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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
Thought it was wonderful. Can't wait for the next chapter. If you want to read more find the blog on kleptotas.wordpress.com
OPINIÓN LECTURA MARZO 2018
Lamentablemente este libro no me gustó como creí que lo haría ya que la trama se me hacía súper interesante. La verdad no sé qué fue lo que produjo que me fuera desmotivando con la lectura. Puede ser que en un futuro le dé una oportunidad.
Lamentablemente este libro no me gustó como creí que lo haría ya que la trama se me hacía súper interesante. La verdad no sé qué fue lo que produjo que me fuera desmotivando con la lectura. Puede ser que en un futuro le dé una oportunidad.
I thought it was full of plot and plausibility holes and lazily written. Boy8 thought it was the best book he's read in ages and can't wait for book 2. Some kids books are spot on for the target audience -- and only the target audience! Really though, this should do very very well.
Great Sci-Fi read for upper elementary and young Jr high. Earth will soon loose power so four exceptional children must train and compete to be selected for an elite team of astronauts to collect a super energy source. Why children? because the demands of the super compressed travelling is too hard on the bodies of anyone over 14.
A book set in the future where Earth is close to running out of energy and is desperate need of a solution but this time it won’t be adults that save the day. The fate of the world rests on the shoulders of kids no older than 12 in fact. While you might need to suspend your disbelief in order to enjoy this series, isn’t that what reading fantasy and science fiction is all about.
The book starts off with a competition with insane challenges to determine the perfect team to travel into deep space in order to collect The Source which will be able to power Earth again and allow the people to avoid the rolling blackouts that have become common. There is more going on and some of the kids are wondering what the people running this program aren’t telling them.
Once the team is picked you get all kinds of interstellar action and adventure. There is lots of cool tech aboard their spaceship and new creatures to find on distant planets. These kids have to be quick and sharp and adapt at every step. They also get a cute sidekick robot to help them along the way which is awesome. Every kid dreams of having a robot right!? There are some secrets revealed and twists and turns along the way to keep them on their toes too of course.
A really cool (to me) feature is the website that goes along with the series that has more information and games to go along as you read. There are codes at the end of some chapters that you can enter into the website and they give you access to hidden files. I would have been super excited for something like that at 12 (maybe I still was) and thought it was a fun surprise to enjoy along with the series.
The book starts off with a competition with insane challenges to determine the perfect team to travel into deep space in order to collect The Source which will be able to power Earth again and allow the people to avoid the rolling blackouts that have become common. There is more going on and some of the kids are wondering what the people running this program aren’t telling them.
Once the team is picked you get all kinds of interstellar action and adventure. There is lots of cool tech aboard their spaceship and new creatures to find on distant planets. These kids have to be quick and sharp and adapt at every step. They also get a cute sidekick robot to help them along the way which is awesome. Every kid dreams of having a robot right!? There are some secrets revealed and twists and turns along the way to keep them on their toes too of course.
A really cool (to me) feature is the website that goes along with the series that has more information and games to go along as you read. There are codes at the end of some chapters that you can enter into the website and they give you access to hidden files. I would have been super excited for something like that at 12 (maybe I still was) and thought it was a fun surprise to enjoy along with the series.
Oh gosh, I'm not even exactly sure where to start.
I went into this knowing that MacHale's writing isn't for me. I liked the premise, and given that all the other books were written by other people, I figured it wouldn't be hard to just push through this one. I was wrong, lol.
Firstly, the power source problem. This is set on Earth, so I'm going off "Earth rules" here. Fossil fuels have almost run out, and they have to go to other planets to get an alternate source of energy, or all life on Earth will cease to exist somehow. But we already have alternate sources right here with us. Nulear, solar, wind, etc. What happened to all those?
Secondly, Piper's disability would (and should) have immediately disqualified her. It's just a liability to have someone on a spaceship that needs all this extra support, as we find out later in the story as well. Plus, if you have the technology to do all the stuff they're doing, wouldn't you also be able to just fix her legs? Seems like it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to figure out that as well.
Thirdly, their age. Oh jeez, this one. So, first things first, none of them would have been the "correct age." Did they all have exactly the same birthday at launch? We know this isn't true because they all arrived at the facility at 12. That means after six months of training, Dash would have been 13, and the rest would have been 12.5, past the acceptable time. Oh, except Chris and Rocket. They are allowed to be older because they have special things. If you are able to regress the age of people and have billions of dollars to go around, wouldn't you want to just de-age actually qualified people than a bunch of kids with only six months of training?
