Bad Order, by Barb Bentler Ullman

My first try at writing my thoughts about Bad Order, by Barb Bentler Ullman (Stirling Children's Books, June 2019), went through some rip in the reality of Blogger, and so I'm quickly trying to redo it before the deathless prose of my first try is lost.

(which is appropriate, given what the book is about.  But sigh).

In any event, this is the story of a little boy, Albie, who doesn't speak.  He does, though, communicate telepathically with his loving big sister, Mary, sending her "memes," as she thinks of his messages.  One snowy day Mary, Brit and Albie are out for a walk, when Albie sends a frightening meme--"Bad order." He can't convey anything more specific, but it's clear that he's perceived a wrongness.  Then the kids see a mysterious red mist, that pulls at them.  To their horror, anyone pulled in by the mist becomes distorted, angry, and violent.  Clearly the mist is part of the "bad order" Albie was sensing.

When news of the violence engendered by the mist spreads, the Feds arrive to try to stop it, but the agents are no better at fighting it than anyone else.  Fortunaly three holographic alien constructs, trying (and failing) to pass as human, also arrive, and they help the kids get out of the hands of the Feds via a flying Volkswagon bus.  They also explain that the bad order is much worse than the mist; there's a rip in the interdimensional fabric of the universe.  Albie, who is linked to the creation of that rip, can fix it again...maybe.

It was impossible for me to not think of a Wrinkle In Time.  There's the special little brother and his protective big sister, the three aliens trying to be human, the group of friends trying to save the universe, and there's even Mary and Albie's missing scientist father, whose final experiment went wrong.   But though this similarity was a distraction, it didn't keep me from appreciating Bad Order on its own merits (and this was helped by Mary and Meg being nothing alike).

Partly this was because the group of kids, including Brit's big brother Lars (a helpful, goodhearted teen, who takes the kids seriously, which is pretty rare in middle grade fantasy), are really likeable.  Partly it was because the three alien constructs are really truly funny.  Partly because the threat was explained in almost believable science, and so suspension of disbelief was pretty easy.  But mostly because the red mist was terrifying, transforming ordinary people into monstrous versions of themselves, and the horror the kids felt was really well done.

So if you are in the mood for a horror tinged book that comes to a warm ending after some sci fi high jinx, this might be just the thing for you!

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher.

disclaimer 2:  my first try was better. Sigh again.

The Last Beginning, by Lauren James, for Timeslip Tuesday

The Last Beginning, by Lauren James (YA, Sky Pony Press, 2018) is a joyful, chaotic romp of a time travel adventure that I devoured in a single sitting.

Clove, a Scottish teenager in 2051, gets hit with two emotional wrenches in one week.  Her best friend Meg, who she has a crush on, has just fallen in love with a boy, Clove's cousin.  On a more earthshaking note, Clove's parents tell her that she is adopted, and that her birth parents, Matt and Kate, are famous for saving the world from a bioterrorist threat developed by England, and then disappearing.  Clove sets the family's AI device, nicknamed Spart, to work trying to track them down (she is a whiz at computer programing).

And in the meantime, her mother has almost finished getting her time machine up and running.

Spart the AI delivers the strange information that  Matt and Kate keep showing up in history, starting in 1745.  So Clove decides that she will use the time machine to go back to find them, to try to figure out what happened to them and why they keep showing up a various crisis points of history.  The time machine works, and Clove becomes friends with Ella, a girl a little older.  She also meets then-Matt and then-Kate, and unfortunately changes the past.  When she returns to her own time, everything is horribly altered, and she starts disapparating...but a bit more time travel shenanigans patches things up.

I don't want to go into any more details about what happens next, but it involves lots more time travel, Ella and Clove falling in love (Ella keeps popping up....and has an interesting story of her own), and Matt and Kate saving the world....

I was very doubtful about how easy a time of it Clove had in 1745, but it turns out there's an explanation for this that made me smile.  And though there are many bifurcations and manipulations of time, I managed not to get overwhelmed with confusion.  Clove and Ella's romance is very sweet, as is the love between all the different Matt and Kates, and the love in Clove's nuclear family.  The story includes on-line exchanges between the characters, some from the future, including Clove's chats with Spart, and some steamy exchanges with Ella, and these lighten the weight of the world saving and time travel confusion very nicely, and made me chuckle.

This is the sequel to The Next Together, but it stands alone just fine, and quite possibly works better if you have never read that one (which is the story of Matt and Kate).  Not knowing the details of their lives makes the reader feel closer to Clove as she figures things out.  Although of course reading about Matt and Kate second might mean their story is less gripping...so really one should probably read both books first!

But in any event, I liked this one lots, and am glad to have an excellent lesbian sci fi time travel with smart girls saving the world to recommend! (we need more!)

The Edge of Forever, by Melissa E. Hurst

The Edge of Forever, by Melissa E. Hurst (Sky Pony, 2015), is a YA time-travel mystery, with a nascent romance, lots of secrets, nefarious goings on, and murder.  

In the future it's been discovered that some people possess a gene that allows them to time travel, and these people have been taken under the control of the government and trained as historical observers.  In 2146, 17-year-old Bridger is one of these being trained.  On a routine  school-time travel training trip, things go wrong-- he gets distracted by seeing his dead father in the crowd, and partly because of that, his partner is killed.  Now Bridger's determined to find out what his dad was doing at that time and place, and he finds that his father was trying to break the most fundamental rule of time travel.  He was trying to prevent the murder of a 16 year old American girl, Alora.

Back in 2013, Alora has started having blackouts, each time waking up in a different place.  That's not the only thing on her mind--her Aunt Grace is struggling to keep their property, and she has a mystery of her own--what happened to her parents?  A darker mystery is about to shake her community, when one of her classmates is murdered.  And who is the mysterious boy who's shown up unannounced?

It is, of course, Bridger, there illegally to save her from the fire that will claim her life, and maybe save his father in the process.  But he's three months too soon.  And so the two teens have plenty of time to tackle all the mysteries, before being hit at the end with the biggest and most dangerous surprise of all....

