Avalon

July 1, 2014
Jeth has one last job to complete before he can buy back his parents' spaceship from a crime boss. But the ship he was sent to find carries a deadly cargo that everyone in the galaxy wants. The strong bond between Jeth and his humorously motley crew of teenage mercenaries outshines the predictable plot and will appeal to Firefly-esque space-opera fans.

(Copyright 2014 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

February 1, 2014
Grades 8-11 Arnett's fast-paced space western combines S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders (1967) with television's Firefly in what appears to be the beginning of a promising series. We meet a motley crew of renegade orphan teen mercenaries who form their own family by choice. Their mission is to steal metatech, the mysterious force that allows interplanetary travel faster than the speed of light. Seventeen-year-old Jeth leads the gang of teen metatech thieves, who work for the villainous Hammer Dafoe. Jeth and his 13-year-old sister, Lizzie, lost their space-surveying parents seven years ago, when the Interstellar Transit Authority executed their parents for unspecified treason. Jeth's primary objective is to buy the family's legendary spaceship, the Avalon, from Hammer, escape his despotic reign, and establish a quiet existence away from Hammer and the Interstellar Transit Authority. But nothing is going to come easy, and the appearance of a strange, possibly alien child and a beautiful, fierce teen scientist further complicate matters. It's not a deep read, but it's a riveting one, and sci-fi fans will gulp it down in one sitting and ask for more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2013
Action-packed space opera tells the laws of physics to sit down and shut up, to no particular detriment. Seventeen-year-old Jeth and his band of thieves operate under the iron thumb of interstellar crime lord Hammer, who treats traitors and resisters to brutal beatings and mind-erasing brain implants. Pulling jobs for Hammer is Jeth's only way to buy back his late parents' spaceship and keep his 13-year-old sister out of prostitution. The current assignment requires retrieving a missing spaceship from a Bermuda Triangle-ish area of space where ships malfunction and disappear. Jeth's crew travels there via "metaspace," but this is no hard science fiction: "Metatech" and "metadrives" receive an eventual explanation that's mostly hand-waving, while things that should be difficult (rerouting power from one ship to another) or dangerous (a character moves through open space by pushing off a spaceship "as if he were diving") are easy-peasy. Arnett's fast-paced plot spotlights gun battles, twists and memorably grotesque damage to spaceships and bodies. As Jeth makes unsavory deals and repeatedly finds himself betrayed, a threat to billions of lives connects with his personal mission. Thoughtful readers (or anyone who's seen Star Trek) will wonder whether the implied sequel will address a core moral atrocity at the root of metatech that this volume ignores. There's no subtlety and barely any science in this science fiction, but there is lots of action. (Science fiction. 14 & up)

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Starred review from February 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Jeth's parents were the preeminent scientists of the Confederation until their final mission ended in tragedy and they were suddenly charged with treason and executed. Since then, Jeth has been in the forced employ of an interstellar crime lord, aboard the Avalon. It is a ship specially designed by Jeth's parents to navigate and explore the Belgrave, a sector of space that gives off inexplicable power fluctuations; many consider it haunted. Jeth is finally given the opportunity to captain the Avalon when the crew are sent into the Belgrave to salvage a stranded Confederation ship said to hold a dangerous weapon. Little does he know that this mission will set off a chain of events that could have far-reaching consequences and fundamentally challenge his understanding of his own family's history. This is an exciting piece of science fiction that keeps up its energy from beginning to end. Fans of the short-lived but beloved Joss Whedon television show Firefly will find this book especially enjoyable, and it is sure to be one of the most popular releases in the genre this year.-Ryan F. Paulsen, New Rochelle High School, NY

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