Tag Archives: Science Fiction

Bloom

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Bloom by Kenneth Oppel

Book of the Week: 29 November 2020

 

Illustration by M.S. Corley

‘Seth gazed out the window. Below, the Vancouver airport looked normal enough, until he noticed the sinkholes in the runways. A jet jutted out of a huge crater, its left wing snapped against the tarmac. Over neighbourhoods, Seth saw streets turned into canyons by the tall black grass. Roadblocks were everywhere, pit-plant holes in the parks and golf courses. Charred sinkholes in the asphalt and sidewalks. Hardly anyone outside. Even from up here, he could see pollen glittering in the air.’

World-wide havoc is being wreaked by disturbingly destructive alien plants that destroy crops, block out the light and threaten human life. On Salt Spring Island, three teenagers: Anya, who is allergic to ‘everything’, Petra, who has a rare allergy to water, and Seth, who is a foster child with mysterious scars that he tries to keep hidden, are the only people who are not only unaffected, but whose health seems to improve. Can they play a role in defeating this threat to life on the planet?

This is a wonderfully detailed creation of a catastrophe, aspects of which might sound familiar to us in the present pandemic. There are  action-packed sequences of horrific battles with these monster plants and gruesome descriptions of those who fall foul of them. The botanical details are well-researched too. Every time I checked some unlikely-sounding fact, it turned out to be true. This is the first in a trilogy, with ‘Hatch’ due in the autumn and ‘Thrive’ in summer 2021.

If you would like to read more books featuring scary plants, try ‘Boy in the Tower’ by Polly Ho-Yen or the classic ‘Day of the Triffids’ by John Wyndham.

Kenneth Oppel has written has written a variety of books. The following are all in the Library: ‘The Boundless’, ‘Every Hidden Thing’, ‘Half Brother’, ‘This Dark Endeavour’, ‘Such Wicked Intent’ and my personal favourite, ‘The Nest’.

If you enjoy books about alien threats to life on Earth, try books by Mark Walden, Pittacus Lore, Rick Yancey and Virginia Bergin. Here is a list I made for Year 8 about alien invasions.

 

The Kid Who Came From Space

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The Kid Who Came From Space by Ross Welford

Book of the Week: 2 February 2020

Cover illustration by Tom Clohosy Cole

When you are hurtling through space with a smelly, hairy alien, a weird kid from school and a chicken named Suzy, you might wonder what has gone wrong with your life. Ethan doesn’t have to wonder too hard, he knows it all went wrong when his twin sister went missing from the village of Kielder, where his mum and dad keep the Stargazer pub. The ensuing panic and grief on the part of the family and close-knit community are almost too much to bear, so Ethan takes a break by going for a walk to the lakeside at the invitation of Ignatius Fox-Templeton who “has a school record that you’d call ‘inconsistent’…”. It is there that they witness a gigantic splash, as if a car has plummeted into the reservoir from a great height. When they investigate the splash and the subsequent humming noise, they see that the water has an indentation as if a giant glass plate is sitting on its surface. Puzzlement changes to terror as a humanoid covered in hair with a huge nose and a tail like a cat, appears as if from nowhere and asks them to help her. Ethan links the humming noise of her spaceship with a noise he heard on the night his sister Tammy disappeared. Can this alien creature help him find his sister or has she got something to do with her disappearance?

If you have enjoyed any of Ross Welford’s other books, you are sure to like this one as it has all his usual warmth and humour. If you haven’t read any of them, you might enjoy this if you liked Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s ‘Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth’, although Hellyann (the owner of the invisible spaceship) is a totally different kind of alien to Sputnik.

Slick

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Slick by M. M. Vaughan

Book of the Week: 26 January 2020

Cover design by Leo Nickolls

‘My name is Danny, and I need your help. First off, I should tell you that this isn’t my story – it’s Eric’s. Well, the name he was given was Eric, but I called him Slick, and he was my best friend. I say was because he died six months ago … Two, and this is kind of important: Slick was a robot.’

We are told from the very beginning that Slick is a robot, or android, but how he became Danny’s best friend and why he ‘died’ are the questions we need answering. Slick and his family have just moved to Ashland and are keen to get to know everyone. Danny, who regularly gets into trouble in school and who worries about his mum since his dad left them, is really only interested in computer games. When he first meets Slick he discounts him as a ‘weirdo’ who takes everything literally and is obsessed with brand names. After this unpromising start, Slick proves impossible to avoid and Danny becomes more and more intrigued about his mysterious weekly visits to a dentist and his parents who either ignore him, or turn up uncannily quickly when he gets injured. As the story progresses, being told alternately by Slick and Danny, we realise that Slick has no idea what he actually is and is only eager to make friends and understand the world. Danny, however, is intent on finding out where Slick came from and what exactly is going on with his unusual new friend.