This is the sort of book that reminds me why "government/corporate controlled time travel in the future" is generally my least favorite time travel sub-genre.  It's often too confusing (in this case I was confused by aspects of the future world, and all the various jumpings around through time, but this could just be me) and often it's not as magically and emotionally compelling as happenstance time travel.  The fact that half the book is from Alora's realistic quotidian point of view (high school, family uncertainty, asshole boy, classmate murdered....), and that for most of Bridger's point of view he's also reacting to our present day world, with very little culture shock, did not make it more interesting for me.   

One the other hand, the mysteries were engaging, and the last third was gripping (all the answers come Bang at you at the end).   So if you think high school drama, murder, and sci-fi sound like fun, you might well enjoy it.


This stands alone just fine, but there is a sequel--On Through the Never, and though I didn't love this one, I might give it a try.....

Alice Payne Arrives, by Kate Heartfield, for Timeslip Tuesday

I just gave Alice Payne Arrives, by Kate Heartfield (Tor, November 2018), a four star rating over at Goodreads, despite the fact that this is the sort of time travel that makes my head hurt.

I can say with conviction that if you are looking for a book about a lesbian couple in the 18th century, one of whom is biracial (the Alice of the title) and the other is a mechanical genius inventor (Jane) who get caught up in a time travel war being waged centuries in the future, this is the book you want!  Alice is peacefully maintaining her father's home by moonlighting as a highwayman, carefully preying only on men who have assaulted/molested women and girls.  Jane, who came to live in Alice's home as a companion a while back, is a whiz at mechanics, and has made a handy automaton that serves as Alice's highway robbery assistant.  They make a good team, and love each other lots.

But then things get screwy when the coach Alice holds ups disappears into a strange glimmer-ness,.  Alice, feeling both curious and responsible, heads through the glimmer to see what's happened to it, and finds herself in a future where there's a war going on between two rival groups of time travelers. Each side has the same goal--saving humanity from the coming apocalypse.  Each has the same technique--tinker with past events until you get the desired outcome.  But they have very different ideas about what tinkering to do.  History is getting more and more messed up, disasters are metastasizing (Heartfield's metaphor), and little progress (if any) is being made toward achieving the ultimate goal.

Prudence, who works for one of these groups in the future, is fed up with it all.  She has a plan of her own to put a stop to it.  All she needs is a nice 18th century naïf to push a button....

Instead, she gets Alice when Alice arrives along with the highjacked coach and its passengers and crew.   Alice might be just the person Prudence needs, but with Alice comes Jane, a Jane who's pretty fed up at Alice not treating her as an equal partner and decision maker, who's zinging through glowy spaces into the future without talking it through etc., a Jane who just happens to be smart enough and mechanically gifted enough to maybe throw a spanner in the works...or maybe not.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened at the end, and would need to sit down with pencil and paper and make a list of what we know and can surmise etc.  I am glad this looks like it's going to be a series, which will spare me the work of doing that...on the other hand, I'm sad that I don't have to anyone to talk to about the book, because I'd love to go through it with another person to bounce ideas off of--what does Jane know and how and when does she know it, etc.  Fortunately history has so many alternate timelines that very few people in the book know what happened originally, so the sense of being confused isn't unique to me, the reader....

And once I accepted this, I just relaxed and enjoyed the ride!

Seventh Grade vs the Galaxy, by Joshua S. Levy, for Timeslip Tuesday

I must start with a bit of a disclaimer--Seventh Grade vs the Galaxy, by Joshua S. Levy, for Timeslip Tuesday isn't a "time travel book."  But time travel does happen in it, getting our young heroes out of a sticky situation....and it having happened once, I'm thinking it might pop again in future adventures (I hope there will be future adventures!).

School 118 is a ship in orbit around Ganymede, which, though it might sound interesting to readers, isn't of particular interest to the elementary/middle school kids who are being schooled there.  Just boring routines of school, made more unpleasant for  seventh-grader Jack by his father's disgrace and the social fallout that's come Jack's way because of it.   But then everything dull and boring is shattered when the ship comes under attack, and  strange "Quarantine" countdown begins. Jack and two classmates, Ari and Becca, sneak off to the engine room to investigate what's happened, and Jack finds that the ship recognizes him, and asks if he wants to "engage."  And with the countdown at its last second, he says the word, and the ship blasts off into space....and Jack finds his father had transformed the school into humanity's first space ship capable of light speed...

Which ends in the school and its kids and faculty being taken captive by an alien race that keeps a tight hold of their known space.  Not a friendly, welcoming hold for young emergent beings like humanity.

Now it's up to Jack, Becca, and Ari, with a bit of help from Ari's hamster, and whoever keeps sending Jack cryptic warnings, to free School 118 from the aliens' clutches and make it back to the solar system. Bluff and chutzpah and luck get them and the ship free of their alien jailers, though their classmates are left behind.  But how can they find the fuel their school ship needs to get home again? (this is where the time travel, a simple amusement in an alien arcade, comes in handy....)

And then when they get home, having saved their classmates and teachers, it's clear that the story of seventh graders vs a hostile galaxy is far from over....

So this has a lot of kid friendly energy to it, from the zero gravity dodgeball of the beginning to the kids putting their computer game skills to work to get out from the aliens control at the end of it.  The dynamic between the three main protagonists isn't tremendously deep, but it's realistic and amusing enough to do its part to keep the story engaging. There's a bit of cool gadgetry for the young tech fan to want badly, lots of humor sprinkled throughout, even when things get tense, and the settling of humanity in Jupiter's orbit is good intro sci fi.

In short, this is definitely a solid pick for the sci-fi adventure loving 8-11 year old (both cover and title are very good indications of the sort of book it is, and kids who like those will like the book!)  There are other sci fi stories for this age with more emotional heft to them (Ambassador, by William Alexander, Last Day on Mars, by Kevin Emerson), but this one really stands out for its friendly-ness for kids looking for entertainment, with  kids like themselves saving the day (although this particular day still has lots of saving to come....)

disclaimer: review copy received from the author

Last of Her Name, by Jessica Khoury

Last of Her Name, by Jessica Khoury, is a an excellent sci fi adventure for any fans of the fall of the Romanovs and the possibility that Anastasia survived, and a good one simply for those who enjoy sci-fi adventure featuring strong female leads!

