January 13, 2014
For Maisie Danger Brown, who yearns to become an astronaut despite her missing right hand, winning a contest to attend an astronaut boot camp for teens is the opportunity of a lifetime. Things take an extraterrestrial turn when Maisie and her fellow “fireteam” members are infected by alien technology while visiting the Beanstalk space elevator. Now possessed of amazing powers, they work to master their abilities and uncover the origin and purpose of the “tokens” that granted them. Following a tragedy affecting one of their own, Maisie and her friends go from superheroes to soldiers, their team forever splintered as they race to collect the tokens before they come to further misuse. Hale (Princess Academy) delivers an action-packed SF thriller with plenty of surprises and an intriguing premise. It’s a solid story, though it suffers from erratic pacing and a few elements that don’t quite gel, including a melodramatic love triangle, an overly complicated plot, and quirky details (such as Maisie’s father’s love of puns) that jar with the harrowing events that unfold. Ages 12–up. Agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary.
February 1, 2014
Fairy-tale-telling Hale tackles straight-up science fiction in a tale seemingly tailor-made to forestall complaints about lovelorn teen heroines and all-white casts of characters. Maisie Danger Brown (really), smart, home-schooled, one-handed half-Paraguayan daughter of scientists, has always dreamed of being an astronaut. When she sees an ad for a space camp competition from Bonnie Howell, the woman who built the world's first (and only) space elevator, she can't resist. And she wins! Space camp is electrifying, especially charming Wilder--Maisie knows it's just hormones and an immature brain, but it feels good. Then Howell takes the strongest team (Maisie's) plus Wilder on a ride into space, and the five teens end up infected by nanotechnology tokens of extraterrestrial origins. Whew! Cue a dark, superherolike tale: Friends die, adventures are had, kisses are exchanged, the Earth is saved. The tale is choppy at times and weak on worldbuilding, with surprisingly thin characterization--but girl power abounds, and the pages keep turning. The romance that Maisie resists and recognizes as mostly just a hormonal rush is endearing and happily doesn't quite overshadow saving the world or her family, although it sometimes comes close. A change of pace that largely succeeds, showing that Hale's range is wider than her readers might have expected. (Science fiction. 12-16)
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March 1, 2014
Gr 7 Up-Her middle name may be Danger, but Maisie "Danger" Brown doesn't seem a likely action heroine. She is a homeschooled half-Latina science geek with a special love for physics and astronomy, and she has an artificial arm. When she wins a contest to go to astronaut camp with other teens, her life changes dramatically. Her team gets an opportunity to go up in a space elevator, and she and four others, including Wilder, the boy she's crushing on, are exposed to alien artifacts or "tokens," which enter their bodies and give them superpowers. Maisie becomes a tech whiz, one teen becomes superstrong and beastlike, another is able to shoot objects from her fingers, one teammate gains the ability to grow armor and weaponry from his body, and Wilder becomes the Thinker, a mastermind who can direct them all on a mission envisioned by the aliens who created the tokens. But what is the group's ultimate purpose? Will they survive the alien mission? And will they be able to escape the grasp of the humans competing to exploit them and the alien technology, including Wilder's own unscrupulous father? This fast-paced science fiction novel with echoes of the "Fantastic Four" comics doesn't let up for a moment. Maisie is a strong, smart heroine with a wry sense of humor, and readers will be rooting for her to save the world. A must-read for fans of superhero adventures.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ
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