Mars Evacuees. By Sophia
McDougall. Harper. $16.99.
The Last Dragon Charmer, Book 1: Villain
Keeper. By Laurie McKay. Harper. $16.99.
Whether told with humor or
the utmost seriousness, novels for readers ages 8-12 are frequently set in
locations deliberately designed to be as unlike everyday life as possible –
except that the protagonists are designed to be just like the readers, talking
like them and interacting with others as they do. The improbable mixtures are a
fact of fictional life in books whose underlying theme is that preteens, in
whatever world they may find themselves, can out-think, outsmart and outwit
adults at every turn. The particular world in Mars Evacuees is, as the title indicates, Mars, and if this is not
exactly the Mars known as Barsoom in the Edgar Rice Burroughs tales, it is not
precisely the one known to 21st-century scientists either. True,
there are some scientific discussions here, designed to create an aura of
plausibility: “Noctis Labyrinthus.
It’s a system of canyons by the equator at the west end of Valles Marineris – Mariner Valleys. It was formed by extensional
tectonics in the Noachian period and erosion by rivers and collapse of grabens
in the late Hesperian and Amazonian periods.” This material is, however, rather
spectacularly boring, as this sample indicates, and it is not at all the point
of Sophia McDougall’s book, the first of a two-book series. Of far greater
interest are the brave spacefighters of Earth; Alice, the 12-year-old narrator
of the book (whose mother is one of the boldest and best-known warriors); and
the alien Morrors – with whom humans have been at war for 15 years. As Alice
puts it, “Obviously I was scared of the Morrors, because you can’t see them and
they can kill you and obviously I really wished they would go away.”
Understandable, but then there wouldn’t be much of a book here. It seems that
the Morrors have been re-jiggering Earth’s climate to be more to their liking,
just as Earth has been re-jiggering the climate of Mars so humans can “sort of breathe the air and sort of not get sunburned to death.” The
ironic parallel is not noticed or significant here, though. What matters is
that as Earth continues to suffer through the lengthy war, some preteens are
evacuated to Mars, where their schooling is handled by robots that (as is often
the case in science fantasy) have more personality than most of the humans. However,
“there’s only a few hundred people on the whole planet, and most of them are
us,” one student points out, so of course it falls to the young people to make
an uneasy sort of peace with the Morrors and eventually get the two races to
cooperate “when the solar system’s infested with planet-eating bugs,” the sort
of menace that makes former enemies into allies and opens the door to this
book’s planned sequel. McDougall has a light touch that shows she is well aware
of the absurdity of what she is writing, and the eruptions of humor (much of it
appropriately juvenile) make Mars
Evacuees more enjoyable than many other fantasy adventure books for
preteens. It is impossible to take the book seriously, of course, but McDougall
provides plenty of nudges and hints that indicate she knows that – and even the
characters sometimes seem on the verge of figuring it out as well.
Villain Keeper, on the other hand, is very serious indeed. However,
it too follows a familiar pattern for fantasy adventures, being set in a world
that is obviously make-believe and one that is, or seems to be, the everyday
world of the readers. Specifically, the story here is of Prince Caden of the
Great Winterlands of Razzon, who is expected to become a dragon slayer, just
like his seven older brothers. That sounds like a traditional fairy-tale setup,
and it is. But there is a wrinkle – not in time but in geography. The prince
suddenly and mysteriously finds himself in the “real” world of Asheville, North
Carolina, a city decidedly lacking in magic and dragons. What is going on?
Well, of course it will turn out that Asheville is not so mundane as it seems
to be; in fact, as one villain from Caden’s own land explains to Caden, “The
locals call Asheville the Land of the Sky. …But I and the other teachers, we
call it the Land of Shadow, the land of the banished. …I’ll admit…it’s nicer
than advertised. One of the better prisons I’ve known. You worry about me, but
there are twenty-four others banished here just like me.” Yes, 24 villains from
Caden’s realm in North Carolina, all of them teachers – there’s a preteen fantasy for you – and making
statements that are “like the web of a Korvan spiderbird, sticky and full of
bloodsucking traps.” And then there is the small matter of dragon slaying:
somewhere along the line, Caden starts to suspect that maybe that is not what he is supposed or destined, to
do. There is also the small matter of Tito, the “real-world” boy and another
12-year-old, with whom Caden is staying in a foster home. There is considerable
opportunity for amusement in Caden’s attempts to adjust to the “real” world and
figure it out, but Laurie McKay is not much interested in humor: she wants
adventure, and she serves it up through a series of mysteries – not only how
and why Caden is in North Carolina, and how and why the villains of his land
are there as well, but also whether there really are dragons about and, by the
way, who the mysterious “she” is that all the banished evildoers (those that
are now teachers) seem to fear. To be sure, there are glints of amusement in Villain Keeper from time to time:
“Caden’s pocket, the one containing his phone, began to shake. Truly, he
preferred the loud music to the buzzing. Any person who’d ever felt the
debilitating sting of a Razzon crater wasp would feel the same.” But by and
large, McKay stays on the straight-and-narrow road of fantasy adventure in this
first book of a planned series, setting out various scenarios and introducing
various characters that she will surely explore at greater length in the
future. There is nothing especially innovative or unusual in this start of The Last Dragon Charmer sequence, but as
easy-to-read escapism for all the would-be Cadens out there, it is just fine.
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