Michael Grant has spent much of his life on the move. Raised in a military family in the USA, he attended ten schools in five states, as well as three schools in France. Even as an adult he kept moving, and in fact he became a writer in part because it was one of the few jobs that wouldn t tie him down. His dream is to spend a whole year circumnavigating the globe and visiting every continent. He lives in Marin County, California, with his wife, Katherine Applegate, their two children, and far too many pets. You can visit him online at www.themichaelgrant.com."
Grant, who showed a flair for grandiose conceptual gambits in his
Gone series, here goes big by going small. With science as soft as
pudding (though, really, who cares, pudding is delicious), he
envisions nanotechnology so advanced that brains can be rewired,
memories manipulated, and senses hacked by robots and gene-spliced
creatures the size of dust mites. A war between two
ultra-secretive, competing ideologies one championing free will,
the other promising enforced happiness is being fought 'down in the
meat, ' and Grant gleefully exposes the biological ickiness of the
body going about its everyday business in paranoia-inducing scenes
of nanobots scuttling across spongy brain matter or plunging probes
into optic nerves. At the same time, he doles out eviscerating
loads of violence on the macro level as two teens are enlisted to
help stop a maniacal baddie and his team of 'twitchers, ' who are
planning to infiltrate the heads of the world's most powerful
nations. With simmering pots of sexual tension, near-nonstop
action, and the threat of howling madness or brain-melting doom
around every corpuscular corner, Grant's new series is off to a
breathless, bombastic start. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Grant's Gone
novels have catapulted him into best-sellerdom, but he's also one
of the savvier explorers of multiplatform attention grabs. An
elaborate assault of mobile gaming apps, tangential online stories
and comics, and an array of other interactive content all extend
his reach. --starred, Booklist-- "Journal" (3/15/2012 12:00:00
AM)
In the 21st century, war is covertly being waged and the fate of
humanity is at stake. The conjoined, middle-aged Armstrong Twins,
who head the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation, want all of
humanity to be as connected as they are. Rebelling against this
vision is a shadowy organization, BZRK, which is somehow linked to
McLure Industries. When Sadie McLure's brother and father die in a
mysterious plane crash, leaving her the heir to the company, the
16-year-old finds herself pulled into the conspiracy. She and
another gifted recruit, Noah, are trained by BZRK to fight with
biots-minuscule genetically engineered extensions of
themselves-against mechanical nanobots controlled by the teen
hackers of AFGC. Their success will determine society's future.
Grant cleverly blends the science of Michael Crichton with the
international espionage of Anthony Horowitz's 'Alex Rider' series
(Philomel) in a sci-fi thriller that will hook teens. There's
plenty of gore here, and frequent high-tension battles within and
between human hosts of nanobots and biots. No one in this war is a
hero, which keeps readers wondering if there really are 'good
guys.' This moral nuance doesn't extend to the Twins, described as
'Satan playing with DNA' and 'fused together in a way that made the
mind rebel.' This ableism mars an otherwise engaging novel, which
is the first in a series. --School Library Journal-- "Journal"
(7/1/2012 12:00:00 AM)
In Grant's (the Gone novels) launch of a SF spy series, when Sadie
McClure's father and brother are killed in a gruesome plane crash,
she is pulled into the titular secret organization her father ran,
fighting a war on the nanotechnological level to save humanity. All
members of the organization take names of people who famously went
insane, so the newly-minted Plath gets teamed with (and
romantically linked to) fellow recruit Keats. As they finesse their
skills of observation and precision, and learn the art of emotional
detachment, they are also trained to operate their 'biots, '
biomechanical extensions of themselves. The organization uses the
biots to fight the Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation. Silly name
aside, the latter organization has no scruples (their top recruit,
Bug Man, is a rapist and murderer). Grant doesn't shy from moral
compromises and brutal violence--heroes and villains alike suffer
death and dismemberment--but he also draws into sharp focus the
psychological toll that these events take on the characters. An
entertaining, smart thriller with a conclusion that points to the
next installment. --Publishers Weekly-- "Journal" (3/19/2012
12:00:00 AM)
Gr 9 Up-In a near future world, the megalomaniac, conjoined twin Armstrong brothers are working to develop a Nexus Humanus, a peaceful world society with only one problem: an absence of free will. Pitted against them is a group of teen hackers who call themselves BZRK. There are actually two battlefields: the macro leve, where traditional methods of warfare are used, and "in the meat," inside the brains of both battlers and world leaders. Those battles take place between nanobots and biots, mechanical and biological bits of nanotechnology controlled by "twitchers" that can rewire peoples' brains. And, if a biot dies, his controller goes mad. From the moment the high intensity music begins each disc, narrator Nico Evers-Swindell brings to light the tension of the high-stakes drama in Michael Grant's thriller (EgmontUSA, 2012). He provides realistic voices for the large multinational cast of characters, from Noah's low key British accent to Sadie's high class tough girl voice, from Ophelia's soft Indian lilt to Dietrich's precise German, with each character becoming instantly recognizable. This smart and complex story requires complete attention, and Evers-Swindell makes that easier by maintaining a high level of energy throughout.- Ann Brownson, Ballenger Teachers Center, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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