Review: Boy X by Dan Smith

Kidnapped and drugged, Ash wakes up on a remote tropical island. His mum - a genetic scientist - has been imprisoned and infected with a deadly virus. Where is he, and what's he doing there? He sets out to cross the jungle to find out and rescue his mother. Soon he realises he's quicker and sharper than before. But there's something else ...why are the animals watching him, and how can he use the jungle to his advantage?

Dan Smith writes great thrillers. I loved his Big Game, with its frantic pace and reluctant hero Oskari saving the US President from the bad guys in the wilds of Finland, and when his new book, Boy X, arrived through my door a while back it jumped straight to the top of my ultra-wobbly TBR pile.

The main protagonist of Boy X is another young teen boy who suddenly finds himself way out of his depth in a fight for survival against highly trained villains who are armed to the teeth. However, poor Ash McCarthy does not have the local knowledge advantages that Oskari had in Big Game: at the beginning of the book he wakes in a strange laboratory with no knowledge of why or how he got there. Add a race against time due to the release of a super-deadly new virus and Ash experience the emergence of strange new abilities, and we have all the ingredients for a superb sci-fi thriller, with Dan Smith as the masterchef bringing them all together. If you have a hunger for fast-paced action stories then this is a meal that will both satisfy your appetite and leave you wanting more.

Dan Smith is also a master at keeping his readers gripped by drip-feeding essential information about the plot and the characters' back-stories. There are no big info dumps or sudden reveals that feel forced or make the reader feel cheated. Despite the sci-fi element and the crazy situation in which they find themselves, Ash and his equally out-of-her-depth new friend Isabel, are real enough for young readers to relate to and they complement each other perfectly.

Dan Smith brings his story to an explosive and satisfying conclusion, but the final chapter leaves the reader with a promise that Ash's story is far from over. This is fabulous as I am certainly hungry for more, and I know many other with feel the same way. My thanks go to the lovely people at Chicken House for sending me a copy of the book.

Review: Big Game by Dan Smith

13-year-old Oskari is sent into the cold wilderness on an ancient test of manhood. He must survive armed only with a bow and arrow. But instead, he stumbles upon an escape pod from a burning airliner: Air Force One. Terrorists have shot down the President of the United States. The boy hunter and the world's most powerful man are suddenly the hunted, in a race against a deadly enemy.

A handy indicator of how much I enjoy a book is if it has me reading well into the night, on a 'school night' when I am already feeling very tired. This doesn't necessarily apply to every book that I totally loved, but it does apply to Dan Smith's Big Game. It is as if Dan Smith has delved into my DVD collection, and then used his findings to write a book that was guaranteed to appeal to me and kids around the world who have a hunger for cracking action stories.

The story behind Dan Smith's writing of Big Game is a little different from most of the books I have read in recent years. From what I can make out, Chicken House supremo Barry Cunningham acquired the rights to publish a book based on the screenplay of a Finnish/British produced film, and then asked Smith is he would write a book based on that script. Unlike many books based on films, it was not to be a direct novelisation of the movie, but was instead to be a book that would stand as a great action novel in its own right, and this is one of the reason why it works so well. Don't get me wrong, movie novelisations are a great way to engage boys with reading, and I read loads of them when I was a young reader, but too often they come across as second rate to the film and are simply the film translated into words on paper. However, for Big Game to be second rate to the film, then it is going to have to be one damn great film indeed (ok, so it has Samuel L. Jackson in it does have something of a head start).

Big Game is like White House Down or Olympus Has Fallen (don't judge me too harshly for loving both of these films), but set in the wilds of Finland (although I believe that technically Air Force One is the White House when the US President is on board), and instead of Channing Tatum or Gerard Butler stepping in to kick terrorist butt and rescue the President, enter 13-year-old Oskari, possibly the most unlikely hero of all. Tradition has it that in Oskari's society a boy must prove himself in order to be considered a man at the age of 13. Oskari must therefore venture out into the wilds on the eve of his thirteenth birthday and return the following day with a trophy, i.e. the head of a creature he has hunted and killed himself. 

Unfortunately Oskari is small and not particularly strong - he cannot even pull back the string of the huge bow that tradition dictates he must use to make the kill. It is with a great fear of shaming his hunter father that he sets off into the Finnish forest alone, but with the hope that he will somehow be successful and return with a trophy of which he can be proud. However, his hopes and plans are dashed when terrorists bring down Air Force One and Oskari, barely surviving being killed by the cataclysmic crash, stumbles across an escape pod containing the US President. Oskari's quest to become a man suddenly becomes a race for survivial, with all the odds stacked against him.

Big Game could be added to the dictionary as the definition of 'edge of your seat thriller'. The short chapters and fast-paced and relentless action make it one of those books that is incredibly difficult to put down, as I discovered when I was still reading it at midnight, desperate to find out whether Oskari and the President would escape from their hunters. Yes, I imagine that the film is probably one of those action-by-numbers films that some sniff at but others (like me) can't get enough of, and those same detractors will probably turn those sniffy noses up at this book, but it is the perfect book for middle grade readers who love action and adventure stories, and Oskari is a brilliant character with whom many young readers will empathise.

Big Game was published in the UK on 1st January and my thanks go to the fab people at Chicken House for sending me a copy.