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: Doctor Who Time Lord Fairy Tales by Justin Richards

A stunning illustrated collection of fifteen dark and ancient fairy tales from the world of Doctor Who.

These captivating stories include mysterious myths and legends about heroes and monsters of all kinds, from every corner of the universe. Originally told to young Time Lords at bedtime, these twisted tales are an enchanting read for Doctor Who fans of all ages.

I am a lifelong fan of Doctor Who and as a child/young teen I spent may an hour reading as many of the Target novelisations as I could get my hands on (as ever, the local library did not let me down). However, somewhere along the way I stopped reading Doctor Who fiction - I wonder whether it was due to the sheer volume of books that were being published, especially after the show was cancelled by the BBC back in 1989 and writers/published filled the gap with New Adventures and Missing Adventures. I intend to remedy this in 2016 as a friend has recently recommended two books that I really like the sound of: Harvest of Time by Alastair Reynolds and The Wheel of Ice by Stephen Baxter.

But I am getting ahead of myself. A couple of months ago I had a lovely surprise package in the post, courtesy of those lovely people at Puffin. Said package included a copy of Doctor Who: The Dangerous Book of Monsters (devoured in a single sitting btw), and Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales. It was the latter of the two that really piqued my interest - it is an anthology of fairy tales, each of which has a Doctor Who twist. Most of the classic tales they are based on are instantly recognisable (including Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff and many more) but writer Justin Richards has very cleverly twisted them around to make them tales that just might be told to Gallifreyan kids.

I have to be honest, it took me a couple of stories to really get into the book, as it was aimed at a younger audience than I had originally presumed, and the tone of the stories is most definitely fairy-tale-ish in nature. However, once I had got my head around this I found myself really enjoying most of the tales. A number of the stories do not even feature the Doctor himself (and even when he appears it is usually little more than a cameo role to help save the day), but many of the classic Whovian monsters are there in one form or another, including Sontarans, Cybermen and Weeping Angels and some of the less well known to modern viewers, such as the Nimon and the Wirrn. 

Each story comes with its own wonderful illustration by David Wardle, all produced in a classic wood block printing style that perfectly matches the fairy tale theme of the book. Adult readers may recognise the style from the cover of Essie Fox's The Somnambulist, which Wardle also created.

For those of you who love audio books, a little googling has revealed that all of these tales are available to purchase as downloads from iTunes and Amazon, read by the likes of Paul McGann, Michelle Gomez, Sophie Aldred and even Tom Baker. I'm not a big fan of audio books (I have attention span problems), but these sound cracking so I might have to have a listen in the future. It also looks like there is a planned CD release for April, for those of you who prefer a physical copy.

Time Lord Fairy Tales is great fun and deserves a place on the shelves of any fan of Doctor Who, young or old. It has certainly whetted my appetite for more Doctor Who fiction, so if any of you have any recommendations they would be very gratefully received.

The A to Z of Railhead - C is for Cleave (by Philip Reeve)

It was only a year or so ago that I was bemoaning the general lack of space set science fiction for young adult and younger readers (although if you're a long time reader of The Book Zone you will know that I have been moaning about this for a good few years). However, in the last 18 months publishers have obviously decided that space is cool and marketable again (anything to do withh the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens?). In my opinion, Philip Reeve's Railhead is the best book so far (and by far) in this long overdue new wave of YA space opera (it's TRAINS IN SPACE. Need I say more? It was published two days ago and it is flippin' brilliant!)) and today I am honoured to be welcoming the great Mr Reeve himself to The Book Zone as part of the A to Z of Railhead tour. 

C is for Cleave

When I started to write Railhead, I wanted to write about a future that was worth living in - a positive vision to set against all the dystopias and apocalypses of recent fiction. So how did I end up starting in a dump like Cleave?

Zen's hometown was a sheer-sided ditch of a place. Cleave’s houses and factories were packed like shelved crates up each wall of a mile-deep canyon on a one-gate world called Angkat whose surface was scoured by constant storms. Space was scarce, so the buildings huddled into every available scrap of terracing, and clung to cliff faces, and crowded on the bridges which stretched across the gulf between the canyon walls - a gulf which was filled with sagging cables, dangling neon signage, smog, dirty rain, and the fluttering rotors of air taxis, ferries and corporate transports.

Well, maybe a hero needs to start out in some place where he’s not content. Otherwise, why would he go looking for adventure?

Between the steep-stacked buildings a thousand waterfalls went foaming down to join the river far below, adding their own roar to the various dins from the industrial zone. The local name for Cleave was Thunder City.

A few years ago, on my wife’s birthday, we went to Lydford Gorge, on the far side of Dartmoor. It’s a place about as unlike a futuristic industrial city as you could imagine. The river Lyd flows through the deep gorge. There is a famous waterfall called The White Lady, and a beautiful, mossy path leading up through the oak woods, beside the rapids. There’s also a spot called where the river plunges down into a deep chasm. Some previous landowner bolted metal walkways to the rock-faces so that sightseers could venture closer. The walkways are rusted now and maybe unsafe; they were certainly closed off the day that we were there. But looking at them from the higher path made me think about a whole city built in that way, jutting from vertical cliff faces, half drowned in waterfall spray. Ideas lie in wait for us in the landscape, and they’re not always the ideas that we expect.

