There'll always be a London: Philip Reeve, Fever Crumb (London: Scholastic, 2009).

Very good indeed. A prequel to Mortal Engines, it only slides into prequel mode very occasionally. Most of the time it is firmly its own book.

Fever Crumb has grown up in the Engineers' house shortly after the collapse of the Scriven rule of London. The Scriven were not quite human, and their inability either to breed true or to breed well with humans eventually led to their downfall and to the Patschkin riots.

On leaving the Engineers for the first time, Fever discovers she herself is at least part Scriven, but this becomes a minor issue as the nomads advance on London, and the archeologists and engineers look for the secret which the Scriven left behind.

Although there are some big themes, this is a slight novel, and most of its pleasures are in the discovery of the run down future London. It's nice to see an sf writer for kids keeping firmly to sf as well, the moment at which the book could have gone all mystic, science and scientific exploration comes firmly to the fore.

Untreasured: Michelle Harrison, 13 Treasures (Simon & Schuster, 2009).

Harrison, M. (2009). 13 Treasures. London, Simon & Schuster.
A very weak book: Tanya goes to stay with her grandmother because her mother can't cope with her apparently psychotic behaviour. There Tanya meets Fabian and together they unravel the mystery of the girl who went missing 50 years before. Tanya, it turns out, can see fairies, and Morwenna was kidnapped by the fairies many years ago.

The problem is that the book is very badly written, the sentences clunk, and the structure is all wrong. We spend too much time in the build up to figuring out what's going on, and only in the last fifth of the book does Fabian discover the secret Tanya is hiding. Only in the last tenth do we find out that Morwenna went willingly and that everyone is conspiring to protect Tanya. I wish I could say that Tanya figures out how to protect herself, but she is actually saved by Red, a girl who is herself trying to rescue her brother from the fairies--a twist which could have been fascinating but which is handled as a mere side-story. The 13 treasures barely figure.

The two most grating aspects of the book are the newspaper stories which are written as if by someone who has never actually read a newspaper crime report, and the Enid Blyton style wise gypsy woman.

Elliot, Zetta. (2008). A Wish After Midnight. ?, Self-published?

The easy way to describe A Wish After Midnight is that it's a YA version of Octavia Butler's _Kindred_. I mean that as a compliment by the way.

Genna lives in Brooklyn. In the first half of the novel we see through her eyes all the threats that Black ghetto families face. Under the pressure of poverty and low expectations her family is disintegrating, and Genna's chances of getting up and out are diminished with every attempt she makes to help her mother. Her own confidence however is increased when she meets a Rastafarian boy called Judah.

In the second half, Genna finds herself flung back into 1863 Brookly, badly injured although she can't remember how. She is taken in by free black folk and settles down to the indignities of being Black in America in 1863. Later, Judah arrives, but he has been sold into slavery and is far willing to accept the hard scrabble comfort of freedom. The book ends with the draft riots, and a place for a sequel.

This really is rather a good book: the pre time travel section is too long for my tastes, but it's exploration of Genna's life is complex and demonstrates the degree to which racism is held together by many institutional structures. Once in the past the book really takes off: the racism and prejudice of white northerners is given short shrift, the ways in which white immigrants and blacks are played off against each other is dealt with very well, the compromised expectations of many people are depicted well, and the casual prejudice of the well meaning is displayed.

Sheldon, Dyan (2008). The Difficult Job of Keeping Time. London, Walker Books.

This is a rather nice time travel fantasy in which a town's old church is about to be obliterated by re-development. One of the things I liked about it is that while Good = preservation and Evil = obliteration of memory, one of the issues is that the redevelopment will not benefit locals but only marginalise them. Of the two protagonists, one is a refugee boy settled in the town, the other the child of a not very reliable single mother with a drink problem. As far as there is a metaphoric arc, it's that they learn to draw on their own resources.

Kiki and Trish meet a lady, of middle age, who sends them back into the past to reclaim some documents. The lady is an avatar, as is her opponent. Both of them will be born, again and again in different forms to face off against each other (each body lives its natural life unless terminated, so killing one's opponent is not always the right way to go, the lady, for example, has in a previous incarnation been locked inb a mental hospital and drugged, to keep her out of play). There is a hint that these are old gods in an old game.

The nineteenth century drawn here is reasonably realistic, with child labour portrayed as just one of those things: all the shock is in Kiki and Trish's experience of it. No one is shown as especially callous, just having different values.

