THE MONSTERS OF MORLEY MANOR

Readers who prefer their monsters lizard-headed or with vampire fangs, snake-haired, hunchbacked or overmuscled, froggish or doggish, need look no further than this over-the-top tale of two human siblings helping a notably motley semi- or non-human cast stave off an alien invasion of Earth. When five small monster figurines bought at a garage sale return to life and original size after being dipped in water, they, along with Anthony and his little sister Sarah, are swept into a whirl of adventure that takes them from a conference inside the mouth of a giant alien frog to a more-than-somewhat Miltonic encounter with a fallen angel in the Land of the Dead. It seems that boulder-hewed (and scenery-chewing) barbarians from Planet Flinduvia plan to strip Earth of its ghosts, using them to reanimate enough dead warriors to conquer the galaxy. Can Anthony and Company hold the baddies off long enough to get a warning through to the powerful Coalition of Civilized Worlds? Do you doubt? Coville offers readers not only a magnificent opening line—“If Sarah hadn’t put the monkey in the bathtub, we might never have had to help the monsters get big”—but an all-star cast, a creepy old mansion for an Earthly setting, magic, mad science, other worlds, and much, much, much more. (Fiction. 11-13)