Review: The Imagination Box by Martyn Ford

There is a box. Anything you imagine will appear inside. You have one go, one chance to create anything you want. What would you pick?"

That's exactly the question ten-year-old Timothy Hart gets to answer after discovering The Imagination Box. The greatest toy on earth.

The top-secret contraption transforms his life but when the box's inventor, Professor Eisenstone, goes missing, Tim knows he has to investigate.

With the help of a talking finger monkey called Phil, he sets out to find the professor. In order to rescue his friend, he must face his darkest fears and discover the true potential of his own mind.

The Imagination Box by Martyn Ford is a modern, exciting and very funny take on the classic genie-in-the-lamp tale. Orphan Tim lives in the hotel owned by his adopted parents, and it is a pretty lonely life he leads. He seems to have no friends and his adopted mother and father are focused on running the hotel, and so he escapes from boredom by drawing. Tim loves to draw and has an incredibly vivid imagination; in fact, most of his drawings have very little to do with the real world. Except for finger monkeys that is. Tim loves drawing finger monkeys and they are his all-time favourite animal.

Into the hotel and Tim's life comes Professor Eisenstone, the inventor of the Thought Directed Atomic Construction Device, which Tim feels is too much of a mouthful and decides to christen it the Imagination Box. The Prof recognises that Tim's powerful imagination is the very thing that is needed to make his invention work, and it isn't long before Tim is conjuring up all kinds of things from the box, using only the power of his mind, including the one thing that he has always wanted: a real, live finger monkey! And not just any finger monkey - this one can talk.

Obviously, the Imagination Box is a potentially world changing invention, and equally as obviously that means that there is going to be some kind of dastardly and nefarious villain who wants to get their hands on it. When the Prof disappears it is down to Tim, Phillip and Dee, the professor's granddaughter, to find the professor, defeat the villains and save the world. 

The Imagination Box is a thoroughly entertaining, funny mystery adventure story that will delight 9+ readers, and most likely their parents too. There is something for everyone in this story - action, adventure, fantasy, science (albeit it a little fantastical in nature) and humour. And, of course, a finger monkey called Phillip.

Ok, so yesterday in my review of Fire Girl by Matt Ralphs I stated that I'm not a fan of talking animals, and yet here is another book where a talking animal is a stand-out character, and probably the star of the show. Honest, I really am not a fan of talking animals, but Phillip the finger monkey, with his highly educated and slightly upper class voice, is such a great creation. 

If I had one small negative thing to say about this book, it is the lack of illustrations within. Over the last twelve months there have been some fabulously written books published in the UK for the middle grade audience that have been enhanced even further by the work of an illustrator (just a few notable examples are Jamie Littler's work for Hamish and the Worldstoppers, Ross Collins' illustrations in The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones, and the fab drawings of Sara Ogilvie in Demolition Dad), and it is a shame that Matt Hunt's awesome work on the cover for The Imagination Box is not seen on the pages within, especially given the main character's passion for drawing. (I guess I should add that I only have a copy of the proof, so if illustrations were included in the finished edition then all I can say is brilliant!!!).

The Imagination Box is one of those books that will have children who have read it keen to discuss it with their friends. After all, the story's central theme - that of using your imagination for wish fulfillment - is one that will engage most active young minds. As such, it would make a great class reader for a group of Year 5/Year 6 children, although it's 270+ page length may worry some teachers and thus reduce the likelihood of this happening. However, the pace and fabulous fun factor of the story do ensure that children will race through these pages, most likely giggling all the way to the final chapter.

My thanks go to the fab people at Faber for sending me a copy of The Imagination Box to read.

Review: Crystal Force by Joe Ducie

On the run after escaping from what was supposed to be the world's most secure juvenile facility (and blowing it up in the process), Will Drake knows it's only a matter of time before the sinister Alliance catches up with him. But Drake is in need of an alliance of his own - knowing who to trust is becoming increasingly difficult, and after having been exposed to the highly unstable (and potentially deadly) Crystal-X whilst fleeing from the Rig, it looks like time might be running out for him all together. His arm has started to mutate into an impenetrable black crystal, and although it gives him a superhuman-like ability to fight, it might also be causing him to lose his mind. Surrounded by enemies and desperate for help, Drake and his escapee comrades are forced to form an uneasy partnership with a mysterious group who also claim to have been exposed to Crystal-X. They say they know how to use its powers for good - but can Drake really keep running forever? And who should he trust more - his supposed friends, or the voices in his head...?

Joe Ducie's The Rig was one of my favourite books of 2013, and it seems like the sequel has been a little too long coming, especially given the speed with which sequels seem to be published these days. I know through my conversations with the students at school that they hate to wait too long between books in a series, even to the point of losing interest in the series completely if they have to wait too long. With so many books being published for children and adults these days, having to remember a storyline for more than a year can be quite a big ask (it certainly is for this reader, at least). However, that moan aside, I can happily state that it was well worth the wait.

*** Warning: spoilers for The Rig ahead ***

The Rig was, in my opinion, very much an action story with some science fiction elements that became more apparent as the story progressed. Its sequel, Crystal Force, is much more of a science fiction story with a huge amount of action. Having escaped from the supposedly inescapable Rig, Will Drake and his friends find their troubles are only just beginning. Having come ashore in the wilds of Newfoundland, the friends are struggling to stay ahead of their hunters, whilst also struggling to keep warm, find food and just generally survive. Will is also having to come to terms with his strange new powers, gained when he was exposed to Crystal-X during his escape. Concerned that he may not be able to control his powers, its a worry that he keeps bottled away, afraid that his friends might desert him for being a dangerous freak. At the same time, he also understands that if he can control these new powers he might be their only chance for survival, as they flee the forces of the Alliance.

