Recruits

January 1, 2017
Twins Dillon and Sean discover their childhood fantasy of an otherworldly train station is reality and their gateway to a new life in a galactic civilization.The 17-year-old Raleigh-Durham white boys have been drawing the station for 10 years. When Col. Carver, a battle-scarred, brown-skinned new neighbor, shows them how to travel there using a magical force within themselves, the duo's eager to pass his tests and train to use their powers. However, Earth's a seldom-visited outpost planet in the Human Assembly; and the test administrator, a black man named Tirian, is set against their passing any tests. Although the boys are attacked twice by inimical forces, Carver and his superiors don't believe the boys' account of events because of what it means to interplanetary peace; they blame Tirian, who becomes a wanted man. Though the boys are much older and more powerful than the other students, they enter the school formerly administered by Tirian to train, prove their story, and clear their former adversary's name. Though marketed as sci-fi, Locke's trilogy-starter is more fantasy the likes of the early Pern novels by Anne McCaffrey. Science is supplanted by a magical faith/force (though the faith is not necessarily Christian). Though the plot is slow and logically muddy at times, the twins' banter feels real, and these sparks carry the tale of good vs. evil to a successful, if a bit anticlimactic, close. Harry Potter and Star Wars tossed in a blender: it's not particularly fresh or innovative, but it's a passable enough second-tier purchase. (Fantasy. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2017

Gr 7 Up-Twins Sean and Dillon Kirrell are on the cusp of 18. The mysterious Carver moves in next door. Hardened, physically imposing, and gruff, he intimidates and intrigues the twins. Inside Carver's house, Sean and Dillon discover a portal to another dimension. Earth is merely a lonely outpost in a human-dominated galaxy that is ruled by powers yet incomprehensible to the brothers. While the premise is intriguing, the execution is weak. Despite the well-drawn imagery, exposition overwhelms every page, and perspectives switch constantly. Locke (a pseudonym for Davis Bunn) co-opts phrases from Star Wars and The Matrix; Carver describes the lowercase "force" as the energy surrounding them, there is an ominous "Empire" exercising control over the galaxy, and the twins are threatened with "mind-wiping" if they cannot successfully complete the training Carver has been sent to administer. Additionally, depictions of race and gender are problematic. Carver is confusingly depicted as "dark-complexioned, like he'd been blasted by some foreign sun for so long that his skin was permanently stained." Examiner Tirian, one of Carver's counterparts, is "tall and black, not normal African-American dark-skinned" and "angry." Though these portrayals are of non-Earth humans, they are clunky and perplexing. The main female character, Carey Havilland, is a "lyrical beauty," and readers first see her through the male gaze. The twins step into a heated argument between Carey and an ex-boyfriend; the confrontation predictably and troublingly ends with Dillon's violent punishment of the boy to save Carey, whom the author later refers to as a "damsel in distress." VERDICT Pass on this fragile sci-fi foray.-Chelsea Woods, New Brunswick Free Public Library, NJ

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.