Stasia has spent her sixteen years roaming her father's vineyard with her dear friends Pol and Clio on a peaceful planet, one of a group known as the Belt of Jewels.  These planets were settled by humanity eons ago, and each went its own way until they were united through the communicative power of prisms and the family of scientists who discovered that power and became Emperors.   But sixteen years ago, the ruling family was overthrown, and now the planets are  held in the tight fist of  the Direktor Eminent and his Union henchmen.

When a union ship unexpectedly lands in Stasia's home town, on a mission to find the one daughter of the last emperor who might have survived, her life is upended.  The Direktor himself has come to stamp out a suspected Loyalist  insurgency and find the missing girl...and Stasia is that girl.  Pol, himself a Loyalist unbeknownst to her helps her escape on a ship the rebels have hidden, to take her to the Loyalist headquarters.  But Clio is left behind, along with her parents, and Clio in particular pulls at Stasia's heart.  That loyalty is more important than the struggle between the two warring factions, and she'll do whatever it take to save her friend.

That's the set up for a wild adventure, taking Stasia and Pol to many strange world, pitting them against many enemies, with new friends, and traitors, along the way.  Stasia must claim her difficult destiny if she is to save not just Clio, but the whole planetary confederacy, which depends on the mysterious prisms for which she is the only remaining point of access.

Stasia is not just a vessel for the larger plot, in large part because she doesn't want to be.  She doesn't want power, just her handy tool belt and things to fix, and her best friends, and this was perfectly believable.  The fervency of her need to save Clio struck me as excessive, but this passed as the story deepened in complexity (so if that bothers you to, don't let it stop you!).

The political conflict was a clear reimagining of the fall of the tsars and the rise of the Soviet Union, and I found it interesting and convincing.  Neither side of the struggle was clearly the "good guys."  The interplanetary travel and prism technology was a layer of sci-fi goodness that gave the story satisfying crunch (or perhaps the chocolate coating that gave a layer of tastiness.  Sorry.  I'm now thinking of kit kats, which has nothing to do with the book....).  

In any event, though I was doubtful for the first quarter or so because of not being intrinsically interested in more stories of lost princesses coming to power, which is where I thought this was going, it turned out to be not where this was going at all, and I liked it more and more as I read. It kind of reminded me of 1980s sci fi/fantasy--the sort of books I grew up on, and possibly explains why after reading this I reread Anne McCafrey's Crystal Singer (though the two books and their heroines are very different....). So yeah, I think teenaged me would have enjoyed this one lots.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Cogheart, by Peter Bunzl

If you are in the mood for a late Victorian steampunk adventure (of the escape the bad guys sort) suitable for younger middle grade kids (8-9 year olds) but a pleasant read for grown-ups too, and like mechanical foxes, pick up Cogheart, by Peter Bunzl (Jolly Fox, Feb 12, 2019).  This has been on my Goodreads tbr list since it was first published over in the UK in 2016, and it was great to get the chance to read it now that it's being published here in the US!  (yes I know I could have gotten it through the Book Depository, but that way lies shopping madness....).

Lily's life at a regimented finishing school is unpleasant.  But when her father's housekeeper comes to fetch her away, things to not improve.  For one thing, tragedy has struck- her father is presumed to have died when his airship crashed.  For another, the housekeeper has taken over the house, tearing it apart in a mysterious search, all the money is (apparently) gone, and orphaned Lily (her mother died several years previously) has no one to care for her, except, perhaps, her godfather (though he is too old and sickly to take her in).

Meanwhile, the mechanical fox belonging to Lily's father survived the crash, and desperately tries to reach her to deliver a message.  But the fox is pursued by two murderous thugs (one of them truly creepy, with glass discs for eyes), and badly wounded by a gunshot, it barely makes it to a safe hiding place in the shed of the village clockmaker.  The clockmaker's son, Robert, finds the fox, who tells him to go get Lily.

Though Lily and Robert make it back to Robert's home safely, the two thugs are now pursuing them as well as the fox, and Robert's father is killed.  Fortunately they encounter a daring young woman who's an aviator as well as a journalist, and they escape in her zeppelin.   But the hunt goes on, and the stakes get ever higher, and the dangers greater...and their path leads to the heart of the mystery--Lily's father's greatest invention, the Cogheart…

Once the chase is on, about a quarter of the way into the book, it's an exciting and vivid adventure.  It had a steampunk Joan Aiken feel to it for me (the evil housekeeper reminded me vividly of The Wolves of Whillouhby Chase), and the mad dash through the skies and wide range of mechanicals was the sort of odd adventure she might have written if steampunk had occurred to her.  (I hope this is useful; if it is not useful because you have not read Joan Aiken, you should read Joan Aiken).

The two kids, Lucy and Robert, both were given the chance to have their characters made clear to the reader before life and death made character development mostly a matter of being brave (which was a greater leap for Robert than for Lily; his self-doubt and personal fears were greater, and it was satisfying seeing him over come them).   I liked them both, Lily for wanting to read forbidden adventures at school, and for appreciating that the mechanical constructs had genuine feelings and personalities, and Robert for being stalwart and endearing.

So all in all, a satisfying story!  Not exactly to my personal taste, because desperate flights from murderous thugs are not my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it nonetheless because of all the interesting details.

(I seem to have used more parentheses here than in any other review I've ever written.  This is probably meaningful in some way, but I'm not sure what way that would be.  In any event, it should not be held against the book.)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Outwalkers, by Fiona Shaw

Outwalkers, by Fiona Shaw (David Fickling Books, Middle Grade, Feb 26, 2019), is set in a future England that closed its boarders after the Faith Bombings.  To keep people "safe", they are chipped, and warned not to venture into the countryside for fear of the virus that lurks there.  When Jake's parents die, he's sent to one of the government homes, which are basically prisons for unclaimed kids.  Jake escapes, and returns to his old home, where he's reunited with his beloved dog, Jet.  But then he's faced with an impossible journey--escape from England to his grandparents in Scotland, on the other side of a heavily militarized boarder.

Fortunately for Jake, he's found by a band of Outwalkers, kids in circumstances similar to his own, who are also trying to head to the free north.  The Outwalker kids have been on their own long enough to learn how to survive...but even once they remove their chips, the journey north is fraught with danger.  When a security guard accidently dies while trying to catch them in London, the danger gets even more intense.  Escaping into an abandoned Underground station, they are safe for the moment, but it is a trap.  And when a new girl joins their band, wanted by one of the highest government officials in the country, a safe way north seems even harder to believe in.

