Across the Universe

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

I'm not quite sure what genre this book is in. It seems to be science fiction, but its about a mystery, not a space battle. But it isn't quite a mystery exactly. So I'm calling it both. Also, because I haven't added the age thing, I would like to say that this has some mature content included. So beware.

The book starts when Amy is getting cryogenically frozen so that she can go with her parents to a world called Centurai-Earth, as apposed to Sol-Earth. But just as she is being frozen, she hears that there is another year before the ship will launch. A year that she could have stayed with her friends. And she is mad.

Then the book is from this guy named Elder on the ship. He was born on the ship along with all the feeders and the shippers and Eldest. He finds the cryo lab where everyone is frozen, and finds Amy. Somehow, Amy gets unfrozen. And then the adventures begin.

I really cant tell you much more, because the first bit of the book is about finding the things that are mysterious, and the second part is about solving the mysteries. So I really can't tell you about it. But it's a good book, I can tell you that.

And if you liked the book, there's a new one called A Million Suns

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SPOILERS BELOW  SPOILERS BELOW  SPOILERS BELLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eldest is drugging the water supply to erase all emotions, and the "crazy" people are just resistant to it.

The ship is actually more than 100 years behind. 

All the old people on the fourth floor are being killed.

Eldest is also adding hormones to the water during the Season

All the babies are being genetically modified to be smarter or have specific traits.

The Eldests are all clones of each other.

Gregor the Overlander

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
Pages: 311

This is a wonderful book. It is another one of my favorite books, and I recommend it to everyone. It's not a extremely long book, but it packs a ton of action and emotion.

It starts of as kind of a cliche, a boy goes into a world parallel to his own, etc. etc. These kinds of books are great, but the one thing that really annoys me is when the person who goes into the other world is completely unable to do anything useful, just wants to get home no matter how much the other world/nation/people need your help, but still expect them to worship you as their savior. Even though you have done nothing. This book isn't like that.

One day, Gregor is taking the laundry to the laundry room in his apartment with his baby sister, Boots, who, being a baby, manages to find her way into the smallest possible space that she isn't supposed to be in (sort of like cats). So she gets into the grate behind the laundry machine, and Gregor goes to get her. She falls down the tube pipe thing. He follows her. They fall forever. And then they land in a big cave. And then...

These gigantic cockroaches come and look at them. Gregor is scared out of his mind, while Boots goes up to touch the "beeg bugs." This is followed by an awesome adventure to slay the rat king Gorger and save the  world, which is called Underland. Oh, and when I say rat king, I mean giant rat king. And giant bats, and giant spiders, and all kinds of fun things.

The story and the adventure in this book is great, but my favorite part is probably the characters. Gregor actually cares about the fate of the Underland, and of the people who live there, and Boots adds an element of humor to the whole story. I mean really, who cant resist a two year old who is always, always happy and cheerful?

Even with Boots happiness, Suzzane Collins still manages to make the book very intense and a little bit sad, which adds a sense of reality. There are four more books in this series, and they just get better and better.

If You Can Read Harry Potter...

Some people may be wondering if they or their child or their friend or someone can read a book that I review. In my opinion, there are two way you can be to young to read a book:

1) The books deal with more mature topics that will make sense later in life. or...
2) The book can be to challenging to read.

I will address the first topic by adding age labels to reviews,  and the second topic, in my opinion, cant be classified by age. So I have devised a small benchmark type thing. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read almost any book written in the English language. Unless the book has weird English, like Shakespeare or something. Thou art speakingeth incomprehensiblyeth etceth. Or if its an old book, which are written in a completely different style from modern books and are tricky to read. But in general, if you have read Harry Potter, you can read this.

Speaker for the Dead

Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

This is the second book in the Ender Quartet, after Enders Game although you don't need to read Enders Game. There is a bit before the actual book that is long and somewhat boring. Basically what it says is that Orson Scott Card originally had Enders Game as a short story, and Speaker for the Dead was to be the first book. But to make the book make sense, he had to put a long and somewhat boring chapter at the start. He then decided to put it at the back of Enders Game. But to make that make sense, Enders Game had to get longer and evolved into what it is today.


But back to the book. It begins 3,000 years after Enders Game, but thanks to the theory of relative space travel (that traveling near the speed of light, time works differently. For example, a voyage of two weeks in the space ship is equal to 22 years outside the space ship) Ender is still alive. All the bugger worlds and a few other ones have been colonized, and Ender the Xenocide is officially the most horrible person in all of history. Nobody knows  that Ender was the Speaker for the Dead who wrote the Hive Queen and the Hegamon, no one knows that the original Speaker and Ender were still alive. Also, there is a super-ansible-computer thing named Jane.

Most of the story takes a place on a Christian colony on a planet inhabited by piggies, the pig like third sentient beings in the known universe (humans, buggers, and piggies). And they speak Portuguese, so knowing that language is a big plus to reading this book.

Oh, and there's a third book called Xenocide.



SPOILERS BELOW WARNING SPOILERS BELOW










The piggies have been spying on the humans and know that technology exists, but not how it works.
The descolada virus is vital to the survival of the planet. Read the book to see why.
The piggies were honoring Pipo and Libo when they got killed.
The Hive Queen gets a home and thrives and all that good stuff.