This is an intriguing science fiction book that makes us think about what it means to be human and how the power of friendship can alter our lives.

Boy in the Tower

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Boy in the Tower by Polly Ho-Yen

Book of the Week: 15 September 2019

Artwork by Daniel Davies

Ade feels safe on the seventeenth floor of his tower block. He likes the fact that his friend, Gaia, lives on the seventeenth floor of another block he can see from his window. He is worried about his mum who won’t leave their flat and who barely leaves her room, but is determined to do what he can to help. He used to like to watch the world from his window – the bustle, the traffic and the comings and goings of his neighbours. But then, buildings began falling down and people were killed. Strange, blue-tinged plants appeared in the rubble emitting deadly spores and normal life was suspended. Ade is marooned in his tower block and his mum is too ill to help. Will he be able to survive until help arrives or will the deadly Bluchers (the plants) surround and destroy his home too?

This is a tale about friendship, family and survival and how children deal with an adult world and is often confusing and frightening. If you enjoy the scary element of life-threatening plants, you can look forward to reading the classic The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham when you are a little older.

The Starman and Me

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The Starman and Me by Sharon Cohen

Book of the Week: 30 June 2019

 

Cover artwork by Sam Kaldo

Shortly after Kofi thinks he sees a small, curled-up figure lying on the roundabout near Tesco, he gets a message on his computer: ‘I’s needin help. I’s Rorty Thrutch’. Thinking it’s some ‘raving nutter’ he blocks the person and logs off, but the next day, when Sumo and his mates take his bag and empty the contents everywhere and he sees his ruler, set square and protractor weave across the grass and pop back into his bag, he thinks there is more to the episode that he first thought. Once he meets the small, hominim (think Stig of the Dump) who  calls  himself Rorty, he decides to take him home and give him the help he needs. Where does Rorty come from and how is he going to get back there? Not only does Kofi need answers, he needs them fast because other people are looking for Rorty and they are far from friendly.

There is plenty of action and science content in this touching and amusing story which would be ideal for fans of books by Ross Welford and Christopher Edge.

Illustration by Edward Ardizzone.

Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth

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Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce

Book of the Week: 20 January 2019

Illustrated by Steve Lenton

This week’s choice is a book you may have missed from 2016 when it was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal.

Aliens are often depicted as spindly beings who wish to be taken to your leader, or tentacled monstrosities who want to take over the planet. They don’t often come disguised as dogs. Sputnik wears a kilt and goggles and is about the same height as Prez, who is the only one able to see him in this form. Everyone else, including the Blythe family who are looking after Prez, sees him as a different breed of dog. Prez is apparently the reason why Sputnik is visiting Earth. The planet is in danger of destruction and Prez must come up with ten things worth seeing or doing in order to prove the whole place isn’t worthless and deserving of obliteration. Sputnik mostly communicates through telepathy with Prez and by doggy handshakes with everyone else. Despite being worried about his Grandfather who can’t look after him like he normally does, Prez has no choice but to follow Sputnik’s instructions and limit the fallout from Sputnik’s exuberance. There is the memorable time that he gives five year old Annabel a working light sabre at her fifth birthday party and she manages to cut off her friends’ hair and fell a tree.

This is a funny and endearing story that, along with wild adventures and wisecracks, has a touching message about families and a sense of belonging.

Other stories that feature aliens:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams has a lot in common with Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth. Ford Prefect is an alien who is trying to save his friend Arthur Dent before Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyper-space bypass.

The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells – Earthlings are terrorised by an alien invasion from Mars.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham – Flesh-eating plants are free to dominate Earth after most people have been blinded by a meteor shower.

Landscape with Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson – More satire than science fiction.

The Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness – Human beings are the alien invaders of a planet inhabited by the Spackle.

The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey – Alien beings disguise themselves as humans hunting down the few survivors left on Earth.

I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore – A tiny number of alien visitors try to blend in and re-group on Earth but other powers are out to get them.

All the above are in stock in the School Library.

‘Shell’ and ‘Stranger’

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Shell by Paula Rawsthorne and Stranger by Keren David

Books of the Week: 9 December 2018

Designer not credited

Design by Ellen Rockell

Monday 10 December sees the announcement of the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award. Teams of Year 9 students throughout Warwickshire have been shortlisting, reading and voting on books chosen initially by school library staff and are now waiting to find out which book has won. We started in September with a longest of nine books, narrowed it down to four, and have been reading and discussing them for the last couple of months. It has been a hard choice as there were so many wonderful reads.

Two of the four shortlisted books have already been Books of the Week: Orphan Monster Spy in May  and Outwalkers in April, so now it is the turn of Shell and Stranger to be joint Books of the Week.