But they make it in the end, thanks to remarkable luck and a series of helpful grownups appearing like dei ex machina to risk their own lives to get the kids to safety.

It's certainly an exciting story, with lots of peril and uncertainty and close shaves.  If  you like survival stories, you'll find lots to enjoy in that regard;  hunger is a constant in these kids' lives (aside--I appreciate that one of the things the kids steal is tampons; nice bit of realism!). If you are looking for strong friendships, you'll find them here too, to a certain extent.  The reader is expected to believe in the strong bonds that form amongst the kids as they look out for each other (and I did), but the stress of their journey, and the traumas that each one carries with them, means that there's little time for bonds stemming from sharing and talking.   Fiona Shaw's choice to indicate dialogue with beginning dashes, -like this, she said, is jarring, and didn't work well for me, and what will young readers think of it?

So my reaction was somewhat mixed, but if you like kids on the run from the evil government, and it is a very evil government, terrifyingly plausible, you might well enjoy it lots!

In case you were wondering/worrying-- Jet, Jake's dog, has a role in the story, and (spoiler warning) he doesn't die.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee

The most recent book from Rick Riordan Presents, Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee (January 2019), takes Korean mythology on a wild ride into space, and it's lots of fun! Actually I take that back, it isn't really "fun" because mostly things are going wrong for the young heroine, Min, a shapeshifting fox girl from a backwater planet.


The book starts by things going very wrong indeed, with a government agent coming to Min's family farm to ask about her older brother, a cadet in the space corps. who apparently deserted to go find the legendary Dragon Pearl, a device of terraforming magic, Min ends up knocking him out with a sauce pan.


Recognizing that staying peacefully at home isn't a great option for her, Min decides to set out on her own to find her brother. Finding the Dragon Pearl would be great too--her planet's terraforming never was completed. Her journey eventually takes her to the very war ship her brother served on. A newly dead cadet lets her assume his form (something fox magic lets her do), and she, a thirteen-year old girl, has to use all her magic and cunning to pass as a 16 year old boy. And now she has the ghost's agenda (solving the mystery behind his death) to take care of as well as her own quest for her brother and the Dragon Pearl.

The warship, captained by a shapeshifting tiger, is full of secrets and lies, and there is danger both without and within its hull, both to Min and to the thousand planets...

So there are lots and lots of times when everything is very tense indeed, making it hard for me to relax. Happily, there are less fraught elements as well, such as Min's experiences as a cadet, trying desperately to figure out what she's supposed to be doing, and making friends with the friends of the dead boy (which is a little disturbing, but which is all sorted out in the end). The friends are a female dragon and a non-binary goblin with a snack-conjuring fork among other magics, and I loved the parts of the story in which they and Min are together.

The plot is intricate without being confusing, the world-building is superb, and the characters are well-developed, and Min, in particular, with her mix of cunning and naivete, is fascinating. Min's magic, and the magic of other supernatural types of persons encountered along the way, add wonder to the sci fi elements. I now wonder why there aren't more hybrid sci fi/fantasy space stories, because when well done, as it is here, it's great reading!

Stuck in the Stone Age, by Geoff Rodkey, for Timeslip Tuesday

Stuck in the Stone Age, by Geoff Rodkey (Rodale Kids March 2018), is the sort of romp of a book, generously fonted, with lots of humor (sometimes slapstick) and some poop (not the stuff of jokes, but actually adding value to the story, about which more later) that many elementary/younger middle grade kids love!  In case that isn't clear, the cover art is a good indication of the type of book it is.

It's the story of two adults, the brilliant but social awkward young scientist, Marissa Morice, and the socially brilliant Tom Edison, who stinks at science, but loves it so much he becomes the janitor at the big think tank where Marissa works.  When one of her colleagues invents a working time machine, Marissa and Tom accidently use it, and find themselves stuck in the past, c. 10000 B.C.  Cave men are throwing rocks at them, and a saber tooth tiger is eating them, and the time machine has taken itself home again....

The two have very different takes on being trapped back in time.  Tom feels rescue will arrive, and invents the game of rock ball, which proves hugely popular.  Marissa is less sanguine, and applies herself to inventing agriculture (less popular), ,and using poop as fertilizer (and trying to introduce the concept of hygienic living in the process (also not popular).   Poop also comes in handy when the need for explosive devices arises…. She also single-handedly kills a sabre tooth tiger.

And the two do eventually get home again!  Marissa (shown on the cover as a black woman--so yay for an example of fictional brilliant black woman in a kid's book!)  finds success in science due to her brilliance, and she has learned to appreciate Tom's people skills, and he finds a role in which he can succeed as well.

So it's a fun, and funny, story, that should appeal to the target audience lots (despite the fact that the protagonists are grownups in age, they read a lot like kids, so that's not a problem), and is fine reading for a grownup in need of something light and undemanding!  It is not a book that will teach you anything about Neolithic culture; that part is primarily stereotype, but it's an entertaining example of struggling to survive in a very different culture....if you aren't looking for much nuanced detail about that culture.

What makes this of interest to educators is that it is the first in a series designed to inspirer young writers. Indeed, the premise of the book came from a real kid.  Pages 194 to 267 are a "Story Creation Zone," with lots of tips and helpful guidance for young writers, and in the actually story there are interjections (unobtrusive) that take readers to the section of the Story Creation Zone that deals with a particular topic (like setting) when relevant.  I think the presentation of amusing story and friendly story writing guidance is the sort of thing teachers and their students might well have success with!  

The 48, by Donna Hosie

The 48, by Donna Hosie (Holiday House, October 2018) is a fun time-travel story that will especially appeal to fans of Tudor England!  I was pleased to see it nominated for the YA Speculative Fiction Cybils, for which I was a panelist, because I very much enjoyed her Devil's Intern series, and though I didn't like this quite as much, it was still a good read.

Some time in the future, twin brothers Charlie and Alex are young members of the 48, a secretive, almost paramilitary group that uses time travel to shape events in such a way that the influence of religion on the course of history is pruned back.  The twins are thrilled to get their first assignment--travelling back to the court of Henry VIII to make sure he doesn't marry Jane Seymour (I'm not exactly sure what difference this would have made, and Charlie and Alex don't seem to be sure either, not that they give it much thought.  But I was willing to play along).