Fourthly, the raptogon scene. This went pretty much exactly how I was expecting, except for the actual extraction. You're telling me you've mastered faster than the speed of light travel but can't invent a tooth extractor/cutter? And them knocking the raptogon out rather than killing it was a pretty cheap way to add conflict later. Didn't see that coming. 🙄. Furthermore, why in the world would they be eating those vermint things as their primary food source? I'll break it down for you 💃: a T-rex (which is smaller than a raptogon) is thought to have eaten around 308lbs of meat per day. If we say vermints are the approximately the size of house cats, that would be about 31 vermints it would have to eat per day. This is completely unreasonable, and the amount of energy it would take to catch these things would outweigh the energy it got from eating them. For reference, the same weight could be gotten from only TWO deer. So eating larger prey would definitely be the move for it. That'd be like the T-rex hunting rats as its main food.
Fifthly, how problems among the crew start immediately. Gabriel flies the ship wrong, and Dash has to take over at one point, then it starts this whole, "who made you commander? 😡" issue. Literally everyone made him commander, yeah? That's his whole role. How is this even a question? And you'd think all that would have been ironed out in the very specific training they had for all of this.
Sixthly, Chris is this brilliant genious inventor but has nothing to tell him if he's alone? The ending was TERRIBLE. 😬
Honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking of any redeeming quality.
I know that we were supposed to hate Anna and all, and I did, so I guess I had a good time with what happened to her. 🤭. I did like the competitions overall, I guess.
STEAM was cute.
Cloud Leopard, Cloud Cat, and Light Blade are cool names.
I went into this knowing that MacHale's writing isn't for me. I liked the premise, and given that all the other books were written by other people, I figured it wouldn't be hard to just push through this one. I was wrong, lol.
Firstly, the power source problem. This is set on Earth, so I'm going off "Earth rules" here. Fossil fuels have almost run out, and they have to go to other planets to get an alternate source of energy, or all life on Earth will cease to exist somehow. But we already have alternate sources right here with us. Nulear, solar, wind, etc. What happened to all those?
Secondly, Piper's disability would (and should) have immediately disqualified her. It's just a liability to have someone on a spaceship that needs all this extra support, as we find out later in the story as well. Plus, if you have the technology to do all the stuff they're doing, wouldn't you also be able to just fix her legs? Seems like it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to figure out that as well.
Thirdly, their age. Oh jeez, this one. So, first things first, none of them would have been the "correct age." Did they all have exactly the same birthday at launch? We know this isn't true because they all arrived at the facility at 12. That means after six months of training, Dash would have been 13, and the rest would have been 12.5, past the acceptable time. Oh, except Chris and Rocket. They are allowed to be older because they have special things. If you are able to regress the age of people and have billions of dollars to go around, wouldn't you want to just de-age actually qualified people than a bunch of kids with only six months of training?
Fourthly, the raptogon scene. This went pretty much exactly how I was expecting, except for the actual extraction. You're telling me you've mastered faster than the speed of light travel but can't invent a tooth extractor/cutter? And them knocking the raptogon out rather than killing it was a pretty cheap way to add conflict later. Didn't see that coming. 🙄. Furthermore, why in the world would they be eating those vermint things as their primary food source? I'll break it down for you 💃: a T-rex (which is smaller than a raptogon) is thought to have eaten around 308lbs of meat per day. If we say vermints are the approximately the size of house cats, that would be about 31 vermints it would have to eat per day. This is completely unreasonable, and the amount of energy it would take to catch these things would outweigh the energy it got from eating them. For reference, the same weight could be gotten from only TWO deer. So eating larger prey would definitely be the move for it. That'd be like the T-rex hunting rats as its main food.
Fifthly, how problems among the crew start immediately. Gabriel flies the ship wrong, and Dash has to take over at one point, then it starts this whole, "who made you commander? 😡" issue. Literally everyone made him commander, yeah? That's his whole role. How is this even a question? And you'd think all that would have been ironed out in the very specific training they had for all of this.
Sixthly, Chris is this brilliant genious inventor but has nothing to tell him if he's alone? The ending was TERRIBLE. 😬
Honestly, I'm having a hard time thinking of any redeeming quality.
I know that we were supposed to hate Anna and all, and I did, so I guess I had a good time with what happened to her. 🤭. I did like the competitions overall, I guess.
STEAM was cute.
Cloud Leopard, Cloud Cat, and Light Blade are cool names.
These multi-platform series are really starting to loose steam, and I don't think this opener points to anything groundbreaking or extraordinary.
adventurous
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
4.5 - This book was so much fun and posed a very good question that very may well be asked in the coming years. It was very relevant, in my opinion, to deal with an energy supply crisis on Earth, and I think the book did it in a way that was still light-hearted and fun, which was impressive to me. All of the characters seemed fairly realistic and at least somewhat relatable, though there weren't any standouts. I also really appreciated all the diversity in this book among the characters. Ending on a mystery, I thought this book concluded well, but still left me wanting the next book