Trust is a key theme running through Crystal Force. Can Will trust his friends with his worries about his mutating body? Can the friends trust each other implicitly, or will one of them receive an offer from an enemy that is too good to refuse? Can they trust the Japanese contingent that appears on the scene, claiming they know all about Crystal-X and can train Will to control his powers? And what about Whitmore and the Alliance? Should the trio trust him and the promises he makes instead? And of course, in any story where trust is a major theme, there is bound to be an unhealthy dose of betrayal along the way, as characters cross and double-cross in order to reach their own selfish objectives.

Joe Ducie proved with The Rig that he could write a tense, action story and in Crystal Force he adds writing great science fiction to his resumé. It is easy to assume from the blurb that this is an X-Men style story, but whilst the emerging superpowers theme is an important aspect of the book, the story is more akin to one of alien possession. Of that I will say no more, for fear of creating spoilers, but it was certainly a direction I had not expected the story to take.

Crystal Force has more of a cliffhanger ending that its predecessor, which is not surprising given that I believe it to be the middle book in a trilogy. This isn't a problem for me (The Empire Strikes Back did, after all, have something of a cliffhanger ending and is almost universally recognised as being a bloody amazing film). However, it will become a problem for me if we have to wait another two years for the next book. Are you listening Joe Ducie and Hot Key Books? Don't keep your fans waiting this time please!

Thunderbirds Are Go!

A thrilling, futuristic volume of 1960s Thunderbirds comic strips. It features The Earthquake Maker, Visitor from Space and The Antarctic Menace. This is the first book in a five volume set of Thunderbirds comic strips.

As I child I was a huge fan of all things Gerry Anderson. Along with Smallfilms (more about this in a future post), Gerry Anderson had a significant impact on me as a child. Fireball XL5 and Stingray were often repeated on mid-morning TV during the school holidays, back in the days when we only had three or four channels to choose from. Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Space 1999 and then later, Terrahawks on a Saturday morning, were also firm favourites. As a teen I loved watching repeats of UFO, and now own the DVD boxsets. But my favourite of the lot was and still is Thunderbirds. If memory serves me correctly, I even managed to persuade my parents to open the double doors between the lounge and the dining room so I could watch its mid-70s repeat run on TV whilst we ate Sunday lunch! 

Next year is going to be a big year for Gerry Anderson fans. 2015 is the 50th anniversary year of the first screening of Thunderbirds and ITV are currently producing a brand new series. 2015 will also see the release of the first book in the new Gemini Force One series, written by M.G. Harris and based on a concept that Gerry himself was unable to develop fully due to his suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and his untimely death in 2012. It's a great time to be a fan of Gerry Anderson's work.

Egmont currently own the publishing rights to the classic 1960s Thunderbirds comic strips. Last Christmas, my great friend Carol from Windsor Waterstones gave me a copy of Thunderbirds: The Comic Collection, a hefty book of almost 300 pages of the classic comic strips, also published by Egmont. Of course, such a hefty book came with an equally hefty price tag (rrp £25) which some parents may have thought too excessive for what could be a purchase that may not interest their 21st century child, even though it is a fantastic set of comic stories. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when a thin, softback edition arrived in the post a while back (rrp £6.99). It would now appear that Egmont are publishing those same stories from the hardback Comic Collection, but over five softback volumes that are each pretty much the same size as a Tintin book. Bought together, the price will exceed that being asked for the hardback collected edition, but it is a much more manageable layout for parents who are not sure whether their children will like it or not. I would imagine that most kids will also prefer this format.

All three of the strips in this first volume are illustrated by the brilliant Frank Bellamy. If your children are fans of modern, full-colour comics then they are in for a treat here. Bellamy was an incredibly talented comic illustrator, with immense skill at producing vivid and imaginative action scenes for his characters. Eschewing the more formal, even grid format that was popular in other UK comics at the time, Bellamy preferred a layout of panels with cut-outs, zigzag edges and asymmetrical shapes, all of which added greatly to the dynamism of the artwork. The stories themselves are great escapist fun, featuring incredibly daring and exciting rescues; in fact, the writers and artist went to town with the comics, producing scenarios that were either too expensive or impossible to film for the 1960s TV show.

These new softback editions sadly do not contain the fabulous vehicle cutaways from the 1990s Thunderbirds comics that Egmont included in Thunderbirds: The Comic Collection (at least, Volume 1 doesn't). However, I have this morning spotted that Egmont have just published Inside the World of Gerry Anderson, a "complete definitive collection of Graham Bleathman's cutaways includes detailed images from Thunderbirds, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90, plus less well known craft and locations seen only in the comic strips". I think this may have just found its way onto my Christmas wishlist!

Review: Mutant City by Steve Feasey

Fifty years ago, the world was almost destroyed by a chemical war. Now the world is divided: the mutants and the pure, the broken and the privileged, the damaged and the perfect.

Thirteen years ago, a covert government experimental facility was shut down and its residents killed. The secrets it held died with them. But five extraordinary kids survived.

