The Search for WondLa [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

So I picked up a copy of The Search for WondLa, mostly because I wanted a nice light little read and the cover reminded me very strongly of the originals of L. Frank Baum's books.

I am quite happy to say that the prose was strongly reminiscent of the Oz books as well. The story centers on Eva Nine as she is raised in isolation by a robot named Muthr (multi utility task help robot). When her life is upended by an alien hunter, strange adventures ensue, mostly centering around trying to find other humans and/or avoiding Besteel the alien hunter. After getting turned out of her home, the Sanctuary, they go looking for other humans in an alien world full of trees that look and act like anemones and water bear creatures that have a limited telepathy with humans.

The science involved is as soft as silken tofu, but since it isn't the main focus of the narrative (outside of a means to describe the setting) it didn't bother me.The primary focus is on Eva, Muthr and the first alien they meet, Rovender Kitts, and how they interact with each other. The difference in parenting style between Rovender and Muthr is especially noticeable, with the one advocating experimentation and exploration while the other one does most of the cautioning. It makes for an interesting subtext and one can see how Eva uses both learned traits to get herself out of trouble and elude capture.

It has the wide eyed wonder of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz coupled with the bleak and lonely setting of the opening scenes in Wall-E, especially during the beginning. It never truly loses that sense of wonderment no matter what trials Eva and company face although serious tragedy and tough dicisions are treated with the gravity that they should be. This is not a story about rebelling against authority or about fighting an epidemic or an invading force of Martians. This is a story about exploration and discovery, something I haven't seen in much science fiction these days. I found it to be a lovely change of pace.

Speaking of pacing, that's probably the one place where I would have something to say against this book. It does get a bit slow in some places, but for the most part, the places where the pace of the story slowed down made sense from the characters' mental and emotional state. When they got contemplative, the pace slowed and the narrative seemed to gain a softer feel to it.

A few more small details that I liked were some of the plays on names (Eva Nine = ninth Eve being the most obvious of them) and her shock of how inadequate Muthr's original cocoon parenting strategy initially was and some of the surprises at the end. There's a bit of focus on a reverse anthropology going on too (making the strange familiar) that makes the ending more interesting too. I'd pegged Eva's WondLa as somehow relating to The Wonderful Land of Oz (which actually occurred to me thirty pages into the book) and it was really interesting to see how that WondLa and the hope that Eva assigned to it shifted from being something concretely external into something more nebulously internal.

When trying to describe this book I kept coming up with "girly science fiction." After due consideration, I think that's the right term to describe it. And I think that the science fiction genre needs more more of it. One can only take so much bleak dystopia that can only be remedied with a liberal dose of testosterone fueled rebellion or desperation. Give me more wonder any day. ^_^

Twelve-year-old Eva Nine has spent her entire life living in Sanctuary, an underground compound where she is cared for by the motherly robot, Muthr (Multi-Utility Task Help Robot). She's never met another human nor visited the surface and she longs to do both, dreaming of a world - and of the companionship and love to be found there - that she's only seen glimpses of on scraps of paper. When Sanctuary is attacked, Eva is forced to escape to the surface alone, where she soon finds that the reality of life there is more amazing and puzzling than she ever imagined. It is also far more dangerous.

We share Eva's wonder and astonishment as she views the night sky for the first time and understand her fear when she first feels the heat of the sun on her skin and panics, thinking it will burn her. And it is those two things - wonder and fear - that drive much of the story. Eva is smart and brave, caring, curious and resourceful, but she is also young and inexperienced. The controlled amounts of knowledge that have been passed down to her prove to be woefully inadequate as well as either inaccurate or deliberately false (or perhaps a mixture of the two). It seems that everything Eva sees and experiences just leave her (and us) with more questions. Author Tony DiTerlizzi has done a very good job of allowing readers to share Eva's confusion and to be in on each discovery right along with her.

Because I found Eva so likeable and engagingly real, I really cared about her and wanted to share her journey as she sought to discover just who, what and where she is. Though I found the writing just a bit clunky at times and occasionally wished for the pace to pick up (possibly because I really, REALLY wanted to know what was going to happen!), my connection to Eva kept me involved in the story and certainly kept me turning the pages.

Lavishly illustrated (again by DiTerlizzi, whose artwork I so admired in Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, The Search for WondLa is also beautiful to look at. Through the art, DiTerlizzi not only shows us Eva's world, but beautifully conveys her wonder and curiosity as she discovers it. The drawings add tremendously to the whole, making The Search for WondLa not just a book but an experience.

The conclusion led me to believe that at least one sequel is planned (or had darned well better be). I'm already anxiously awaiting it.

Recommended.

Note: A very attractive website has been created for this book. There, readers can try out "WondLa-Vision" by holding certain pages of the book up to their webcam which activates an interactive 3D map. I don't have a webcam, so can't explore WondLa-Vision, but the demo on the website certainly looks intriguing! Visitors can also read or listen to an excerpt, play some games and download wallpapers, etc. This is a book website done right and I recommend a visit.

Paramount reportedly has optioned the film rights.

Note to Kindle owners: Because of the artwork in The Search for WondLa, this is one of those books that you may wish to consider purchasing in hardcover. Though it appears Kindle has done a good job of incorporating the artwork, IMHO, it can't match the "real" book.

I was on the lookout for a book which we could read together as a family and happened upon "The Search for WondLa" in the store. The summary on the book jacket looked interesting and the illustrations looked like they would grab the kids' attention. I was not disappointed on either of these points. Each day, we would read a chapter or two together and would get more and more wrapped-up in the story to the point that nobody could wait until it was "WandLa" time each day! The ending was emotional and satisfying (even my 9 year-old son was in tears) while making us anxious for the continuation.

In all, the author has done a fantastic job of creating a tale that is simultaneously enjoyable to a 5 year-old, a 9 year-old, and two grown adults.

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