After another unsuccessful investigation into Philosopher's Stone rumors, Edward and Alphonse Elric wait for a train. Strangely, when one finally arrives, it's hours late. They're also surprised to see Roy Mustang and Jean Havoc among the passengers, dressed in civilian clothes. They soon learn that there has been a lot of recent terrorist activity on the train tracks. The terrorists announce their bombing target 20-30 minutes in advance, enough time for civilians to get to safety but too little time for the military to do anything to stop them. It's terrorism without terror - civilians are more inconvenienced than anything, and they've directed their annoyance towards the ineffectual military.

Although he hasn't been able to find any proof yet, Roy suspects that the bombings are somehow connected to a string of kidnappings. The kidnappers abduct a child from a family with a connection to the military, demand and receive a ransom, and let the child go free, completely unharmed. As Ed and Al continue their own work, they accidentally stumble across something that may be key to both of Roy's investigations.

This is the second Fullmetal Alchemist novel I've read, and the first that I don't think was turned into a filler episode in the original anime, so the story was entirely new to me. It was decent - not something I'll necessarily want to reread, but it felt like something that could happen in the Fullmetal Alchemist universe, was a relatively quick and light read, and the characters mostly acted and spoke like themselves.

Ancy, the child Ed and Al encountered, was like literally every child they've ever met in the series, sweet and cute. There was a funny running joke involving Ed calling Roy "Dad" that, for a very brief moment, dipped into "Roy as Ed's father figure" territory. Havoc drove a car badly, multiple times. Ed went up against a couple dozen terrorists and managed to hold his own with alchemy and an entire building (although he forgot that some parts of buildings are load-bearing and really shouldn't be messed with). There were no alchemists in the terrorist group, but there was a guy named Gael who was ridiculously strong and fast.

It wasn't the most exciting story, overall, but it had some good stuff in it, especially in the second half. Roy and Ed had some great scenes together. The one thing that was a little off was the bit where a woman called Ed a "wee bonnie squire" to Al's "knight in shining armor" (78) and Ed didn't even twitch.

This is the last of the Fullmetal Alchemist novels that I have on hand, but I'd still like to read the rest.

Extras:

A few black and white illustrations throughout, an afterword by Makoto Inoue, and an afterword/illustrated interpretation of the "you have a son?" scene by Hiromu Arakawa. Also, one full-color illustration.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

The Fullmetal Alchemist light novels may not be great reads, but they're definitely not bad. Easy to get through, and the stories feel like something that could happen in the series. In fact, in some cases they were turned into filler episodes in the original anime. I don't think that was the case with this particular book, though.

This is the last book in the light novel series that I own. It looks like there might have been five total translated into English. I kind of want to read the rest, but I haven't decided yet whether it will be through interlibrary loan or purchases. I'll have to see what the library holdings numbers are like. On the plus side, if I do end up buying the rest, it looks like they're still in print and reasonably priced.

Because Highbrow is the Autobot Hostage.

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Autobot_Hostage

Going alphabetically, by the way, Highbrow is number 483 on my list of characters for this challenge.   This is really going to take years!

Anyway, The Abducted Alchemist was even more fun than the first novel tie-in.   While I wished there had been more illustrations - I love Hiromu Arakawa's illustrations, and there were less in this one - there also wasn't the issue with eye color, etc, so I was far happier with this book.   The two seemingly unconnected story lines of terrorist bombings and the abduction of children connected to the military (via their parents) were connected, partially through Edward and Alphonse, but mostly through Roy Mustang who was convinced the cases were connected.   It was a lot of bureaucracy, though, which bound his hands as he investigated the abductions, which weren't causing as much civil unrest as the bombings of the train lines, one of the major methods of transportation in this world.  

The way that Edward and Alphonse figure out who is responsible ties into Roy's investigations, and give him the answers he needs to solve both cases.   It relied more on action than anything else, but not at the expense of character development.   Overall, a highly satisfying tie-in for a FMA fan.