If you've been reading much Young Adult fiction at all, you know that dystopian novels continue to be popular. Many of those dystopias take on a sci-fi twist, and this week's four SEBA nominees are no different. These novels will appeal to fans of both dystopian fiction and traditional science fiction.
BRZK
Michael Grant
You control all
your actions, right? You make choices about
what you eat, where you go, who you like to be with? Well, what if you didn’t
have as much control as you think?
In BRZK, Michael Grant presents a scary,
futuristic world in which people are not as much in control as they think they
are . . . instead, they are pawns in a nano-world battle for power. On one
side, controllers use the nano-technology they implant into their hosts’ brains
to rewire their synapses, and control their actions. On the other side of the
battle, agents send “biots” into the hosts’ brains to fight against the
nanobots. In either case, the victims never realize what is happening to them,
or that an outside force is controlling their actions.
Thankfully, the
world of Michael Grant’s BRZK is pure
science fiction, something that could never happen . . . or could it?This is the first book in a trilogy; the second, BRZK Reloaded, is already out.
Rise of the Elgen
Richard Paul Evans
In book one of
this series, Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25, we met Michael, a boy with a
strange ability to control electricity.
We also found out that an evil force, the Elgen, wants to control Michael's power. (For a more complete review of book one, see the December 12, 2012 post of this blog.)
In book two, Michael and his friends have escaped the Elgen and Hatch, and continue their quest to locate Michael's mother. With 10 electric kids, as well as the 3 non-electrics, they hope that they can avoid the Elgen, but do not realize what they are fighting. After an unsuccessful trip to Idaho and contact with a mysterious and powerful helper, the group heads to Peru to find Michael's mother. There they discover Hatch's evil plan to control the world with billions of electric rats. How can a group of teenagers, no matter their talents, stay alive and rescue Mrs. Vey...... and the world?
Book three in this trilogy, Battle of the Ampere, wraps up this exciting (electrifying?) adventure.
Rot and Ruin
Jonathan Maberry
Picture any day, anywhere in
the world. People die every day, but on that day, someone dies and becomes a zombie. That zombie starts
biting others who become zombies also. Soon, everyone who dies. Becomes. A.
Zombie. The only way to prevent turning into a zombie upon death is if the brain is separated from the spinal
cord. What follows is total chaos. The death of millions. Eventual loss of all technology.
Benny was two when this zombie apocalypse happened. He is now 15 and knows no other life beyond his town. His brother
Tom was twenty when the zombies came, and is now a zombie hunter out in the Rot and Ruin, the world
beyond their fenced community. Benny is a typical teen, joking with friends and
holding history (and his brother) in contempt. But he has to get a job, (it's
the law or he doesn't eat) and when he can find no other, he finally takes Tom up
on his offer for apprenticeship. Their first trip to the Rot and Ruin opens Benny's
eyes; his eventual betrayal within the town opens his world.
This is the first book in Maberry's very popular series; the sequels are Dust and Decay; Flesh and Bone; Fire and Ash.
Everlost
Neal Shusterman
This unusual story begins with a head-on collision, with two
fourteen-year-olds dying.....but instead of "going on," they collide and veer off the path of light. Months later, they awake as
in a parallel universe between life and death. Young spirits who do not go on, as well as things which are beloved
in life, live again in an alternate, overlaid world.
Allie and Nick, along with Leif who's been alone in an Afterlife forest for decades, find a dangerous world of sinking earth and gang children. They also find Mary, who writes books about the Afterlife from her home in the Twin Towers, now home to hundreds of dangerously content children. Allie and Nick do not wish to become like the others, who not only forget their names and history, but even change their appearance to match their vision of themselves.
The two "Greensouls" meet the Haunter who declines to teach them the darker skills of ecto-ripping and skin-jacking; and The McGill, a monstrous pirate of a sunken ship. Ultimately Allie and Nick have to decide which to be: safe but unthinking followers like the Tower children, or endangered but independent thinkers.
Allie and Nick, along with Leif who's been alone in an Afterlife forest for decades, find a dangerous world of sinking earth and gang children. They also find Mary, who writes books about the Afterlife from her home in the Twin Towers, now home to hundreds of dangerously content children. Allie and Nick do not wish to become like the others, who not only forget their names and history, but even change their appearance to match their vision of themselves.
The two "Greensouls" meet the Haunter who declines to teach them the darker skills of ecto-ripping and skin-jacking; and The McGill, a monstrous pirate of a sunken ship. Ultimately Allie and Nick have to decide which to be: safe but unthinking followers like the Tower children, or endangered but independent thinkers.
This is the first book in Shusterman's Skinjacker trilogy: the subsequent titles are Everwild and Everfound.
With this set of four, we've discussed over half of this year's Soaring Eagle nominees. We'll wrap up with the final three titles in another post.
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