Tree Boy

by Madsen Pirie

“Theo had survived, but he doubted anyone else from the mission had. The explosion had ripped out half the ship’s side, taking most of the escape pods with it. He remembered his uncle’s face as he’d strapped Theo, against his wishes, into the one remaining escape pod while the ship was disintegrating about them."Now Theo is alone, the only human on a world of giant trees whose multiple trunks seemed to intertwine far above him and reach to the sky. Befriending Kareela, one of the forest creatures who call themselves “the People,” he has to learn the forest ways to survive until a rescue ship arrives.Taken into the Space Academy, Theo realizes that someone is trying to kill him, and when the cadets are assigned to care for the delegates at an intergalactic peace congress, Theo and his friends are plunged deeper into danger. It will take all of his forest skills if he is to survive the chaos that ensues as the world erupts into fire and ashes.

227 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 6, 2012

About the author

Born in Hull, Pirie is the son of Douglas Pirie and Eva Madsen. As a child, he attended the Humberstone Foundation School in Old Clee, Lincolnshire.

He graduated with an MA (undergraduate) in History from the University of Edinburgh (1970), with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of St Andrews (1974), and with an MPhil in Land Economy from Pembroke College, Cambridge (1997)

Before co-founding the Adam Smith Institute, Pirie worked for the United States House of Representatives. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the private Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, USA. Pirie was one of three Britons living in the United States who founded the Adam Smith Institute.

The Adam Smith Institute is a UK-based think tank that champions the ideas of free market policy. In January 2010 Foreign Policy and the University of Pennsylvania named the Adam Smith Institute among the top 10 think tanks in the world outside of the US. The Institute is "a pioneer of privatisation" in the UK and elsewhere. It has undertaken policy initiatives aimed at replacing state controls and monopolies with opportunities for competition choice in a broad area. The ASI proposed reforms in taxation, public services, transport and local government. It published Douglas Mason's original paper advocating a poll tax or community charge as it was later called.

His work in helping to develop the Citizen's Charter led to his appointment to the British Prime Minister John Major's Advisory Panel from 1991 to 1995.

Apart from his work with the Adam Smith Institute, Pirie is an author in several fields, including philosophy, economics, and science fiction.