Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment
by James Patterson

This book is very exciting. It is science fiction–based, but is more of an action novel. The main characters are six children aged six, eight, eleven, and three fourteen–year–olds. Their names are Angel, The Gasman, Nudge, Iggy, Fang, and the main character, Maximum Ride (a.k.a. Max). They are the result of genetic experimentation with grafting non-human DNA on human embryos. Each has a pair of retractable, feathered wings, and each possesses superhuman strength, endurance, and other bizarre abilities. When the youngest child, An-gel, is kidnapped from their hideout and taken back to the stygian lab of their childhood, called The School, it is up to Max and her comrades to free her. Along the way, they discover strange secrets about themselves, their origins, and their purpose. This book is a real page–turner, and keeps you surprised at every turn it takes. It is funny, frightening, and very interesting. (pap F PAT)

Maximum Ride: School's Out - Forever
by James Patterson
(sequel to Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment)

This was a great book. It is the sequel to Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment. Both books involve the continuing adventures of Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, The Gasman, and Angel; six kids who are anything but normal. Before birth, avian DNA was grafted to their own, giving them hollow bones, improved muscles, and wings. Now, they are running for their lives from Ari, a seven-year-old with wolf DNA who already died but was resurrected by some very sick scientists, and his father, Jeb Batchelder, who was the closest thing our heroes ever had to a father. However, he was really working with the evil scientists who created the bird-kids, and is now coming to retrieve them. As false pretenses and cataclysmic plans grow around them, the protagonists help Max on her destiny: to save the world. But is she ready for it? (pap F PAT)

Uglies
by Scott Westerfeld

This was a really good book! It described a utopian futuristic society in which beauty was the norm because at age sixteen, cosmetic surgery transformed everyone into a beautiful person. However, this meant that normal people were considered hideously ugly. Tally Youngblood is a relatively normal fifteen-year-old. Like every other person her age, she spends her days doing schoolwork, hoverboarding, playing practical jokes, making maps for what she wants the surgeons to do to her face, and dreaming of living in New Pretty Town, where all post-operation teenagers live before they get a job and move on. She longs for the wild parties, the fun, and the carefree life of being pretty until she meets Shay. Shay is a bit nonconformist, and doesn’t want the operation. She plans to escape to a legendary place called The Smoke, a colony of people who didn’t have the operation! When she asks Tally to come with her, then goes on her own, Tally is heartbroken. To make matters worse, the elusive police that make sure that everything runs smoothly want to get Shay back, so they recruit Tally to do it. They give Tally a horrible choice: bring back Shay, or she’ll never get the operation. This thrilling first part of a trilogy is very interesting, and I strongly recommend it.

Pretties (sequel to Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld

This book was very interesting. It is the second book in a trilogy; the sequel to Uglies. These books describe a very futuristic society in which everyone is made beautiful, healthy, and brain-dead at the age of 16 by means of a cosmetic operation. Though the operation leaves their skin flawless, “new pretties” (16–18 year olds) suffer brain damage that makes them happy, agreeable, and totally “manageable”. Our main character, Tally Youngblood, along with her ever-increasing band of devoted friends, must beat the odds and cure the other teens from this control. However, her nemesis—Dr. Cable, leader of the elusive specials—is constantly getting in her way. The specials try to maintain order over all of the people, and combat any “threat to the peace.” Tally’s only hope of freeing the human race from this total domination is by finding a group of rebels called “the smokies” who have the medical cure to the damage done by the operation. But trying to get by the operation’s effects on her is a challenge that Tally must also face. With many twists and turns, this book is one wild ride!

Specials (sequel to Pretties) by Scott Westerfeld

This book was awesome! It was a great finish to the Uglies trilogy. In it, the unthinkable happens: Tally is made into a member of the elite and elusive Special Circumstances. When she and her team are given the assignment of tracking the origin of the pills that are invading New Pretty Town and giving the pretties free thoughts, they must go to the source: The New Smoke. How-ever, when they arrive, they discover something that is beyond shocking. Throughout this book, many things happen that are unbelievable, and unimag-inable as one explores Tally’s little world, and the mysteries that lay beyond it…
It is truly amazing and filled with adventure. It questions our ethics and when “In the best interest of society” is a justifiable cause of action or not. It is one of my favorites, as are its two predecessors.

