A-Wolf

by Ben Lees

Last night fire fell from the sky.

In two days' time it will fall again.

Today thirteen year-old Alex wakes to find the news full of reports of meteorites striking major world cities. Despite the devastation it all seems a world away from affecting him in his quiet home in the countryside. But when another shower of meteorites strikes his village Alex suddenly finds himself plunged into the centre of a secret group's desperate struggle against an otherworldly threat to blackmail the entire world.

Transported to the streets of a New York still reeling from the strikes, Alex must face new threats from the sinister Approximations and their mysterious masters. With the uncertain help of a girl named Star, a shadowy, unseen figure known as "Blue" and a suit packed with highly advanced technology Alex must rise to a challenge that will take him halfway across the world - and beyond.

It's time for him to become A-Wolf.

149 pages, ebook

First published May 4, 2014

About the author

Ben Lees is the author of two young adult science fiction adventure ebooks, A-Wolf and recently-released sequel, Tenebrae about young teenager Alex Wolfe who is unexpectedly caught up in a secret organisation's struggle against an alien threat, transforming him into the heroic "A-Wolf" in the process. He is currently working on a third volume in the series. He is also the author of The New Breed, a science fiction thriller novella set in the futuristic city of Promontory.

Born in 1968, Ben is the father of two young sons and lives in the heart of rural Aberdeenshire, UK. A keen reader since he was a child, Ben has read The Hobbit at least six times and is currently spending some of his time catching up on some of the books he feels he should really have read by now, including having finally finished all of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. His 2016 reading ambition is to read all the other Bronte novels he's been meaning to get round to all these years. As well as that, he has also promised himself he will try to finish the rest of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series sometime as a personal treat. He has also resolved to update his Goodreads current reading status more diligently next year...

Ben has also posted some short fiction including Information Gathering, a further story about Alex Wolfe and a science fiction story, Waypoint Five. Both are available free on Goodreads.

Reviews

[Kenneth Valentine · Rating 4 out of 5]

When his small town home in Scotland is nearly destroyed in a meteorite shower, 13 year old Alex suddenly finds himself transported to a secret government facility and swept up into the role of a high tech superhero. An alien race is using sophisticated weapons to pummel the planet in the hopes of blackmailing the people of earth into giving them the resources they desire. But Alex soon finds out that earth has a few weapons of its own! Aided by his new friends Carl, Star and the mysterious "Blue" , Alex is drawn into the covert battle to find out who the aliens are and what they really want. "A-Wolf" is a fun story that reads like a comic book. Ben Lees economical and fast paced writing style lends itself well to this type of tale. There's not a lot of time for character development or an elaborate back story, just lots of action and adventure, with a definite sci-fi tilt. "A-Wolf" is a fast, fun read with a "comic-like" feel that should appeal to YA readers who like superhero action, without a lot of heavy violence.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun super hero teen read. It is the story of an ordinary teen who falls into a seies of extraordinary circumstances from Scotland to the States; meeting all manner of interesting characters along the way. I found the concerpts,-alien technology that the author came up with to be plausible and presented in such a way as to not bog the book down with 'technical facts'. I can see that the author could easily write a sequel or possibly turn it into a series. Overall, a quick, fun, exciting, read.