I liked the book a great deal, for its combination of the nicely drawn present, and protagonists with genuine ingenuity.

Lavender Ratties!!! or Rat Trap by Michael J. Daley from Holiday House, 2008.

I reviewed Daley's Space Station Rat back here in 2006. It's remained one of my favourites in my collection.

In Rat Trap Daley continues the story, as Rat has to hide from investigators, learns something about ethics and learns how to tempt a computer into sentience.

I love this book. I love that Rat remains always and ever a grown up person who has as much practical to teach the boy as she has to learn. I love the fact that Daley never loses sight of the fact that in a rough, tough universe sentimental messages aren't half as useful as a good set of screwdrivers.

End of the blog.

Dear All

I may post the odd thing here, but this blog is more or less dead. The book is due sometime next year.

Active and excelellent however is a blog by Susan Fichtelberg who seems to have a firm grasp on what sf for children and teens should be. See here.

Books about computer gaming.

At the request of Waller Hastings, the members of Child_lit came up with this list, and kindly permitted me to post it here.

Baron, Nick. Virtual Destruction. Previewing a new virtual reality game,
Marc McClaren becomes alarmed when he begins to have strange nightmares
and then his friends begin to die in strange accidents.

Besher, Alexander. Rim: a Novel of Virtual Reality. In the wake of a
mega-earthquake in 2027 Japan, the virtual-reality entertainment empire
Satori Corporation attempts to rescue thousands of people trapped in
virtual worlds.

Bloor, Edward. Crusader. 15-year-old Roberta struggles to separate truth
from virtual reality when she works in her uncle's failing arcade at the
mall in this blend of murder mystery and mall rat culture.

Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game. Set in a future where children are
trained for military battle using video games, Ender rises above his peers
to become a commander of a virtual army.

Carpenter, Christopher. The Twilight Realm. Five young people addicted to
a fantasy role-playing game are transformed into characters with
remarkable powers and sent into a strange and dangerous parallel world.

Catran, Ken. Running Dogs.

Catran. The Onager._

Cross, Gillian. New World. Fourteen-year-old Miriam agrees to test a new
computer game in utmost secrecy but finds that it is more than she
bargained for.

Dick, Philip K. Game Players of Titan.

Foy, George. The Shift. Burned-out soap opera writer Alex Munn finds his
life in danger from a serial killer when he plays with new virtual reality
technology.

Gibbons, Alan. Legendeer trilogy. Shadow of the minotaur.

Goldman, E. M. The Night Room. When a group of students uses an
experimental computer program that simulates their tenth high school
reunion, they get an unsettling look at their possible futures.

Hogan, James. Bug Park. Visionary teens Kevin and Taki realize that they
can make millions from Bug Park, a micro mechanical entertainment park
that employs direct neural interfacing, but a murderous saboteur forces
them into a war of physics.

Horowitz, Anthony. Eagle Strike. After a chance encounter with assassin
Yassen Gregorovich, teenage spy Alex Rider investigates a pop star, whose
new video game venture hides sinister motives involving Air Force One,
nuclear missiles, and the drug trade.

Howarth, Lesley. Ultraviolet. We think we are in a post-catastrophe
dystopia but actually we are testing a computer game.

Ipcar, Dahlov. The Warlock of Night. Based on chess.

Kostick, Conor. Epic.

Kostick. Saga.

Landsman, Sandy. The Gadget Factor. Boys build a virtual world that looks
a lot like what we might call Sim Universe, and then war game it to
destruction.

Locke, Joseph. Game Over. When a new video arcade named Hades opens in
town, the students of Dinsmore begin committing bizarre and violent acts.

Lubar, David. Wizards of the Game. RPG fan Mercer wants to bring a gaming
convention to his middle school, but instead attracts four genuine wizards
who are trapped on Earth and want his help in returning to their own
world.

Miyabe, Miyuki. Brave Story. {Tr. Alexander O. Smith} This year's Mildred
L. Batchelder Award winner. Fourteen-year-old Wataru enters the fantasy
world of Vision hoping to change his real-life situation (he is an only
child whose world is falling apart as his parents become estranged) by
relying on the video-game rules with which he is so familiar. but they
don't work. This doorstop of a book (816 pages) is a phenomenon in Japan,
where it is also available as a video game and a multi-volume graphic
novel. The last time I checked, the first 3 volumes of the graphic novel
had been translated into English.

Norman, Roger. Albion’s Dream. Edward's involvement with a mysterious
adventure game leads to a confrontation with his boarding school's
tyrannical headmaster and evil doctor.

