When ten-year-old Alex Filby zaps the last alien in his Alien Slayer 2 game, his parents celebrate—not because he won, but because Alex promised to play outside for the rest of the summer if he finished the game. They’ve even made a play date for him with the genius inventor boy next door, Herbert Slewg. Herbert’s newest invention, Negative Energy Densifiers, are supposed to make matter permeable, but instead they send Alex and Herbert 100 years into the future, where humans and G’daliens (aliens with Australian accents, six tentacles and bad hair pieces) are the best of friends…mostly. GOR-DON was spurned by a human female and wants to take over the world. Alex, Herbert, friend Sammi and a surprising old man team up to ruin GOR-DON’s plans. Nelson’s first reads like a missing volume in the Time Warp Trio series without as much deadpan sarcasm. Rao’s line drawings are more like frequent illustrations than cartoons and at times do not agree with the text. While it’s not as funny as it thinks it is, it could function as a next step after Scieszka’s series. (Science fiction. 7-11)