Shell raises all sorts of questions about the ethics of body transplants and what makes you the person you are. Lucy is terminally ill, but a revolutionary and risky new medical procedure allows her brain to be transplanted into the body of a donor. Although she is happy to have escaped death, she finds adjusting to a new body an alienating experience. She is now pretty and popular which alters her relationships and forces her to keep secrets from everyone around her. She needs to find out more about her donor and, in doing so, uncovers things that others wish to remain hidden. This is a grippingly told story with plenty of dramatic highlights.

Stranger is a novel where the action takes place in two different eras: Astor, Ontario in 1904 and the same location in 1994. It is about outsiders and people who feel they don’t belong and how events have lasting repercussions over time. It begins in 1904 when Emmy and Sadie are out walking and encounter a naked, bloodied young man who emerges from the forest distressed and unable to talk. Sadie runs away, but Emmy tries to help. Ninety years later, Megan arrives in the same small town for Emmy’s 105th birthday. She is Emmy’s great-granddaughter with her own secrets and unhappiness. How the lives of the two women intertwine is something we discover as we read the dual narratives of this compassionately told story.

Whichever book is voted the winner on Monday, I’m sure Year 9 judges will tell you that they are all worth reading and are books that will stay in your mind long after you have put them down.

 

The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare

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The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare by Zillah Bethell

Book of the Week: 10 June 2018

Cover illustration by Matt Saunders

When steak from the vending machine costs £80,000, a bag of King Edward potatoes at £5,000 seems like a bargain. Auden and his mum are shopping in Cambridge and, as you might guess from the price list, the world is different from our own. This is a future Britain where it hardly ever rains and countries have gone to war over water. Food prices have soared and water is rationed. The immediate problem facing Auden and his mum is that they have moved across the country to Unicorn Cottage which has been left to them by his uncle, Jonah Bloom. Auden’s mum says the cottage is untidy because Jonah was an eccentric inventor who had no time for tidiness, but Auden thinks someone has broken in and has been looking for something. When he makes friends with his allocated ‘New School Buddy’, Vivi Rookmini, who lives with her mother in rooms in a Cambridge college, they find an extraordinary invention in Uncle Jonah’s shed and Auden thinks his uncle has been working on a cure for Auden’s inability to see colour. This is exciting enough for Auden, but what happens next turns out to be a lot more important and will affect the future of everyone on the planet.

I also read My Messed-Up Life by Susin Nielsen this week, about Violet who thinks the answer to her single mum’s problems would be to date George Clooney. It is a fun read but I think practically all her books have featured as Book of the Week over the years, so it only gets a mention rather than a headline.

Landscape With Invisible Hand

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Landscape With Invisible Hand by M.T. Anderson

Book of the Week: 18 March 2018

Cover illustration by Levente Szabo

When the vuuv first landed on Earth it was the 1950s and now, years later, when their colonization of the planet is complete, they still hanker after all things relating to that decade. Humans are useful drones but the vuuv are fascinated by their behaviour and many collect their art.

Adam and his girlfriend Chloe decide to cash in on this fascination and link themselves to technology that allows the space invaders to observe their love affair. Adam needs money for his family and for treatment for his severe gastric problems. Chloe needs the money and enjoys the attention. Problems arise when they grow to hate one another.

This 162-page book looks and sounds like science fiction for young teenagers but is actually a witty satire suited to older readers. It deals with exploitation, the power of money and technology and artistic integrity all condensed into a short, sharp read.

If you would like to read more by this author, the library also has Symphony for the City of the Dead in the Music section at 780.92 SHO

Otherworld

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Otherworld by Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller

Book of the Week: 28 January 2018

Cover design not credited.

Simon’s family are wealthy enough for him to be able to afford the latest headset needed to play a brand-new virtual reality game, although Simon stole his mother’s Amex card to buy it, but they generally pay him very little attention. He is much closer to his friend Kat who has a house in the woods behind his family mansion. They have hung out together for the last ten years but now Simon is eighteen he has fallen in love with his childhood friend. The problem is, she is no longer speaking to him. When Kat falls into a coma after an accident, the the tech company who produced Otherworld, the game Simon has been playing, plug her into their virtual world. Simon feels something isn’t right, so manages to trick his way in to Otherworld to search for her. His suspicions prove accurate when he encounters hordes of dangerous creatures and the sinister aims behind the game.

Ready Player One still reigns supreme in the world of game-based fiction, but if you like to get immersed in virtual worlds, then it is worth a read. A sequel is due out later this year and yes, Jason Segel is the actor from How I Met Your Mother.

More suited to older readers due to some violent scenes and strong language.