Odom, Mel. Crossings (Buffy the Vampire Slayer series). When local video
game players who have been testing a new game begin exhibiting strange
behavior, Anya and Xander investigate, but when Anya disappears into an
alternate demon universe, Buffy must discover how to get her back.

Paulsen, Gary. Rodomonte’s Revenge. Best friends Brett and Tom love the
new virtual reality game, Rodomonte's Revenge, until the computer
infiltrates their minds and transforms the game into something dangerously
real.

Pratchett, Terry. Only You Can Save Mankind. A classic but the gaming
itself becomes something of a metaphor/portal fantasy world by the end.

Pryor, Michael . The Mask of Caliban.

Rubinstein, Gillian. Space Demons. Twelve-year-old Andrew, bored with
life, becomes obsessed with a mysterious new computer game, which has the
power to zap him and his friends into a dangerous world of menacing space
warriors. Andrew M. Butler writes about this in The Lion and the Unicorn,
Vol 28, number 2. There are sequels: Skymaze and Shinkei.

Scott, Michael. Gemini Game. When players of their virtual reality
computer game fall into a coma, Liz and BJ O'Connor, teenage owners of a
computer games company, flee from the police in an attempt to locate a
copy of their game and correct the programming.

Seidler, Tor. Brainboy and the Deathmaster. When the new prototype of his
favorite game, StarMaster, leads him to the laboratory of software guru
Keith Masterly, orphan and computer game genius Darryl Kirby finds his
life plunged into danger when he uncovers Keith's diabolical scheme, which
forces him to confront his painful past.

Simons, Rikki. Reality Check! (Manga) When tenth-grader Collin Meeks is
at school, his cat, Catreece, puts on her owner's virtual reality helmet,
assumes the identity of a cute teenager, and surfs the Virtual Internet
System while Collin is at school. (Graphic Novel)

Skurzynski, Gloria. The Virtual War. In a future world where global
contamination has necessitated limited human contact, three young people
with unique genetically engineered abilities are teamed up to wage a war
in virtual reality.

Sleator, William. Interstellar Pig.

Tangherlini, Arne. Leo@fergusrules.com. Leonora, a teenager of mixed
ancestry, begins to spend most of her time in a virtual reality program
but is lured into computer-generated danger when a boy she likes
disappears.

Townley, Roderick. Into the Labyrinth. A sequel to The Great Good Thing,
about turning a world into hypertext.

Vande Velde, Vivian. Heir Apparent. Giannine is trapped in a flawed
virtual reality game that will kill her unless she beats it.

Vande Velde. User Unfriendly. Arvin Rizalli, his mother, and six of his
friends pirate a computer-generated, interactive video game that plugs
right into the players' brains.

Weiss, D. B. Lucky Wander Boy. Obsessed with creating an encyclopedic
reference of every video game ever played, Adam Pennyman continues to be
frustrated by his attempts to uncover information about "Lucky Wander
Boy," a game that he had loved as a child, until a chance encounter takes
him to Portal Entertainment, which, in turn, leads to the game's creator.

Werlin, Nancy. Locked Inside. When Marnie is kidnapped by a crazed fan of
her late mother's, an Internet gaming friend comes to the rescue in this
mystery/thriller.

Westwood, Chris. Virtual World. Fourteen-year-old Jack North finds himself
literally drawn into the frightening world of what he thinks is a new
virtual reality game.

Wieler, Diana. Ran Van the Defender. Rhan Van uses his success at video
games under the name "RanVan" to see himself as a modern knight and to
cope with life with his grandmother and as an outsider at his Vancouver
high school, with his anger, and with girls.

Wynne Jones, Diana. Homeward Bounders.

Wynne Jones. The Game.

ALSO:
All "The Web" series of which the recommender’s favourites are:
Baxter: Webcrash
Joyce, Spiderbite
MacLeod, Cydonia
Cadigan, Avatar
all from Orion.

While Cathy's Book is not about gaming per se, it was written by someone
who writes games: Jordan Weisman. (Sean Stewart is a coauthor and has also
done stuff with gaming, I believe.) The interactive nature of the book,
along with the reader making choices of how to "read" the additional
information, is gaming influenced.

Not a computer game, but Scott Corbett's The Big Joke Game might fit.
Sort of halfway between Through the Looking-Glass and the computer game
stuff.

For nonfiction, try Masters of Doom: how two guys created an empire and
transformed pop culture, by David Kushner.