A somewhat derivative plot deftly gains altitude, atmosphere, and velocity via vibrant storytelling.
A boy on a future deep-space voyage awakens from suspended animation prematurely and becomes the only human able to take action when marauders invade the ship.
This middle-grade novel by prolific SF/thriller author Wells introduces readers to Su-Shu “Zero” Huang. He is the 12-year-old son of a prominent engineer who worked on the Pathfinder, a skyscraper-sized ship carrying earthlings intending to build a new civilization on a habitable planet 20 light-years away. Zero and his family are among the 20,000 voyagers in stasis for the 105-year journey at one-fifth light-speed to a distant star. But after only 28 days, Zero’s pod malfunctions and revives him—just as the Pathfinder is two days away from a perilous maneuver heading over the edge of the solar system. An adult pilot who should have been on duty is missing, so Zero finds himself completely alone except for Sancho, an artificial intelligence program that assists in maintaining the ship. Sancho tries to help Zero cope with the unexpected development but is limited by its incorporeal nature and machine logic. Then another vessel docks with the Pathfinder, and Zero deduces that he and his helpless fellow humans have become potential victims of space pirates. The audience may recognize the much imitated template of the movie Die Hard (or, if readers want to be literary about it, Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, which inspired the Bruce Willis film), though a Home Alone parallel is equally apt. Antics in this series opener stay in the PG realm, and the plucky youngster uses improvised weapons and fancy moves against his enemies, who oscillate between the scary and the silly (a recurring panic by the bad guys—who really ought to know better—that their nemesis is really an alien definitely leans to the childish). A smattering of Asian names carries a multicultural flavor. Fans may find an echo here of the matriarch-dominated sky pirates from the classic Studio Ghibli cartoon Castle in the Sky. If things stay a little markedly in orbit around juvenile-level dialogue and situations (but no more than Robert Heinlein and Robert Silverberg did in their younger-skewing material), the action is still constant and fairly riveting. Sancho, smartly, is never allowed to become either a convenient, all-purpose solution to the hero’s dilemmas or an R2-D2 stand-in.
A somewhat derivative plot deftly gains altitude, atmosphere, and velocity via vibrant storytelling.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-70947-472-9
Page Count: 188
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child...
A San Diego preteen learns that she’s an elf, with a place in magic school if she moves to the elves’ hidden realm.
Having felt like an outsider since a knock on the head at age 5 left her able to read minds, Sophie is thrilled when hunky teen stranger Fitz convinces her that she’s not human at all and transports her to the land of Lumenaria, where the ageless elves live. Taken in by a loving couple who run a sanctuary for extinct and mythical animals, Sophie quickly gathers friends and rivals at Foxfire, a distinctly Hogwarts-style school. She also uncovers both clues to her mysterious origins and hints that a rash of strangely hard-to-quench wildfires back on Earth are signs of some dark scheme at work. Though Messenger introduces several characters with inner conflicts and ambiguous agendas, Sophie herself is more simply drawn as a smart, radiant newcomer who unwillingly becomes the center of attention while developing what turn out to be uncommonly powerful magical abilities—reminiscent of the younger Harry Potter, though lacking that streak of mischievousness that rescues Harry from seeming a little too perfect. The author puts her through a kidnapping and several close brushes with death before leaving her poised, amid hints of a higher destiny and still-anonymous enemies, for sequels.
Wholesome shading to bland, but well-stocked with exotic creatures and locales, plus an agreeable cast headed by a child who, while overly fond of screaming, rises to every challenge. (Fantasy. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4424-4593-2
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
Imaginative, fast-paced, and fun.
Character Indira Story lives in the fictional town of Origin and aspires to a plot of her own.
She works hard to make her dream come true: to travel to the city of Fable and attend Protagonist Preparatory, a school where famous characters such as Alice (from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Romeo Montague train aspirants to become successful characters in actual stories. Ultimately, succeeding at Protagonist Preparatory would result in Indira’s being chosen by an Author in the Real World for their novel. Indira is determined to become a protagonist so that she can find her brother, David, a laborer in the town of Quiver, where he mines story nuggets. However, Indira fails her audition and begins to train as a side character. To make matters worse, her best efforts at school are sabotaged, and Fable itself is threatened. The question arises: Can a side character become a hero? Reintgen’s middle-grade debut is at once a fantastic adventure and a tribute to famous and popular literature. The plot feels rushed at times, but witty references—to literary characters and elements of the act of reading itself, like dog ears (envisioned as one-eared dogs who steal watches from anthropomorphic bookmarks)—make this novel enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny. There is nothing intrinsically Indian about brown-skinned Indira (as her name suggests but as her equally brown-skinned brother’s does not), but her-far-from positive experiences remind readers of the importance of working hard at their own stories.
Imaginative, fast-paced, and fun. (Fantasy. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-64668-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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