From Publishers Weekly
Hugo- and Nebula-winner Brin paves the way for his new YA series Colony High (co-written with Jeff Carlson) with a somewhat clumsy story of teen adventure. Except for the nearby air base and top secret Cirocco Labs, Twenty-Nine Palms High isn't much different from most high schools—until the Math Club geeks make first contact with a stranded alien. Teenage military brat Mark Bam Bamford and his friends rescue the E.T., Na-bistaka, from an ugly life as a sideshow and turn it over to Cirocco, but it turns out that Na-bistaka's race, the Garubis, are far from grateful. They repay humanity in a backwards and insulting fashion, leaving the Twenty-Nine Palms students struggling to survive the new dangers that confront them. While it's not much of a stand-alone story, this wispy tale does successfully outline Colony High characters and backstory. Brin completists will be willing to pony up despite the slimness of the volume; others should wait for the first real novel in the series.
(Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Mark Bamford doesn't believe the rumors that the math club at Twenty-Nine Palms High School has an alien hidden in one of the members' homes—until he sees it himself. Mark knows that the alien needs government resources to survive and communicate, so he sacrifices his social life to inform government agents and the press, opening the big dialogue about first contact to the world. Fellow aliens, when they arrive to collect their stray, are hilariously rude and, to redress the debt they reluctantly acknowledge, transplant the high school to another planet to form a colony. They fail to explain this "gift," though, so those back on Earth believe the students have been disintegrated. Brin's punchy, fast-paced narrative, hampered slightly by asides on human nature and some lapses in the aliens' credibility, sets up the premise of a prospective series and leaves readers at a critical juncture. Scott Hampton's crisp black-and-white illustrations, printed at high contrast, pop from the page. In the afterword, Brin promises further Colony High adventures, to be coauthored by Jeff Carlson. Hutley, Krista
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