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5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming SF tale, Aug 8 2002
There's a distinct lack of good science fiction that kids can read, aside from the "Tripod" books and the juvenile reprint of "Ender's Game." H.M. Hoover's "Orvis" helps fill that gaping vacancy -- charming, smart, without being too technically-obsessed.Toby is the daughter of a pair of self-absorbed actors who are too busy to be with her, and lives at the Academy under the thumb of her domineering grandmother. One day she meets someone like her: A four-hundred-year-old, very sardonic, very ugly robot called ORVIS, survivor of several of his masters and now ordered to scrap himself at a local junkyard. After a few talks with Toby and her best friend, lonely rich kid Thaddeus, Orvis comes to stay with Toby. But the teachers at the Academy don't want Orvis around: He's a very old model, capable of thinking for himself and making his own choices and decisions, and so they deem him "dangerous." They attempt to scrap him again. But Toby has had enough, having received the news that her grandmother wants her to go to school on Mars. She, Thaddeus and Orvis set off towards her great-grandmother's isolated home, but are hijacked by criminals. The three of them are left stranded in the wasteland between cities known as the Empty. "Orvis" is an entertaining book, with a small, tight cast and a good storyline. The future world of "Orvis" is pretty similar in most ways to our world, technically advanced but in essentials very much like modern-day Earth. The biggest differences are in the layout of the future Earth, which has isolated, luxurious cities surrounded by lawless wastelands, and in the robots, most of which are intelligent but utterly docile. The book falls down in a few areas: the descriptions are a little too stark, and I felt that the insensitive decision to send Toby to Mars would have been more effective if we had SEEN her grandmother telling her. Toby is a sympathetic character to any kid who has felt ignored by his/her parents, or a loner at a school full of cliques. Thaddeus is a little overshadowed by Toby, and never is as well-developed or inidividualized, but he's a nice sidekick as well. It's Orvis who really steals the show: He's sarcastic, grumpy, smart, blunt in his speech, and naive about such things as killing birds. He's a sort of melding of the two droids in "Star Wars," and readers will love him. "Orvis" has a few places where it lags, but overall it's an entertaining and fast-paced little SF adventure. Definitely one to read.
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