The 48 (the organization, not the book) doesn't pull its punches--if the marriage can't be avoided by a deft social and political manipulation, they are expected to eliminate Jane directly.  But they aren't killers.  Nor are they well prepared for the cut-throat  machinations of Henry's court.  They scramble to find their feet, though their feet, once found, keep getting swept out from under them.  The court is not the only place where backstabbing and treachery is rampant.  Alice, a fellow trainee and ex of one of the twins has travelled back in time too, an event that makes no sense at first, but which is tied to a rebellion to the organization.

Charlie and Alex are pretty much failures at their mission. And since they finding themselves liking Jane lots, the thought of killing her doesn't appeal.  Will they survive threats against their lives from the Tudor court, and the anger of their superiors if they fail at their task? Are their careers as time-travelling manipulators over before they can complete even one mission?

The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Charlie, Alex, and young Lady Margaret, one of Queen Anne's ladies-in-waiting.  Margaret's is the first voice, and I was a little disappointed to see her fading to somewhat peripheral, one-note character, and I would have liked Alice's point of view too! She struck me as being much smarter than the boys! That being said, the boys were engaging narrators, and I found it interesting to watch them grow up and start thinking about what they were being asked to do (and there is a sweet gay romance for one of them, which was fun).

The details of the past are vivid, and lavishly applied, and in good time travel style, there's a lot of observation of all the things that are different, but there's not so much of this that it slows down the story.  The plot relies on social tensions (like treachery and attempted murder) more than on major events (until close to the end), so if you like sweeping Happenings, you might find it a bit slow (I don't have this problem).

If you like the Tudors, you'll probably enjoy this (unless you are a Tudor expert, which I am not, in which case you might disagree with the minutiae of the history...although Hosie seems to have done her research pretty thoroughly!)

disclaimer: review copy received for Cybils consideration.

Sanity and Tallulah, by Molly Brooks

This past week has been busy, with family, home-renovations, and determined reading of YA Speculative Fiction for the Cybils Awards.  But now the family are gone the home renovation can take a back seat (no houseguests expected till February) and I should have the time to blog more!  So here's one I just read, that's easy to write about because it is easy to see without much effort that it's good.

Sanity and Tallulah, by Molly Brooks (Disney-Hyperion, October 2018), is a fun science fiction graphic novel, particularly great for science-minded kids who love cats, but also good for story-minded kids/grown-ups who enjoy fun graphic novels.

Sanity and Tallulah are best friends, and so when Tallulah illicitly uses the lab of their space station home to create a three-headed kitten (Princess Sparkle Destroyer of Worlds), Sanity is there to help cuddle , and to be sad when the kitty is taken from them and imprisoned in the lab.  But PSDofW is not lacking in smarts either, and breaks free, disappearing into the bowels of the space station.  And at just about the same time, electrical malfunctions start plaguing the space station, and there are signs of chewed wires....is it the kitten(s) that are too blame, or some other menace?  Sanity and Tallulah set out to investigate (breaking more rules in the process), and discover that the whole space station is in danger of destruction.  Fortunately, Sanity's clandestine work in the lab has given her the skills she needs to fix the problem...but what will become of Princess Sparkle Destroyer of Worlds?

This is a great book for many reasons.  The friendship of the two girls is a joy to see; they are supportive of each other just beautifully!  The parents are involved and caring, though not always able to keep tabs on their kids, especially Sanity's parents, but they try.  And of course it's a joy to see smart girls doing science; it's not clear to me where Tallulah's own gifts lie, but she's there for her friend and perhaps future stories will give her more of a chance to shine.  The characters are diverse--Tallulah's mom, the senior scientist on the space station, is Latina and Sanity is black.

And on top of that, the story is interesting and engaging, and tense without being overwhelmingly so.  The illustrations help keep things light and the story on the fun side, even when things are going wrong, though the entertaining text doesn't need much help.

My only quibble is that I really wanted to have more context for this space station; there's a bigger story hinted at, and hopefully we'll see more of that in future books!

But in any event, if you have a graphic novel loving kid of 8-on up, offer this book!

Honor Among Thieves, by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre

I have family coming to stay for Thanksgiving, and one of the most pressing things I need to do is to read all the books I have out from the library because my house looks like someone has vomited books all over it.  In this diligent spirit, I have spent the last four hours reading Honor Among Thieves, by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre (Katherine Tegan Books, YA, February 2018), in a single sitting, all 465 pages of it, so clearly I found it engrossing as all get out!

A ways in the future, humanity was on the verge of wiping itself out when the Leviathans appeared from out among the stars, saving us from ourselves.  All they wanted in exchange was to chose 100 young men and women each year  to voyage with them.  Most came home after one year.  Others journeyed on, and did not return.

Black teenager Zara Cole lives as a petty criminal in one of the few unrehabed parts of urban Earth, and so she never expected to be one of the chosen ones.  But she can't refuse the golden ticket.  So she finds herself, with another young woman, Beatriz, on board Nadim, sentient, living creature who flies through space.  It's a bit of an adjustment to be living inside Nadim, but Zara feels strangely at  home, and as her bond with Nadim deepens, she can't imagine being anywhere else.

But though the media have spun the arrival of the Leviathans into a glorious deliverance, Zara, suspicious by nature and nurture, has always wondered if there's a con at work.  And indeed, all is not well out in space...

Beatriz, Zara, and Nadim play of each other very well as they get to know each other, and I enjoyed watching them bond.  There's smart-alecky bantering to lighten the mood, some moments where I was deeply moved, and intellectual pleasure from guessing where the plot was going (which wasn't hard to do).   Nadim is a bit like a manic pixie dream girl in ungendered sentient ship form, and it's a bit of an insta love between Nadim and Zara, but I was able to take this in stride.  Zara and Beatriz both have considerable abilities, both intellectual and physical, that are almost a bit much, but since they were chosen out of all of humanity, I felt it was allowable for them to be exceptional.

All in all it was a package of things I enjoy, and it took no effort at all to sit and read it more or less straight through.

