Friday, June 06, 2008

Hulme and Wexler's The Seems: The Glitch in Sleep

Ambivalent about this one. There is going to be a massive series, I'm sure, and it's an incredibly convoluted fantasy that will appeal to my hard-core fantasy fans. I am going to field test this on some students today. Miss Reluctant Reader, who got two pages in, thought it was "stupid". She thinks everything is. She did like the shiny cover.

Becker Drane's life is boring, so he applies to be a "fixer". To his surprise, he gets hired and starts going between his life in the regular world (where his devious language arts teacher has assigned I Am The Cheese) and dealing with the details that keep the world running-- rain, sunsets, and eventually, a problem with everyone's sleep. Many gadgets are involved. The book has several appendices and a glossary but surprisingly, no maps.

This requires lots of thought, and has a lot of details. It gave me a headache, but so did Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which many of the boys adore. I need to ascertain whether this book makes this subgroup happy, or annoyed. Will report later on the field research.

There is a web site, but it's not as cool as the H.I.V.E. one:
http://www.theseems.com/

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