HIRO'S HARDSHIP

After an attack on an interplanetary economic summit, a boy fights for his life with street kids on a corrupt planet in Sasaki’s (Amazing Grace, 2018, etc.) YA sci-fi novel.

In the 24th century, space-going humanity has spread to planets far and wide. Hiro Philippe Al-Fadi of the planet Westrom is the son of a high-ranking ambassador to alien races. His father is also the co-chairman of the upcoming 2315 Economic Summit of the USS, a galactic gathering of rich, powerful, and potentially treacherous factions. Hiro, who’s more interested in the latest video games, grudgingly accompanies his parents to the summit venue—the planet Plaisir, an adult-oriented gambling, sex, and convention mecca. Hiro finds the place tacky and distasteful (“One could buy anything on Plaisir but at the cost of someone else’s innocence or dignity or even life. It was horrible”), but he quickly makes friends with the only other kid at the summit: diminutive Jude Luis Stefansson, the son of another ambassador. When explosions tear their hotel-casino apart and Jude’s longtime personal bodyguard turns against them, the two become fugitives on the run from powerful conspirators in Plaisir’s hierarchy. The boys hide with a gang of unwanted children who roam the shadows and avoid robot exterminators and deathtraps. Author Sasaki offers a violent adventure with a young protagonist who initially seems like an affluent gamer in over his head, but who surprisingly quickly evolves into a kid-of-action, not unlike an adolescent Han Solo. His Mission: Impossible-like schemes to turn the tables and get justice sometimes get sidetracked, though, by wordy bickering and flashbacks of other kids’ traumatic childhoods. Although the fearful conspiracy grows and grows, the sadistic villains at the center of it remain undeveloped stick figures in thickets of intrigue. Still, Sasaki tempers the derring-do with emotional moments of loss and sacrifice as Hiro and Jude learn the hard way about poverty and depravity in their society.  

An adventurous tale of resourceful but vulnerable kids that respects its young audience.