The Echo Room, by Parker Peevyhouse, for Timeslip Tuesday

So I'm busily reading YA Speculative Fiction for the first round of the Cybils Awards, which is a fun change from my regular middle grade reading, and which, as an added bonus this week, led me too a really cool new YA book for Timeslip Tuesday--The Echo Room, by Parker Peevyhouse (Tor Teen, September 2018).  It is not a spoiler to say that timeslipping happens, because that becomes pretty clear early in the book, but I'm not going into much detail, because the particulars are best discovered alongside the poor, confused characters!

There are two of these confused characters, but it is Rett who is the main pov.  He wakes, inside a room he doesn't recognize, his head strangely scarred and throbbing with pain, wearing a bloodstained jumpsuit.  The blood is not his.  This room leads into others, and in one he meets a girl, Bryn, with a scar matching his own.  They find they are trapped in these rooms, and must puzzle out what has happened to them, and what they should do next.  But can they trust each other?  And what horrors (yes there are horrors) await beyond their strange shared space?

And then there's a reset, and Rett wakes in a strange room....and the day begins again (this is the time-slip part...the details make it clear immediately that he's back at the beginning, and helpfully, the sections are earmarked with the time of day, to keep you, the reader, grounded....)

So basically this is a sci fi/horror-ish Escape Room story...if you liked The Maze Runner, you'll especially appreciate the character with no memory of how he got there trying to figure out what to do and how to survive, and if you enjoy closely following a character searching for answers, with the reader deeply invested in the search, you'll love it!  It's also very much a survival story, where scrounging for supplies is important, and I like that too.

There's a lot more to the story (not just plot-wise, but character-wise, as Bryn and Rett unravel the clues about each other and themselves), but it's best discovered as the clock keeps resetting and the pages keep turning.....

It can be a bit frustrating at times, and some questions remain, but it sure is gripping!

The Black God's Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark

The Black God's Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark (Tor, August 2018), is the story of a 14-year-old girl who calls herself Creeper (her real name is Jacqueline, in case you are doubtful about heroines named Creeper), because she creeps through the night of an alternate New Orleans, surviving as best she can....

It is a few years after the Civil War ground to a stalemate; New Orleans is a free city, but there are still slave states in the south.  One night Creeper hears information that changes her life, information that she can trade, she hopes, for passage on a Haitian airship, the Midnight Robber.  Captain Ann-Marie is appalled to hear the news--a terrible weapon, the Black God's Drum, built a few years back in Haiti, is about to fall into the hands of men who will use it to bring the end they wanted to the Civil War, possibly destroying the whole country (literally) in the process.  Reluctantly, the Captain takes Creeper on the mission to recover the weapon, the scientist who was coerced into handing it over, and his kidnapped daughter....They are outnumbered, and the weapon is being primed for use, but the two women have remarkable allies--each is giving house space to a  powerful West African orisha (goddess), ready to unleash their rage....

I was impressed as all get out.  It is a cracking good story, which was nice, but not a remarkable feat.  What was remarkable is that in only 122 pages the reader gets a detailed alternate history with rich world building, plenty of backstory for the main character, plenty of mythological magic and almost magical spookiness, a soupcon of steampunk, magical tough as nails black nuns (I loved the nuns!), and quite a bit of smart alecky humor tossed in.  The beginning made me a bit doubtful, as it seemed gritty--dark urban decay-ish, with someone named Creeper as the main character--but it turns out not to be gritty in that way at all, and I really liked it and I sure do hope she gets another story!

This isn't marketed as a Young Adult book as far as I can tell, which means it isn't eligible for the Cybils Awards, which is too bad because it absolutely is YA by any measure other than how it was published.

Explorer Academy: The Nebula Secret, by Trudi Trueit

If you have kids around who love (or loved) the 39 Clues series (by which I mean kids who like to read about kids following clues on wild adventures around the world), who also love technology of the very cuttingest edge, and elite schools where high tech survival games are the core of the curriculum, here is good news--they will love the Explorer Academy series from National Geographic Kids Books!

The first book, The Nebula Secret, is out today.  It introduces the young hero, Cruz Coronado, a 12 year-old Mexian-American surfer dude from Hawaii whose mom used to work as a scientist at the Academy before she died in an accident there (a mysterious sort of accident....).  Cruz is accepted into the Academy (a place sort of like Hogwarts for science), and is thrilled to start training as an explorer with his diverse classmates from around the globe.  At first his days there are full of ordinary school-for-the-brilliant sort of happenings, and full of science-y goodness, but then Cruz starts picking up clues that his mother's death wasn't just a sad accident.

And so after this set up first volume, Cruz is launched into a dangerous hunt for the secret she hid from everyone but him...putting his own life in danger!

It's fun, fast, geeky, has lots of full color illustrations that help move things along briskly, and it should be a hit with its target audience.  Here's the book's website if you want to learn more!

nb--I stuck a science fiction label on it, because a lot of the tech is not exactly mainstream yet, but I have reservations about this because, as explained in a note at the end, it is within the realm of near-future possibility (4-D printing, for instance.....)

All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries 1), by Martha Wells

What with folks (Maureen and Rachel, in this case) whose book taste I share all enthusiastic about the Murderbot novellas of Martha Wells, it was only a mater of time before I started reading them.  And now I have read the first one, All Systems Red (Tor 2017), and want the second and third ones now, in that irrational sort of way someone with hundreds of books to reads wants the ones that aren't on hand.

From what I'd read about Murderbot, trying to avoid spoiling the series, I'd formed an impression of what the books were about--a killer robot, slightly snarky, who's gone rouge and enjoys escapist video watching more than murdering, who makes friends with a human woman in a sci fi adventure of some sort.  This was not entirely accurate.

Murderbot is the name the main character has given itself, although it is actually a Security unit and not designed or educated to kill.  It is neither a robot or a murderer, being instead a mix of the mechanical and living human-ness, and not having ever killed anyone in a murderous sort of way.  And rather than snark being its primary characteristic, shyness is.  The good human friend is true, though, and one of the best parts of the book is watching Murderbot let its guard down to trust and care about that person, and the other secondary character, who are really nice people.