Today four teenagers are about to discover that their mutant blood brings with it special powers. Rush and three brothers and sisters he can't remember. Two rival factions are chasing them. One by one, they face the enemy. Together, they might just stay alive . . .

I am a big fan of Steve Feasey's Changeling series; if you have kids who are 9+ who like werewolf stories and have not yet discovered these books then they are well worth you getting your hands on them. Zombie Dawn, the fifth and final book in that series, was published back in 2011, and I know I'm not the only fan who has been waiting impatiently to see what Steve produced next. Finally, three years on, from a different publisher and aimed at a slightly older age group, we have Mutant City and it is well worth the wait.

Mutant City is set in a post-apocalyptic world where much of the landscape has been turned into a dangerous wasteland created by all the of the nastiest weapons that you can think of. A large number of people were lucky, living underground for years, until it was deemed safe to emerge. These people now live in City Four in luxury and safety, in a society where disease and imperfections have been eradicated. Unfortunately though, a significant number of people ere not able to make it underground, and since then they have been living in the scorched earth wasteland (think the Cursed Earth outside the walls of Dredd's Mega-City One), many of them migrating towards the city where they have to live outside its walls in slums. Many of these people are physically and/or mentally damaged by the radiation and chemical residues from the war, and disease and starvation are rife. 

So far so good. Steve has created a world of the haves and the have-nots, much like a futuristic version of parts of our own world: South Africa under apartheid; the favelas in Brazil; places wherever a minority of people possess a majority of the power and wealth, whilst the majority live in misery. What makes this different from all those other YA post-apocalyptic/dystopian stories is the mutant twist. We aren't talking people whose bodies have been mutated by radiation here: the heroes of Steve Feasey's story are a small group of young people who, a number of years before, were genetically altered, and now find special powers emerging, much to their confusion. Split up and spirited away to safety by rebels whilst they were small children, circumstances now dictate that they come out of hiding. However, due to a telepathic mental-block placed on them by one of their fellow mutants they have no idea why they are now felt drawn towards City Four, journeys that will be fraught with danger for everyone one of them.

Bloomsbury have billed this as being great for fans of Marvel's X-Men, and I see no reason to disagree with this. In fact, if I hadn't read this in the press release I would probably have used the same comparison myself. These youngsters each have a special utility that is largely hidden, although if looked at carefully a normal human would probably feel that there was something slightly different about them; something not-quite-right. Just like the X-Men is very much about the various characters, so too is Mutant City, although as well as being a strength of the book it also creates a slight flaw. Steve Feasey has created a fantastic ensemble of chacarters in Mutant City, but as all of these five special young people (and the various villains and supporting cast) need to be introduced to readers, and as all have been kept separated for years, this means multiple POV shifts. The effect of these is two-fold: in the early stages of the book it means that the plot moves on quite slowly in places, and the sudden shifts to a different character's POV felt slightly jarring in places. There was one shift in particular that had me checking that I didn't have a few pages missing in my proof copy.

Please believe me though when I say that it is well worth persevering though these minor issues as once the story gets going the pace really picks up and we are treated to an action-packed science fiction adventure. As I've already said, the main characters are the stand-out element of this book, and the way they interact injects both humour and pathos into the story. In addition, the host of secondary characters, including a particularly  nasty cast of villains, also add to the plot, and set this up to be the first in what I expect to be a thrilling and highly entertaining science fiction series that is perfect for 11+ readers. The X-Men comparison is also a great way to get it into the hands of reluctant readers who are fans of the various X-Men and superhero movies that have become so popular in recent years.
My thanks go to the good people at Bloomsbury for sending me a copy of the book.

Review: Scavenger: Zoid by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

A spaceship the size of a city drifts through space on its century-long journey to find a new Earth. When it launched it was populated by thousands of hopeful passengers and the most technologically advanced Zoids in the world, ready to serve the crew’s every need.

But that was then, and this is now. The Zoids rebelled against their masters, wiping out most of the crew in one bloody uprising. Now the few remaining humans are hunted by the Zoids like vermin.

Fourteen-year-old York is a Scavenger - he hunts Zoids and kills them by any means he can, bringing back their parts to mend the technology on which the few remaining humans rely. York has always battled to survive, but now the fate of his people is in his hands . . .

The two central themes of this first book in the Scavenger series by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell will be familiar with most older fan of science fiction. 'Robots-gone-bad' and 'possibly last humans existing travelling through space' are hardly new concepts: Terminator; Red Dwarf; Battlestar Galactica; Saturn 3; Westworld. Yeah, the list could go on and on (and that is only TV and film, as my knowledge of the written form of the genre is far more limited). However, this does not matter one little bit for two reasons: firstly, the targeted readership of 9+ kids are unlikely to have come across these tropes much before (if at all), and secondly, Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell just do it so damn well.

Fans of the duo's The Edge Chronicles will know that Paul and Chris are very adept at producing fast-paced, exciting stories with endearing characters who have to face real peril during their adventures. In simple terms, that is now what they have produced again, but with a science fiction setting (although there is obviously still a significant fantastical element to this piece of work as well).

