Month: May 2008

Meet Nobody Owens. He hasn’t had a haircut in well, ever, his usual uniform is a gray winding sheet, and his best friends are a vampire named Silas and a long-dead girl named Liza. That’s because Nobody (or Bod for short) has been raised in graveyard with ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens, to be specific) for parents and tombstones for playthings. When Bod was a toddler, an assassin known only as Jack crept into his house and murdered his entire family. While the monster was at his diabolical work, Bod quietly wandered out of his room and into the nearby graveyard. He was discovered by the Owenses, who decided to raise him themselves with the help of Silas, who could move about in human society and and secure food for the child. As Bod grows, he learns many useful things from his adopted family, like how to Fade, Dreamwalk, and make Fear, all the while knowing that the man who killed his family is still out there—and eventually he will have to face him. While the creepy quotient is not quite as high as Gaiman’s insta-classic Coraline, The Graveyard Book has a certain Burton-esque Nightmare Before Christmas quality that gives it an all-ages appeal. Both frightening and funny (and sometimes frighteningly funny) this latest supernatural goody from Master of Magic Gaiman is hopefully haunting a library or bookstore near you.

In a San Francisco of the near future, seventeen-year-old Marcus Yallow is a master hacker with a monster grudge. When the San Fran Bay Bridge is blown to smithereens by terrorists, Marcus and three of his best friends are hauled away as suspects by the Department of Homeland Security. They are interrogated, beaten, and denied food—FOR DAYS–just for being in the vicinity of the blast. After finally convincing his captors he knows nothing about the bombs, Marcus is released after signing documents swearing he’ll tell no one about his terrifying experience. He goes home to parents who are so happy that he’s alive that they buy his story of being quarantined due to possible exposure to biological toxins. But the world is not the way he left it. His beloved hometown has turned into a place where 24/7 surveillance is the name of the game. Law-abiding citizens are routinely shaken down if they deviate from their usual patterns by one iota. The DHS treats everyone like a potential terrorist threat. But Marcus refuses to accept the new police state and instead hatches a radical plan to jam the government’s circuits and return power to the people once and for all! How he manages to pull that off is the basis for this amazing sci-fi novel by tech-blogger Cory Doctorow. Clearly influenced by the events of September 11, 2001, stories from Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act and George Orwell’s classic 1984, Doctorow gives us a frighteningly contemporary glimpse at how easily the government can take away our civil liberties under the guise of keeping us “safe.” Totally timely and full of fascinating techno-talk that even the Google-challenged can understand, Little Brother is a fast-paced, thought-provoking read that will leave you searching for your own way to “jam” the Man! Want to know how Marcus does some of his techno-tricks? Check out Doctorow’s LB blog or connect with him on MySpace or Facebook.

In a fictional island kingdom off the Irish coast in the 1880’s, young Conor Broekhart leads a charmed life. As the beloved son of the head of King Nicholas’s sharpshooters, Conor is treated like royalty himself. He plays and plots with Princess Isabella, and learns self-defense and aeronautical design at the knee of the king’s best friend and Parisian scientist Victor Vigny. Together, they dream of creating the first heavier-than-air flying machine that will catapult man into the heavens. But all those dreams come to an abrupt end the day teenage Conor accidentally witnesses the double murder of his king and his adored tutor. Framed for the murders by the traitorous commander of the king’s army, Hugo Bonvilain, Conor is condemned to rot in an inescapable prison while his parents and Isabella are led to believe he is dead. At first, Conor wishes that were the case. But slowly, his resolve to escape grows until he fashions an outrageous plan that will either win his freedom or take his life. It is impossible to dig or swim your way off the prison island of Little Saltee. But if Conor’s plan works, he’ll just take to the air and fly…this historically flavored fantasy is pure white-knuckled pleasure from start to finish. Full swash-buckling swordplay, dizzying rescues from great heights and breathtaking escapes, Airman takes off quickly and lands with a satisfying thump. If you enjoy the adventures of Alex Rider, Matt Cruse, or even the clever machinations of Andy Dufresne, the brilliant hero of Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, then you’re going to want to book a flight with Conor Broekhart.