I somehow missed acquiring any details about the actual story, which was, happily for me, one I liked.  Murderbot is working as a security guard for a group of scientists assessing an alien planet, a simple enough assignment until everything goes horribly wrong and it is all Murderbot can do to keep its team alive.  I don't like lots of description of excitements, and though there were plenty of tense things happening here, I didn't feel burdened by too much action, which I appreciated lots.  Murderbot's character held center stage throughout.

So if you like character-driven sci fi, do try these!  I'm going to be pressing this one on my 15 year old son this weekend--the short length of the book makes it a friendly introduction to exo-planet sci fi for the young reader who doesn't read as much as I think he should!  (the last exo-planet story he read was The Green Book, by Jill Patton Walsh, which is very good and which he loved, but clearly it's time for something new!).  I think the tension between Murderbot's status as mechanical property and the person-ness that is just as much a fact of its being will appeal.

Invictus, by Ryan Graudin, for Timeslip Tuesday

It seems to me there are in general two major types of time travel book--time travel as personal magical adventure, and time travel as a corporate endeavor, with multiple operatives, questionable motives, and tangled timelines (with many exceptions, but still).  If you read my blog regularly you can guess I prefer the former.  So Invictus, by Ryan Graudin (Little Brown YA Sept. 2017), isn't my personal cup of tea, but there were many things to like and you might well love it.

The main character, Farway Gaius McCarthy (aka Far) was born by a time traveler from the 2300s who fell in love with a Roman Gladiator and gave birth on the trip between times on her way home.  So Far's never had a real birthday, which caused minor glitchiness in his records.  He did well at time travel school, and was all set to follow in his mother's footsteps as a government time traveler...but then he fails his final exams (mysteriously) and ends up captaining a crew of three friends to hunt for lost treasures in the past to sell on the black market. Imogen, Far’s fun and quirky cousin is the historian; Gram (who is black), is the math genius, tetris addicted engineer, Priya (who's Indian) is Far's beloved and the medic.

On a heist mission back to the Titanic, Far meets Eliot, a strange girl who is also time travelling, whose  habits of clearly knowing too much and saying too little, and the fact that she's infiltrated herself via blackmail into the crew, make it almost impossible to trust her.  And she does indeed have secrets that makes trusting her more than a little risky.  She is on a mission of her own...because the fact that Far was born outside of time has caused bigger headaches than just his birthday glitch, threatening the existence of multiverses, and this has become her problem to solve.

Now it is a problem for Far and his friends as well.  Their past is endangered, their happy present as time-travelling young rouges totally gone to heck, and their future is a big question mark.  

What I really liked

--the crew is great; they had a fun bond and were an interesting group of people.  There is a bonus red panda on board as well.

--Eliot's mission, and the way it unfolds, provides a strong backbone of plot.


What I didn't much like

--my head hurt a bit trying to make sense of the swirl of multiverses and different pasts.  I strongly prefer single timelines.  This was almost too much for me.

 --I had trouble warming to Far, who's rather cocky, and this made it hard to get into the book, since it is quite Far-centric at first.  The crew, and Eliot, get more story time as the book progresses, and the story gets more interesting, so that wasn't a deal breaker.

--The actual time travel wasn't magical at all.  It was very down to earth, with no anthropological nuance to speak of.  So not particularly interesting to me.

Here's the Kirkus review, if you want a second opinion.

Brightly Burning, by Alexa Donne

Brightly Burning, by Alexa Donne (HMH Books for Young Readers, YA, May 2018), is an easy book to pitch in one sentence--Jane Eyre in Space.  It's the story of Stella, an orphan, mistreated by rich relatives, who escapes impoverished circumstances (on board a decrepit farming spaceship orbiting an icebound Earth) by finding work as a governess to a little girl in an isolated manor (in this case, isolated private spaceship), falls in love with the mercurial, wealthy guardian of the little girl, and then finds there's a madwoman on board as well...and things get problematic.

What makes this interesting is that there is enough Jane Eyre-ness to make it fun to play along with the author, but the framing device of humanity orbiting the earth for generations, waiting for the ice-age to end, is an interesting sci fi story in its own right. The class struggle and inequality of this society, and the moral dilemmas it poses to the characters, adds  interest, and Stella is a stronger character than Jane was, and a much better advocate for herself.  I actually cannot stand Jane Eyre, the book or the girl, and did not find Mr. Rochester appealing in the least, but his placeholder here, Hugo, though also an insensitive ass, is a few steps up from the original, and at 19 much more suitable for teenaged Stella.

So basically, I enjoyed reading it (good descriptions of spaceship life, and I loved the conceit of grand estate transformed to luxury spaceship), though I would have liked the ending (set on Earth) to go into more re-building terrestrial civilization specifics just because I like that kind of thing lots.  But maybe there will be a sequel in which they figure out flush toilets again.

Kirkus is several notches more enthusiastic than me--"A gripping examination of class, romance, and survival set in a dystopian future that feels chillingly relevant to our present times."


Postcripts: 

While at Amazon getting a link I was amused to see that Brightly Burning is

#13 in Books & Teens & Romance &; Clean & Wholesome

because "wholesome" is not a word I'd ever use to describe even an echo of Mr. Rochester, though Hugo is much, much more wholesome than the original!  The romance is confined to a bit of fairly detailed passionate kissing, not chastely clean at all, but there is no actual sex, which might be all that matters )

I was much less amused by this-- it took me a while to get the link to the option to buy the book new, because when you just search Amazon for it, the buy option goes to the used book sellers.  I had to put a bundle of this one plus two other books into my shopping cart to get the link to buy it new.  Though I'm angry at Amazon, I'm leaving the link in because it does seem to work and I feel I have foiled them, but if you are interested you might want to go elsewhere....)

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

A paean to the great girls of FirstSecond's graphic novels

Of course I said "yes please!" when asked if I was interested in being a stop on FirstSecond's celebration of their girl power graphic novels.  These are great books, about which more later in the post.

But in thinking about what I wanted to say about these books, I find myself wanting to talk a bit about graphic novels with strong girls as not just wonderfully empowering stories for girl readers, but as a wonderful opportunity for boys.