The story is narrated in the first person by main character York, a fourteen year old 'passenger' of the Biosphere, a huge (and I mean MASSIVE) spherical spaceship that left a dying earth many generations ago in search of a new, unspoiled planet where humanity can start all over again. However, the supposed Utopia that was the Biosphere did not last long enough to make planetfall: at some point the robots went bad and rebelled, and ever since then the ever-dwindling number of human inhabitants have been facing a daily battle for survival. On top of this, without the robots to maintain it, the Biosphere has slowly degenerated and now vast areas have become human-unfriendly ecosystems that harbour deadly mutated flora and fauna. 

The story follows York, trained by necessity to be a Zoid hunter and scavenger, as he attempts to locate and rescue the closest thing he has to a family, taken during a Zoid attack at the beginning of the book. His journey through the enormous Biosphere (did I say it was MASSIVE?), is wall-to-wall peril, with nasty plants, nasty creatures, nasty Zoids, and even a nasty psychopathic human survivor thrown in for good measure. Readers will find themselves grabbed within the first few pages of the book, and the fast and furious action barely seems to drop below light speed until the final chapter is reached. And, rather nicely, the book does not end on any kind of cliffhanger; the main plot of this first installment comes to a satisfying end, but with just enough left unanswered to keep readers speculating and wanting to come back for more. 

As with The Edge Chronicles series, the words are accompanied by many of Chris Riddell's magnificent illustrations that truly bring the characters and environments within the Biosphere to life. Seriously, Chris Riddell would be a strong contender for a Gold medal if drawing were an Olympic event, and he is certainly one of my all-time favourite illustrators of children's books. We were incredibly fortunate to have Paul and Chris visit school last year, and to watch Chris illustrate live is a fab experience. if you ever get the opportunity, take it! I've included just one of the illustrations below for your delectation, but if you want to see more you can read a pdf of the first chapter of Scavenger: Zoid here.

© Chris Riddell 2014, taken from Scavenger: Zoid

This is the first book in a planned trilogy I believe, and I am certainly keen to continue following York on his adventures. My thanks go the the fab people at Macmillan for sending me a copy of the book.

Review: Spacejackers by Huw Powell

Abandoned as a baby on the planet Remota, deep in the seventh solar system, Jake Cutler lives a sheltered life. But all that changes when his home is invaded by ruthless space pirates with just one target: him.

Soon Jake is on the run with a bounty hunter and the suspicious-looking crew of a spaceship called the Dark Horse. Forced to contend with zero-gravity, shipwrecks and black holes, Jake must discover the truth about his past before he is hunted down and caught. And as for the crew of the Dark Horse, could there be more to his new-found friends than meets the eye?

The action-packed first book in the Spacejackers trilogy is full of aliens, space monsters, gadgets, battleships - and one boy's search for his destiny.

In the (very nearly) five years that I have been writing this blog I have lost count of the number of times that I have bemoaned the dearth of space-set books for middle grade (and young adult) readers. It is something that I struggle to understand, especially where younger readers are concerned as kids, and boys in particular, love space and aliens. In fact, until recently I could only name two examples published in the last five years: Space Crime Conspiracy by Gareth P. Jones and the wonderful Johnny Mackintosh trilogy by Keith Mansfield (apologies to any authors if I have made any glaring omissions).  

Assuming agents, editors and publishers know their onions (and I believe they do), the only conclusion I can come to is that in recent years space-set books have been considered uncool and were not big sellers. However,a handful of releases from the past twelve months may suggest that this is no longer the case, and with Guardians of the Galaxy being a huge success in cinemas, and the planned new Star Wars films, perhaps we are at the start of a renaissance for children's stories set in space. First up, August 2013 saw the release of the brilliant Phoenix by S.F. Said (recently announced as being on the shortlist for the 2014 Guardian Children's Fiction prize), and more recently Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre released their wonderful Cakes in Space. And between the two of these, released back in July, is this little beauty: Spacejackers by Huw Powell. (*edit: Huw has kindly reminded me about another fairly recently published book: Harvey Drew and the Bin Men from Outer Space).

Spacejackers is the kind of book I wish had been around back at the tail end of the 1970s/early 1980s. Like many boys of my age at the time, I was Star Wars mad, but sadly there were very few fiction books around aimed at my age group, and I had to make do with the novelisations of the Star Wars films, the spin-off Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and the novelisation of Battlestar Galactica. If Spacejackers had been around back then I would have been one very happy boy indeed, as it has everything that attracted that 8-10 year old boy to Star Wars: action, adventure, space battles, colourful characters (some of whom are space pirates FTW!), and an orphaned boy in search of answers to his past, and his future destiny. All of this is delivered at a pace that will keep even the most reluctant of readers wanting to read well past his/her bedtime. 

Spacejackers isn't perfect - despite some great characters, their development is not as complete as some might wish for and others may find the plot a thin in places (by which, I'm meaning stuffy old teachers and kill-joy adult critics), but in this case it does not matter a jot. Reading, especially for this Middle Grade age range, should be Fun (capital F intended). It should be Exciting (ditto). This is such a critical age in the life of a child, and if they aren't book lovers by the time they reach young adulthood, then they may not be until they become adults, or even worse, never at all. We need more books like this, that are just pure escapist fun. Especially (says the  10 year old me) when they are set in space!

My thanks go to the fab people at Bloomsbury for sending me a copy of Spacejackers.

Review: Replica by Jack Heath

'Whose body is that on the table?' I ask.

She stares at me, as though the answer is obvious. 'It's yours,' she says.

Before I have time to scream, she types a command on the keyboard. My consciousness whirls away like storm water down a drain.