2061: Odyssey Three
by Arthur C. Clarke

This was a very interesting book. It is an indirect follow–up to 2001: A Space Odyssey 2010: and Odyssey Two. They all deal with Heywood (and eventually his grandson, Chris) Floyd. Also, they include the recurring characters of the HAL, a computer that becomes something more, and David Bowman, who also changes in ways no one could possibly explain. Also, they deal with the strange black monoliths, alien machines with extraordinary powers of creation, destruction, and manipulation; catalysts of the mind, spirit, and universe itself. In this story, Heywood is chosen to go on the first visit aboard the starship Universe to Halley’s Comet, and the last visit until 2133. After arriving, they are called away on a mission of reconnaissance: the starship Galaxy has crash-landed on the new planet of Europa. Ever since the monoliths changed Jupiter into the minisun Lucifer, all of Jupiter’s moons have become habitable worlds, but the strange aliens who created this minisolar system made it clear not to land on Europa. Now it is a race against time to save Galaxy’s crew from running out of supplies or something worse: of all of its strange mysteries, the strangest by far is that Europa may hold life.

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan
This book is wild! It is about a boy named Jake Semple and his experiences in the “Creative Academy,” a school owned, run, and completely staffed by the Applewhite family on their farm. Jake is a juvenile delinquent who was kicked out of every school in Rhode Island and supposedly burnt one of them to the ground. Sporting an eyebrow ring, scarlet spiky hair, and many earrings, he doesn’t phase the Applewhites at all. Now, after being expelled from the middle school in Traybridge, North Carolina in only three weeks, he has nowhere else to turn. Each Applewhite is dramatically unique from every other Applewhite. There’s Randolph, the arrogant director; Sybil, the distracted author; Archie, the gruff chainsaw artist/carver; Lucille, the naïve naturalist; Zedediah, the clan’s leader; Destiny, the youngest child still trying to find his calling; Cordelia, the choreographer who’s writing her own ballet; Hal, the recluse who never leaves his room and pilfers food in the dark of night; and E.D. (Edith), who loathes and despises the chaos in which they all live. Jake must somehow fit into this anarchy and learn to be a contributing member of society. Through the book, he is metamorphosed by the Applewhites, and the Applewhites are equally changed by him. (F TOL Bestseller Section)

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
I enjoyed this book very much. It was about a man with magical tattoos that predicted the future. In the moonlight, they told haunting stories of things yet to pass. From holographic lions that become all too real, to an invasion that becomes an assimilation. From a city that is far more than it seems, to robots that are just a bit too life-like. From two people that hide in time, only to fall inextricably into the hands of their captors, to an alien race that utilizes an army of——children? From a man with extraordinary telepathic abilities, to a vacation that travels to the depths of space without really leaving home, this was one interesting book. I strongly recommend it for its creativity, and the picture of what society might be, not so far ahead. . . (F BRA)

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The latest book that I have read is Ender’s Game. Though it was more than a bit bizarre, I found it quite enjoyable. It is a true definition of Science Fiction. Though the time period is uncertain, probably a few centuries in our future, the plot is quite clear. The Earth is facing serious overpopulation issues resulting in population limiting laws, and national governments have formed together into the IF, or International Fleet, to combat the mysterious alien species known as the “Buggers.” From the age of six, child prodigies are trained in the arts of war in a huge complex orbiting the Earth, called the Battle School. While there, they play dangerous and sometimes fatal games to train for real combat. Among these children, Ender Wiggin is the best. The story chronicles his advancements. With many unseen and unexpected twists and turns, Ender’s Game is one of my choice books. (F CAR)