In all sincerity, one of the absolutely best things that came from starting a book blog was being on the receiving end of review copies from FirstSecond.  I hadn't really had any awareness that such books existed before blogging, and thanks to this realization, and the review copies that began arriving, my older son began to be a reader.  Before graphic novels I worried about him; he was a capable reader, but not a keen one, and I was afraid he would be deprived of the mind-expanding wonder of discovering imagined worlds in the pages of books.  Not only did graphic novels make him a reader (primarily of graphic novels still, but they are as real as any other books), but he ended up starting his own graphic novel blog (A Goblin Reviews Graphic Novels), and gained the self-confidence that comes of allowing oneself to have opinions, and the invaluable writing practice that comes in expressing them.

And he got to see a whole bunch of strong girls, having adventures, saving the world, saving themselves and their friends, naturalizing that this is what girls can be.  I don't think he will ever save a damsel in distress; I think he would expect the damsel to be able to save herself, though he'd help if needed/asked.  (I just went upstairs to ask him if in fact reading about strong girls had made him think of real girls as strong; he said "That is a stupid question.  I think of people as strong or weak people, not as strong or weak male or female people. Can I be left alone now please?" which is basically the same point....).

But regardless of the inner workings of my son's mind, if you have a boy who has been tricked into thinking that boys shouldn't read books about girls, give that boy a great graphic novel starring a strong girl and they may well love it.  And then they might read more and more books about girls, internalizing girls as persons, not as stereotypes, which is a good thing.

So happily FirstSecond is still going strong, and still sending us books (yay!).  Here's what's new in the way of girl power.  (links go to my more detailed reviews where applicable).

Monsters Beware is the third volume in the Chronicles of Claudette series by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado (the first two being Giants Beware and Dragons Beware.  Set in a vaguely medieval French world with magic and monsters, Claudette dreams of being a famous warrior and monster slayer.  Her adventures are full of humor, charm, and danger, but what I love about this series most is not just that Claudette is fierce in her sword-waving, but that the two kids who are the main supporting characters, her princess-best friend and her little brother, a would-be chef, get to be just as fierce without the sword part.  They also play an essential role in counterbalancing Claudette's action-oriented zeal.  While being a fun romp that's entertaining as all get out, this series is also a really pleasing exploration of different ways to have strength of character.

The City on the Other Side, by Mairghread Scott and Robin Robinson

Isabel is growing up in sheltered comfort, looking out her windows at San Francisco, a city still recovering from the great earthquake of 1906.  She's not allowed out to explore it, though she would love to.  Her mother is distant and unloving, and sends Isable off to spend the summer out in the country with her sculptor father, who she doesn't know.  There she stumbles through the barrier separating our world from that of the fairies.  In the other world, the two factions, Seelie and Unseelie, are at war.  Isabel is plunged right into the middle of the conflict, when she's entrusted by a dying Seelie warrior with a magical gem that could restore balance...if she can get it to the captured Seelie Princess.  Fortunately Isabel find friends--a mushroom fairy, Button, and a Filipino boy, orphaned by the earthquake, who's also crossed the barrier.  Exploring the city on the other side is magical, but dangerous and scary...but there's never any doubt that it will all work out.  Connections between the two world add weight to Isabel's mission--unbalance on one side of the barrier affects the other.

It's a fine story, and the main characters are charming, but what makes this one truly stunning is the artwork.  It is utterly magical and magnificent and full to bursting with curious denizens of the fairy world.  Gorgeous.

Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter, by Marcus Sedgewick and Thomas Taylor

Scarlett Hart isn't legally old enough to be monster hunter.  But with her parents, two legendary monster slayers in their own right, dead, she has to do something to bring in a bit of money.  So her loyal butler drives her to locations where monsters have been spotted, supports her in the slaying part (though being tough as nails and a dab hand at weapons and ropes, she doesn't need much help in this department), and delivers the monster corpses to collect payment. But her parents' arch-rival, Count Stankovic, is determined to cut her out of the business, and if she gets busted, she'll loose her ancestral home.  And then she finds out the Count has even more horrible schemes afoot, and the monsters keep getting bigger and fiercer....

Fortunately Scarlett is up to the challenge of both the Count and the monsters!  It's fun adventure, Scarlett's a heroine to cheer for, and I found the illustrations very easy on the eye--clear and crisp.  Give this one to young fans of Jonathan Stroud's Lockwood and Co. series.

The Ripple Kingdom, by Gigi D.G. (Cucumber Quest 2)

The Cucumber Quest series tells the saga of a young rabbit boy (Cucumber) whose plans to study magic got derailed by a quest to save the world.  Fortunately for the world, his little sister, Almond, goes with him; she actually has useful fighting skills, whereas Cucumber's magic hasn't yet fully come into its own, and she's much more keen on the whole quest business in general --finding the fabled Dream Sword and defeating the Nightmare Knight.  This installment finds the rabbit siblings and sundry companions battling a tentacled monster with both sword and magic, and learning more about the nature of their mysterious quest.  It is good fun for elementary school kids, and for older kids who aren't in a hurry to grow up!  And Almond and Cucumber subvert gender stereotypes of heroes very nicely indeed.

The League of Lasers (Star Scouts 2), by Mike Lawrence

Avani is happy just being a Star Scout, but when she is invited to join the League of Lasers, for the most elite scouts, she can't say no.  And the moment she accepts, she's whooshed to outer space, and sent on an initiation challenge.  Things go wrong, and she ends up stranded on a methane planet.  With her arch-enemy, the alien Pam.  Happily, Avani and Pam realize that they need to work together, and become pretty good partners...just in time to make first contact with the aliens who live on this planet.   In the meantime, Avani's dad has realized his daughter's missing, despite the efforts of her alien Star Scout friends to convince him otherwise.  And he's ready to travel through space himself to find her again....

It is a very enjoyable survival/friendship/alien encounter story!  It's so much fun to see the girls working together, in good scouting fashion; Avani is an especially good roll model of practicality and determination.   The story moves briskly, and there are plenty of touches of humor to both the story and the illustrations.  It's a bit tense at times, but never really scary...even the most alien of the aliens is rendered in a non-horrifying way.


That's the round-up of the new releases being featured in this particular blog tour, but I can't write about FirstSecond's girl power books for kids without mentioning the queen of them all--Zita the Space Girl!  She blasted into the world back in 2011, and if I were a betting blogger, I'd put my money on her to be a classic for the ages.

Thank you, FirstSecond, for both the review copies and for publishing awesome books!