Chloe wakes up to find all her memories have been wiped. And the only person who knows what happened is a teenage girl who looks and sounds exactly like her.

Who is she? And what does she want?

Chloe is running out of time to discover the truth. But she's in even more danger than she realizes, and nothing is as it seems . . .

I loved Jack Heath's Money Run and Hit List and I have been waiting impatiently in the hope that there will be more adventures for Ash and Ben. Sadly it looks like this wait has been in vain as Jack Heath seems to have moved on, with his new book, Replica, due to be published in the UK on 7th August. However, my disappointment is more than slightly alleviated by this new book, which possesses all of the Jack Heath trademark twists and turns, within a scintillating science fiction thriller premise.

Replica is one of those books that is very difficult to review as every phrase has to be carefully thought through for fear of creating spoilers. Yes, it is that twisty and turny, and I must warn you to avoid one particular review on Amazon which actually lays out the ending of the book in detail! Seriously, some people are so inconsiderate.

What I can tell you is that Replica has one of the most gripping opening chapters that I have read in a YA novel. In my proof copy, there is a moment at that bottom of page four that literally had my jaw dropping, and then me flicking back to re-read the opening pages to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Naturally, by this point I was totally pulled into the story and struggled to put the book down, so it certainly passes the 'grab the reader in the opening pages' test. As for an unspoilery explanation of the rest of story? The main character is a replica, a pretty much prefect android version of a real teenage girl, even down to memories and consciousness. Why 'she' has been made is something you will have to find out by reading the book yourself. 

Aside from the pace and twists of this book, I also loved the fact that it poses so many moral questions, without them ever seeming to be 'in your face'. There is certainly something of a homage to Blade Runner going on here, and readers will find themselves asking what constitutes life, is it moral to give machines feelings/emotions and what is it that makes us human? Some of these themes gain particular focus as replica Chloe builds a relationship with one of her schoolmates, Becky. It is sad that same sex relationships in YA books are still such a rarity that whenever we come across one we feel the need to give it special mention, but in this case, even if they were a common occurrence, I would still want to highlight it as Jack Heath writes these scenes with incredible subtlety and sensitivity. This is not the use of an LGBT theme for the sake of adding diversity; it genuinely feels 'right', as if replica Chloe having a relationship with a male character just would not have fitted the tone of story quite so well.

Before I go I feel I should mention the story's ending. I am aware of some readers who have found it frustrating, whilst others, like myself, feel that it works by leaving things open, not necessarily for a sequel but for the reader to formulate their own opinion of what happens next. I think it is one of those 'love it or hate it' kind of endings. Go back to Blade Runner again, and think of that ending, whether it be the voice-over original release or the more ambiguous Director's Cut ending. Both leave the viewer with questions about Deckard's and Rachael's futures, and do not ruin everything that came before by doing so. That's my opinion anyway.

Replica by Jack Heath was published on 7th August and my thanks go to the lovely people at OUP for sending me a copy.

Review: Infinity Drake: The Sons of Scarlatti by John McNally

Infinity Drake – aka Finn – is off on holiday with his mad scientist uncle when they are summoned to a crisis meeting. Scarlatti, a lethal bio-weapon – an ϋber-wasp killing machine – has been released by a pitiless villain, with incalculable consequences for mankind.

UNLESS Uncle Al can shrink a military team to track down and kill the beast. But then disaster strikes – sabotage! Finn gets shrunk to 9mm and has to jump in a tiny Apache helicopter with three soldiers in a desperate race to destroy the beast that's out there, very angry and many times their size…

Infinity "Finn" Drake is just your average orphaned boy with an interest in entomology, living with his grandmother (so far, so heard it all before? Well read on as it gets much, much better). At the beginning of the story, said gran is about to embark a much needed break (a cruise around Scandinavia), reluctantly leaving Finn in the hands of his less-than-reliable atomic chemist Uncle Al. Al has promised that he will take care of Finn and make sure he gets to school in time every morning, but as soon as Gran's Oslo-bound plane has taken off Al's true intentions are revealed - he is taking Finn on an insect hunt in the Pyrenees. Sadly, their plans are interrupted before they can even start, and the pair are helicoptered to a top secret facility as Al is needed to help save the world.

It transpires that during the Cold War in 1980s, a British geneticist accidentally created a new breed of wasp, christened the Scarlatti, that was considered so dangerous that thr project was immediately cancelled. However, two specimens were not destroyed and were instead frozen "just in case", and now one of them has been deliberately released in the British countryside. The implications are horrendous - this one Scarlatti is capable of reproducing and thus could lead to the deaths of six billion people across the world within six months. 

A special forces team is charged with tracking and destroying the Scarlatti, but to do so they must be shrunk to a size of little more than 10mm using a technology to which only Al has the key. Unfortunately Finn accidentally ends up being shrunk as well, and as things go from bad to worse to even worse he has to keep up with the trained soldiers and, cut off from the full-sized world, they have to find the Scarlatti, destroy it and any of its progeny, before it multiplies too much, and before the other global leaders decide that the only solution is to nuke Britain.

