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Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde

"It was my fourteenth birthday and I was arguing with a bus. How pathetic is that?"
LOSE THE GAME, LOSE YOUR LIFE
In the virtual reality game Heir Apparent, there are way too many ways to get killed - and Giannine seems to be finding them all. Unless she can
get the magic ring,
find the stolen treasure,
answer the dwarf's dumb riddles,
impress the head-chopping statue,
charm the army of ghosts,
fend off the barbarians,
and defeat the man-eating dragon,
she'll never win. And if she doesn't win, she will die - for real this time.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Available: Stevens Middle School Library
                 North Olympic Library System (to reserve use this link:https://pac.nols.org/polaris/Search/request.aspx?pos=2&new=1)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Slob by Ellen Potter

"My name is Owen Birnbaum, and I'm probably fatter than you are."

Twelve-year-old Owen Birnbaum is the fattest kid in school. But he's also a genius who invents cool contraptions - like a TV that shows the past. Something happened two years ago that he needs to see. But genius or not, there is much Owen can't out think. Like his gym coach, who's on a mission to humiliate him. Or the way his Oreos keep disappearing from his lunch. He's sure that if he can only get the TV to work, things will start to make sense. But it will take a revelation for Owen, not science, to see the answer's not in the past, but the present. That no matter how large he is on the outside, he doesn't have to feel small on the inside.

With her trademark humor, Ellen Potter has created a larger-than-life character and story whose weight is immense when measured in heart.

(Review by Good Reads)

Rating: 9 out of 10 

Available: Mrs. Hope/sikes Library
               North Olympic Library System (reserve using this link: https://pac.nols.org/polaris/Search/request.aspx?pos=1&new=1)
                

Friday, September 30, 2011

Candor by Pam Bachorz

 "CA-CHUNK, CA-CHUNK, CA-CHUNK

            The sound drifts through my bedroom window. Pokes through my homework haze. It’s not loud, but it’s impossible to ignore. Because it doesn’t belong here."

The picture-perfect new town of Candor, Florida, is attracting more and more new families, drawn by its postcard-like small-town feel, with white picket fences, spanking-new but old-fashioned-looking homes, and neighborliness.
But the parents are drawn by something else as well. They know that in Candor their obstreperous teenagers will somehow become rewired - they'll learn to respect their elders, to do their chores, and enjoy their homework. They'll give up the tattoos, metal music, and partying that have been driving their parents crazy. They'll become every parent's dream.
Rating: 8 out of 10
** mild sexual innuendo

Unwind by Neil Shusterman

"There are places you can go," Ariana tells him, "and a guy as smart as you has a decent chance of surviving to eighteen."

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.


Rating: 10 out of 10
** Some mild language and violence 



 

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Gone by Michael Grant


"One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone."
    
In the blink of an eye. Everyone disappears. GONE.
Except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not one single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened.
 
Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day.
It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else...

Rating:10 out of 10
* mild profanity

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

"He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air."

Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You're in a bizarre place devoid of adults called the Glade. The Glade is an enclosed structure with a jail, a graveyard, a slaughterhouse, living quarters, and gardens. And no way out. Outside the Glade is the Maze, and every day some of the kids -- the Runners -- venture into the labyrinth, trying to map the ever-changing pattern of walls in an attempt to find an exit from this hellish place. So far, no one has figured it out. And not all of the Runners return from their daily exertions, victims of the maniacal Grievers, part animal, part mechanical killing machines.

Thomas is the newest arrival to the Glade in this Truman-meets-Lord of the Flies tale. A motley crew of half a dozen kids is all he has to guide him in this strange world. As soon as he arrives, unusual things begin to happen, and the others grow suspicious of him. Though the Maze seems somehow familiar to Thomas, he's unable to make sense of the place, despite his extraordinary abilities as a Runner. What is this place, and
does Thomas hold the key to finding a way out?

In The Maze Runner, Dashner has crafted a creative and engaging novel that's both mysterious and thought provoking.

Rating: 10 out of 10
* Some Violence

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Eleventh Plague and Blood Red Road

Mrs. Hope
The Eleventh Plague
In an America devastated by war and plague, the only way to survive is to keep moving. In the aftermath of a war, America’s landscape has been ravaged and two thirds of the population left dead from a vicious strain of influenza. Fifteen-year-old Stephen Quinn and his family were among the few that survived and became salvagers, roaming the country in search of material to trade for food and other items essential for survival. But when Stephen’s grandfather dies and his father falls into a coma after an accident, Stephen finds his way to Settler’s Landing, a community that seems too good to be true, where there are real houses, barbecues, a school, and even baseball games. Then Stephen meets strong, defiant, mischievous Jenny, who refuses to accept things as they are. And when they play a prank that goes horribly wrong, chaos erupts, and they find themselves in the midst of  battle that will change Settler’s Landing forever.

To see the book trailer, or read the first four chapters, visit this link: http://www.jeff-hirsch.com/
Mrs. Sikes
Blood Red Road (Dustlands, #1)
Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That’s fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba’s world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on a quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. She has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.