mad Magic

      Feb 9, 2020

      Onward takes place in a suburban world where magical creatures like elves, dragons, unicorns, trolls, centaurs, gnomes, sprites, goblins, mermaids and fairies live among grocery stores, lawn mowers and garbage trucks. Despite the magical population,

      1 min read

    • Article

      Out Of Africa

      Nov 3, 2021

      Out Of Africa
      8 min read

    • Article

      Out Of africa

      Nov 3, 2021

      Out Of africa
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Sporting Life In Africa

      Feb 22, 2023

      A Sporting Life In Africa
      2 min read

    • Article

      Why I Talk To Dogs

      Dec 12, 2018

      Why I Talk To Dogs
      2 min read

    • Article

      Read!

      Jun 12, 2022

      When the Moon is turned into a theme park, the children of the designers get to visit before the official opening. When they arrive, their parents are missing. Before long, you’ll wonder how three kids, an octopug, and their robot minder could be in

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Truth About Ravens

      Oct 1, 2019

      The Truth About Ravens
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Born Free legacy PART 2

      Jul 22, 2020

      JOY Adamson’s book, Born Free, was published in 1960 and was an instant hit. She had travelled alone to London wearing a huge lion skin coat made from the pelt of an animal that had been shot by George, with no sense at all of the irony in what she w

      10 min read

    • Article

      Trigger Warning

      Jun 9, 2019

      Trigger Warning
      5 min read

    • Article

      An AI Nukes Hollywood In 'The Creator.' The Movie's Director Has Thoughts About That

      Sep 29, 2023

      It's tricky enough in today's IP-obsessed Hollywood to market an ambitious original science-fiction film. Throw in a historic strike and it becomes a whole lot harder. For Gareth Edwards, who directed 2014's "Godzilla" and 2016's "Rogue One: A Star W

      9 min read

    • Article

      Unwelcome

      Dec 9, 2021

      Unwelcome
      1 min read

    Reviews for The Nine Pound Hammer

    4/5

    33 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      What if the legend of John Henry was more than just a story? And what is really up with the machine she died trying to beat?

      Twelve-year-old Ray is haunted by the strangest memories of his father, whom Ray swears could speak to animals. Now an orphan, Ray jumps from a train going through the American South and falls in with a medicine show train and its stable of sideshow performers. The performers turn out to be heroes, defenders of the wild, including the son of John Henry. They are hiding the last of the mythical Swamp Sirens from an ancient evil known as the Gog. Why the Gog wants the Siren, they can’t be sure, but they know it has something to do with rebuilding a monstrous machine that John Henry gave his life destroying years before, a machine that will allow the Gog to control the will of men and spread darkness throughout the world.

      By the Way, Mr. Gerval made me mad!
      from Amazon
    • 4/5
      Inventive, entertaining mix of American folklore and fantasy.
    • 5/5
      A wonderful book! So refreshing to see someone write some real American fantasy using the stories of people like John Henry and Johnny Appleseed, and medicine shows, and hoodoo magic. Well written, too. My only complaint would be that the author seemed to feel that, in the end, he had to return to some of the old fantasy cliches, like the evil force that feeds on children and can only be combatted by a team of children. That made the ending a little predictable.
    • 4/5
      It's been eight years since Ray Cobb's dad dissapeared on a "job of work". As an orphan, Ray has had much diffuculty surviving with his younger sister Sally and fears that she won't get a proper family with Ray hanging around and decides to leave her at an orphanage. Once he leaves her, Ray has no clue what to do, and gets lost in the woods. There, he meets a young giant and an escape artist. Little did he know that meeting these two would be the start of one the most adventurous and daring stories ever to have been written. Ray figures out his true identity and the true identity of his father. He has his first feeling of being part of a family. I would've have given this book 5 stars, hands down, if it hadn't been for one part at the end. Other than that, this story will always be one of my favorites. John Bemis puts together the old fables of John Henry and Johnny Appleseed in this first book of a series. I think that the author did a great job writing the book but could definitely use some improvements, but all in all this book was hard to put down and one of the best books I've ever read.
    • 4/5
      I very much liked the set-up here, American fantasy set in the late 19th century and very much drawn from actual American tropes, both mythological and real -- the rise of the railroads and steam engines and John Henry and Indians and medicine shows and bottle trees and mechanical engineering and robber barons and the Mississippi and orphan trains and more.It opens with Ray, one of the orphans on the orphan train, deciding to take his chances on his own, and he meets up with a traveling medicine show made up of an interesting cast of performers and workers, and other orphans. They are being pursued by an Evil Mastermind and his giant mechanical hunting dog, and the kids gradually come to realize that they are the children and potential heirs of the Ramblers, a roving band of preternatural folk heroes who were dedicated to fighting evil.So, love the Americana because that's awesome. Not convinced this needs to be an entire trilogy with a funky name, though. Putting my frustration with the proliferation of fantasy series with cryptic titles aside, and looking at this rationally, the book could have done with a fair amount of editing down and would have been a perfectly serviceable stand-alone fantasy story.Grade: BRecommended: This will probably hit with boys who like adventure and fantasy, although it isn't as compelling as some of the other stuff out there, and it isn't trying to be funny. It maybe reads a little long for a book that has a lot of action scenes, seemingly for the sake of having a lot of action scenes.
    • 5/5
      It was a great book and I love that I found and app to read and listen to the book
    • 5/5
      The Nine Pound Hammer is a sci-fi adventure set throughout the exanspive territories in 19th century America. As the characters develop throughout the story they learn that the American legends of Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and others are true. The young protagonists (early teens) soon discover that they happen to not only be the kin of the famous legends, but they also can harness the hoodoo power they inherited from their parents. Throughout the story the protagonists sail with pirates in the Gulf, ride on hundreds of miles of railroad tracks with performers and a mermaid, and embrace their love of nature and family. I think this is a fantastic book to introduce American history in a "Riordanish" way to children. I will definitely be recommending this to many of my library's advanced middle grade readers who are ready to be challenged by new vocab words - something Bemis does a GREAT job of doing throughout the story. One of the characters prides himself on speaking with a varied and eloquent vocabulary. This book also introduces concepts, terms, and historical figures that are relevant to our cultural and national history.
    • 3/5
      For my Book Club, we are reading by genre, rather than title, and this month we are reading Steampunk. I selected this book because of the title (it contains the word "clockwork" after all) and also due to the American history aspect.

      It was a fun read, filled with interesting characters, intriguing plot developments and a few twists (one of which I didn't seem coming until it almost hit me!). Overall, a good, fast paced adventure novel particularly for boys.
    • 4/5
      The Nine Pound Hammer is an eclectic mix of American Folk Lore and Steampunk which adds up to a charming story. I listened to the audio CD version of this book and it was excellent. John Mayer did a great job performing the characters voices which helped add to the down home feeling of the book. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.