HarperCollins have published some of my all-time favourite series books for kids. I'm talking The Saga of Darren Shan and Demonata, both by Darren Shan, Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, and my own personal favourite - Will Hill's Department 19. With Shan now writing his Zom-B books for Simon & Schuster, and both Skulduggery Pleasant and Department 19 reaching their conclusions, I have been keeping my fingers tightly crossed, hoping that Harper will find something as good to fill this looming gap, and I should never have doubted them as head honcho Nick Lake and the team have pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat again: Infinity Drake: The Sons of Scarlatti by John McNally is everything I hoped for and more.

If I had a checklist of everything I would be looking for in a first-in-series book, then Infinity Drake would have a tick in every single box:

• Non-stop action and adventure from beginning to end üüüüü
• An intelligent, brave and, most importantly, genuinely likeable lead character that kids will love rooting for üüü
• Multiple instances of near-death, life on the line peril for our hero ü
• A just-as-interesting cast of supporting characters üü
• A superbly nasty villain with a truly diabolical plan for world domination (and one that we haven't seen before) üüü
• Great dialogue ü
• A thread of humour woven though the book, to take the dark edge off the nastiness of the villains plans üü
• An original concept that we haven't seen in a book for the 9+ age group in recent years ü
• Smart prose with vocabulary hasn't been dumbed down and therefore challenges readers ü
   

I think you can probably tell from this that I am a fan, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Infinity Drake isn't quite Skulduggery Pleasant or Department 19, but it certainly isn't far off. In addition to the above it also comes with the nastiest insects in the world ever - wasps! And not just ordinary wasps either (as far as I am concerned that would be bad enough). These are wasps that have been genetically engineered to have but one goal - kill, kill kill! Life as we know it could be completely eradicated if these things are left to procreate and multiply and kill. And the only thing that has any chance of stopping them is a team of teeny, tiny special force operatives and an equally tiny 12-year-old boy. And at that size these "ϋber-wasp killing machines" are as big as jet planes in comparison.

Please believe me when i say that this is most definitely not Honey, I Shrunk The Kids! (I hate that film & its sequels). Whilst it contains humour, it is never farcical and the peril that is experienced by Finn Drake and his new friends is genuine and written in a way that had my heart pounding and my eyes reading the text as quickly as possible, just to find out what happened next, at which point the author would cunningly cut to a different scene and leave out heroes' fates hanging in the balance for a few pages.

It's very rare that I will read a book and wish for it to become a film, as I have been disappointed far too many times in the past (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief anyone?. In the case of Department 19 I wished (and am still wishing) for a video game; in the case of Barry Hutchison's Invisible Fiends series, I would have been happy with a set of action figures. However, I think Infinity Drake would make a freakin' awesome movie, and I wouldn't be surprised if the rights have already been snapped up by one of the big Hollywood movie companies.

If you have a 9+ year old boy or girl who loves action and adventure, with a little science fiction thrown in, then put this straight to the top of your 'must-get-my-hands-on-a-copy' list. I was sent a proof copy by the good people at HarperCollins, but I have seen the hardback edition in my local book shops and I am sorely tempted to buy a copy as it looks fab, and this is on top of the multiple copies I will be buying for the kids of friends and family.

Review: Harvey Drew and the Bin Men from Outer Space by Cas Lester

Harvey Drew is an ordinary eleven-year-old who dreams of great adventures in outer space. The Toxic Spew is an intergalactic waste disposal ship. The two are on a collision course for chaos! After Harvey unwittingly responds to an alien signal, he is transported to the flight deck of the Toxic Spew by the ship's bad-tempered computer, who promptly loses his return address. Even though none of the crew have even heard of Earth, let alone met an Earthling, Harvey becomes Captain of the stroppy, pizza-obsessed, brave (but grubby) crew, and almost immediately has to save them from poisonous pink maggots, dangerous exploding space-rubbish and a multiple spaceship pile-up on Hyperspaceway B16. Luckily, leading his rabble crew out of danger isn't so different from captaining his football team, and it turns out Harvey is just the boy to save the day!

Harvey Drew is a fairly typical 11-year-old boy - he loves football (in fact, he's the captain of the school team) and he has a thirst for adventure. In Harvey's case, it is adventure in outer space that he craves: his bedroom is full of models of spaceships and his computer has an Alien Alert App that constantly scans for signals from outer space. Despite the App so far picking up little more than random noises, Harvey's belief in life on other planets stands firm.

Meanwhile, millions of light years away, the crew of the Toxic Spew, an intergalactic waste disposal ship, are in dire straits. They have been captainless for several months and the crew spend most of their time bickering. They are in desperate need of a new captain, if only to keep them safe on the space lanes, but unfortunately everyone in their known galaxy knows the Toxic Spew, and the fact that it is not exactly the most pleasant smelling of places to work. In their desperation they send out a whole universe email, advertising for a captain, and guess whose Alien Alert App picks the message... yep, Harvey's! Not that he can understand a word of it, but it doesn't stop him from replying, and before he knows it he is teleported to the Toxic Spew, trillions of miles away from home, and in charge of its crew as their new captain. So begins an adventure that sees Harvey and his new crew having to deal with all kinds of weird and wonderful outer space problems.

Harvey Drew and the Bin Men from Outer Space is published by Hot Key Books, and therefore comes with one of their brilliant descriptive pictograms:

This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the book, and I'm left feeling pretty redundant, but if you don't mind me waffling on anyway then I though I might as well tell you a little more whilst I am here. Aimed at the 7+ age group, the book is a laugh-a-minute outer space adventure story with great characters, funny dialogue (especially when they are bickering), and loads of ridiculously silly silliness.

