'Scavenger: Zoid' by Paul Stewart

 

Paul Stewart has once again teamed up with Muddle Earth playmate Chris Riddell on this new series 'Scavenger'. The beautiful, detailed, crisp and instantly recognisable work of Mr Riddell wonderfully complements the story, so why, oh why didn't Macmillan use him for the cover? I wont name the artist they used as (s)he hasn't done a bad job. To be honest, as someone who does illustration is quite obvious what has happened. They've been given copies of Chris' work to show them what the characters look like and then were stuck having to try and make their artwork look like Chris'! The results although fine, do come across as a pale copy. It's like you coloured in Chris' work then looked at it through a murky window. Really disappointing.
But once inside Chris' glorious drawing of the Biosphere with it's minute, intricate detail that just blows your mind...What? You don't know what the Biosphere is? Oh yes, I went off on a rant about art and haven't said a thing about the book!
So the story of Zoid is set in a far away future, basically we (the Humans) have ruined the Earth beyond repair and decided that we needed a new planet. So we created the Biosphere an enormous planet shaped space ship to hold life for however long it may take to find a suitable planet to colonise. All was fine for some time until all the robots (or Zoids) that worked on the ship doing all the menial tasks for the humans revolted and took over the ship and killed everyone they could find. Many years after that, small bands of humans that are left live deep within the Biosphere trying to stay alive. The main character York (a 14 year old boy) is a scavenger (hence the title of the series) who leaves the Inpost to look for bits of anything that they can use and destroy Zoids.
Ok, here comes a spoiler (but not a big one). Right near the start the Zoids attack the Inpost and drag everyone away. York then sets off on a journey to save them encountering all sorts of creatures and other 'tribes' of hiding humans.
The book is designed for that 9-12 age range so there's nothing too gritty or offensive (obviously), is quite short and easy to read. Each chapter is only a few pages long and each ends with a cliff-hanger that makes you keep on reading no matter what you are meant to be doing! The book is a lot of fun and a really great read. Yes the main character is a boy, but there is also a strong female lead who comes into the story about halfway through (I'm not giving anything away, she's on that so-so cover!) so not necessary a boys-own type story. The story ends well, so even though the book has a series title if no more are ever written you aren't left feeling deflated. But I really hope there will be.
Yes, it's for kids, but it's great. Like that guilty pleasure of watching Doctor who.