Self-discovery at heart of sci-fi series
Being an adolescent is hard enough, even if your only challenges are social media bullies and the mysterious tides and tumults of hormonal change. But for the gang of young people at the centre of local author Shawn Gale’s series of science fiction novels, that’s just the beginning. They are swept onto a new planet, the World of Dawn, where they have to cope with giant scorpions, huge flying predators, ravening wolf packs, sandstorms, poisoned rivers and evil human antagonists. I can hardly wait for the movie version.
The kids at the centre of all this action are associated with Halton House, a Pacific Coast therapeutic community. The three boys have all ended up there because of trouble with the law. Two girls, Anna and Tabby, are nieces of the Halton House founder Brad Conroy. They are all in a vehicle that somehow gets swept into a dimensional tunnel of some sort and find themselves on World of Dawn, a planet with a crimson sun and three enormous moons, not to mention all the monstrous fauna and scary human inhabitants.
Before long the kids have experienced a tragic loss in the death of a beloved adult, Carol, and seen the only other adult in their party of interstellar castaways, Brad Conroy, so badly injured he cannot accompany them on a quest to find a way to return to Earth.
The scene is set for a classic re-working of many quest and self-discovery themes as the young people bicker and quarrel when not fighting off the lethal dangers on offer around every bend in the trail they are following in search of a way home. They all learn important lessons about themselves and each other, and bond in mutual support. This may sound a bit twee, but it happens in the context of vividly described battles and chases and the deftly portrayed action keeps the pop psychology elements from over-cloying.
No one will mistake these books for literary masterpieces. Some of the dialogue and narrative voice ends up being a bit awkward and unpersuasive. Nonetheless, the action is brisk and entertaining and will doubtless please many young readers. Two more World of Dawn books are promised soon, and Gale is reportedly at work on a screenplay based on book one. This is a series that will find a faithful and enthusiastic audience, on the page and on screen.