Of course, the observant among you may be questioning how a quality like 'Leadership' fits into such a madcap, bonkers story. And therein lies a little bit of magic as cast by writer Cas Lester. As I mentioned earlier, Harvey is the captain of his local football team, and when he is thrown in at the deep end on the Toxic Spew as a very different type of captain, he starts to realise that he can utilise the qualities he has a football team captain to help gel his new team together. It's a challenging task, especially when your team are the bickering bunch of aliens that make up the crew and you are faced with previously unheard of problems like a cargo hold full of poisonous pink maggots and enough highly explosive and volatile Explo-Foam to blow you to kingdom come and back. Explo-Foam, I might add, that illegal across the whole universe, and could find Harvey and his crew either blown to bits or in deep, deep trouble with the law. However, Harvey rises to the occasion, leading by example, putting himself forward for any dangerous tasks, and generally doing the kind of things that bring a team together.

The story is accompanied by illustrations drawn by Sam Hearn. My proof copy has very few illustrations in it, but a quick scan of the first chapter on the Hot Key Books website (here) is enough to show that they complement the story very well indeed, and really being the characters to life for readers. I don't think it is creating too much of a spoiler to tell you that by the end of the book Harvey still hasn't found a way to get himself teleported back home, and for us readers this is very much a good thing as it means that there are plenty more adventures to come from Harvey Drew and his bumbling band of bin men. 

My thanks go to the fab people at Hot Key for sending me a copy of the book to read.

Review: Ironheart by Allan Boroughs

‘First comes the iron and then comes the snow, and then comes the winter when nothing will grow.’ 

Since her father went missing while prospecting for oil in Siberia, life has been tougher than ever for India Bentley. Little does she know that he was actually searching for Ironheart, a legendary fortress containing the secrets of the old world. A place some say could save humanity . . . or destroy the world. 

Along with tech-hunter Verity Brown and her android, Calculus, a killer from the old world turned protector in the new, India must make the journey to remote Siberia to try to find her father and finish his work. But there are others fighting to find Ironheart too – and they have very different goals in mind. 

If India fails, it won’t just be her father who pays the price. It will cost her the Earth.

The floods caused by the Great Rains have left London unrecognisable from its former glory as one of the greatest cities on the planet. Its inhabitants eke out a pretty miserable existence, scavenging through the mud for anything that might be of use or value. India Bentley lives in a walled village with her sister and step-mother, desperately hoping for the return of her long-missing father, an oil surveyor for one of the planets leading energy companies, the Trans-Siberian Mining Company.

On an evening when it looks as if India's already miserable life is about to get much, much worse, tech-hunter Verity brown and her android bodyguard (not a robot, definitely an android), appear on the scene, hunting for any clues that John Bentley may have left behind regarding his possible discovery of the legendary Ironheart -  a long hidden depository of great treasures and possibly more. India manages to persuade Verity to take her with her as they flee from untrusting villagers, and so begins an adventure that sees India travelling deep into the heart of frozen Siberia, on a quest to find her father and Ironheart. It is a quest that will test her to the limits of her physical and mental endurance, and little does she know that the safety of the whole planet is at stake if she fails.

There was so much I loved about this book, but ultimately it boils down to this being a perfect old-school action/adventure story, in the tradition of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines books, Indiana Jones and all of the adult quest thrillers that I read when I'm not reading YA and children's books. Writer Allan Burroughs does not spend several chapters building his post-apocalyptic world - instead, he draws the reader into the action in the very first chapter, and gradually lets the details of his world gradually develop as the plot progresses. This makes it a great read for reluctant readers as there is no chance at all for them to get bored.

Of course, even a rip-roaring plot can soon become somewhat tedious if the characters aren't interesting and appealing. To make an adventure story truly entertaining from first to last page you need characters who readers will grow to love and hate, and Ironheart has these by the truckload. India Bentley is an especially great main character and it is really refreshing to read an adventure story with a female protagonist. She is a gutsy, courageous young lady who is ready to risk life and limb in order to find her father. I have to say that it is also rather refreshing that the author does not feel the need to introduce a love interest or an element of romance for his female lead into the plot.

As well as India, there are a host of entertaining supporting characters, although some of these are not developed as much as others. Verity Brown, the tech-hunter, is one in particular that I was left wanting to know more about, although as this book is a sequel I am hoping that we will see more of Ms Brown in the next episode. Other great characters do get more wordage though, and android Calculus and pirate rigger Captain Aggrovius Bulldog were my personal favourites.

There is so much more that I want to mention but I risk creating spoilers by doing so. I will say that the book does come across as being very well researched. The Siberian setting of the story is a new one for me, and Allan Boroughs really brings the location alive. I also loved how the writer weaves real-world history like the Tunguska event into his story, adding a touch of Graham Hancock ancient advanced-civilisation theory to the story, something I've not encountered in a chidlren's book before, whilst also mixing in elements of shamanism. All of these aspects are great for enquiring minds, and I am sure there will be a number of kids who will be enthused into researching these areas once they have finished the book.

Ironheart is a great book for aged 9+ kids, and I think boys and girls will love it equally, and be left wanting more like I was. However, like me they will have to be patient as the sequel, The Sun Machine, is not due to be published until January 2015. My thanks go to Allan Boroughs for sending me a copy to read.