Scifi / YA book idea: A Wish

I’ve started the Children’s Book Writing online course with Gotham.  I’m really enjoying it.  Our second homework assignment was to come up with a ‘problem’ and the characters and to work out a loose plot.  Below is what I came up with.  I picture this as a scifi book for YA readers.  My inspiration for this idea was while watching ‘Making the Band 4′ on MTV!  What do you think?  Sound interesting or not?

The main problem

A bizarre contest where the prize is one wish.  A wish for absolutely anything you want.  No matter how much money it takes or how much political influence or how fantastic.  Three teenagers are chosen that have such a strong desire for a particular wish, because any less means you go back to a life that was not worth living or not even livable.

The three challenges include:

1.  Find something

2.  Learn something

3.  Give up something

Movie Review: Doomsday (2008)

This film is about a deadly virus that breaks out in the UK and it’s controlled by containing everyone within.  There is another outbreak decades later, so they break into the original contaminated zone to find a cure as there are apparently survivors (thus those that are immune).  It’s sort of a cross between Mad Max, Andromeda Strain, and those action movies with the really tough, serious lead female. 

This film is supposed to be set in the future, but it doesn’t FEEL like it.  In fact there was next to no interesting technology in it.  I mean, I don’t HAVE to have it full with all kinds of gizmos, but everything was so basic that it could’ve been set TODAY. 

A weak film, disappointing for scifi / action genre – there are in fact few good ones unfortunately.  Gets a 5 out of 10.

AIR by Geoff Ryman

This book was a very unexpected surprise.  Lately I’ve gotten some real duds in the scifi area, but this one is a definite winner and I would like to even read it again.  Something I rarely do.

It’s in a completely fictional setting, but seemingly very realistic.  In a very small rural village in Karzistan (kept thinking of Khazakstan when reading.)  It’s a mix of cultures/races/religions – Chinese ethnic, Muslim, and an indiginous group called the Eloi.  The real and current day is woven in with the imaginary, making it seem a plausible place.

The general plot concerns the roll-out of the ultimate internet in that it is transmitted via the networks of everyone’s minds instead of computers.  Everyone can share everything simulateneously.  In a major cosmopolitan city the transition is relatively easy as everyone is already moving with the fast pace of technology.  But in this very small isolated area, the change is devastating and frightening and resisted. 

The story is narrated from the view of Mae, local self-made fashion expert.  She is not well-educated (she cannot read nor write), but very intelligent and capable nonetheless and is the first to embrace the new technology and realises its potential.  The story is told from her simple view, not someone who is completely familiar with technology, which makes it so interesting to read.

Give this one 9 out of 10.

Foreigner (Foreigner Universe Books) by C. J. Cherryh

Kindly go to Amazon to get a summary of the plot – and sadly enough the plot you read on Amazon is much more exciting than the book itself!  This book is just so painfully boring.  The first chapter seemed  promising.  A human has a first encounter with an alien – they don’t understand each other, they look totally different from each other, but they want to get to know each other better and even help each other in their own way - great excitement and tension.  I was initially hooked and interested to find out how this relationship would develop.  Then immediately downhill from there.  While it’s supposed to be in an alien world, it is more about the political aspects life of a diplomant.  Oh, and on a world that happens to be alien, which was secondary.

After reading some great reviews on Amazon about this series, I mistakenly took the plunge and bought the whole series.  Big mistake.  I simply do not see what everyone raves about here!  I just don’t!  And I am determined to read them ALL because I spent the damn money on it!  I know, just plain stubborn and dumb, right?

To make things even more annoying for me I just did a search on what other books she had written.  Because her name did, in fact, seem familiar, but I couldn’t place which book of hers I had read.  Turns out she is also author of Downbelow Station - another book I despised!  Aaaaaaggh!  Wanted to knock my head on the PC monitor when I saw this.

Don’t by this one!  Horrible!