What do you think?
Rate this book
Mars Evacuees #1
Mars Evacuees
The fact that someone had decided I’d be safer on Mars, where you could still only SORT OF breathe the air and SORT OF not get sunburned to death, was a sign that the war with the aliens was not going fantastically well.
When Alice Dare finds out that she's being evacuated to Mars to join the youth defence force, she isn't sure what to expect. But it sure wasn't being shot at, chased by invisible aliens, befriending a robot goldfish – and then having to save the galaxy!
A stellar new adventure sci-fi series, perfect for fans of Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl .
When Alice Dare finds out that she's being evacuated to Mars to join the youth defence force, she isn't sure what to expect. But it sure wasn't being shot at, chased by invisible aliens, befriending a robot goldfish – and then having to save the galaxy!
A stellar new adventure sci-fi series, perfect for fans of Percy Jackson and Artemis Fowl .
421 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 27, 2014
26 people are currently reading
1294 people want to read
About the author
Sophia McDougall
26 books54 followersSophia McDougall (born 1979) is a British novelist, playwright, and poet, who studied at Oxford University in England.
She is best known as the author of the alternate history trilogy Romanitas, in which the Roman Empire still exists in contemporary times. She is also the author of Mars Evacuees and Space Hostages - sci-fi adventures for children (and everyone else who likes spaceships.)
She is best known as the author of the alternate history trilogy Romanitas, in which the Roman Empire still exists in contemporary times. She is also the author of Mars Evacuees and Space Hostages - sci-fi adventures for children (and everyone else who likes spaceships.)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews
July 16, 2015
I’ve a nasty habit of finishing every children’s book I start, no matter how dull or dire it might be. I am sort of alone in this habit, which you could rightly call unhealthy. After all, most librarians understand that their time on this globe is limited and that if they want to read the greatest number of excellent books in a given year, they need to hold off on spending too much time devouring schlock and just skip to the good stuff. So it is that with my weird predilection for completion I am enormously picky when it comes to what I read. If I’m going to spend time with a book, I want to feel like I’m accomplishing something, not slogging through it. My reasoning is that not all books are good from the get-go. Some take a little time to get going, you know? It might take 50 pages before you’re fully on board, so I always give the book the benefit of the doubt. Some books, however, have the quintessential strong first page. They are books that are so smart and good and worthy that you feel that you are maximizing your time on this globe by merely being in their presence. Such is the case with Mars Evacuees. A sci-fi middle grade novel that encompasses everything from gigantic talking floating goldfish to PG discussions of alien sex, this is one of those books you might easily miss out on. Stellar from the first sentence on.
At first it seemed like a good thing that the aliens had come. When you’ve got a planet nearly decimated by global warming, it doesn’t sound like such a bad deal when aliens start telling you they’ve got a way to cool down the planet. The trouble is, they didn’t STOP cooling it down. Turns out the Morrors are looking for a new home and if it doesn’t quite suit their needs they’ll adapt it until it does. Earth has fought back, of course, and so now we’re all trapped in a huge space battle of epic proportions. Alice Dare’s mother is the high flying hero Captain Dare, killer of aliens everywhere. But all Alice knows is that she’s being shipped off with a load of other kids to Mars. The idea is that they’ll be safe there and will be able to finish their education in space until they’re old enough to become soldiers. And everything seems to be going fine and dandy . . . until the adults all disappear. Now Alice and her friends are in the company of a cheery robot goldfish and must solve a couple mysteries along the way. Things like, where are the adults? What are those space locust-like creatures they’ve found on Mars? And most important of all, what happens when you encounter the enemy and it’s not at all like you thought it would be?
The first sentence of any book is a tricky proposition. You want to intrigue but not give too much away. Too brash and the book can’t live up to it. Too mild and people are snoring before you even get to the period. Here’s what McDougall writes: “When the polar ice advanced as far as Nottingham, my school was closed and I was evacuated to Mars.” I could not help but be reminded of the first line of M.T. Anderson’s Feed when I read that (“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck”). But it’s not just her first sentence that’s admirable. In a scant nine pages the entire premise of the book is laid out for us. Aliens came. People are fighting them. And now the kids are being evacuated to Mars. Badda bing, badda boom. What I didn’t realize when I was first reading the book, though, was that this chapter is very much indicative of the entire novel. There is a kind of series bloat going on in children’s middle grade novels these days. Books with wild premises and high stakes are naturally assumed to be the first in a series. There’s a bit of a whiff of Ender’s Game and The White Mountains about this book when you look at the plot alone, and so you assume that like so many similar titles it’ll either end on a cliffhanger, or it’ll solve the immediate problem, but save the bigger issue for later on. It was only as I got closer and closer to the end that I realized that McDougall was doing something I almost never encounter in science fiction books these days: She was tying up loose ends. It got to the point where I reached the end of the book and found myself in the rare position of realizing that this was, of all things, a standalone science fiction novel. Do they even make those anymore? I’m not saying you couldn’t write a sequel to this book if you didn’t want to. When McDougall becomes a household name you can bet there will be a push for more adventures of Alice, Carl, Josephine and Thsaaa. But it works all by itself with a neat little beginning, middle, and an end. How novel!
For all that, McDougall cuts through the treacle with her storytelling, I was very admiring of the fact that she never sacrifices character in the process of doing so. Carl, for example, should by all rights be two-dimensional. He’s the wacky kid who doesn’t play by the rules! The trickster with a heart of gold. But in this book McDougall also makes him a big brother. He’s got his bones to pick, just as Josephine (filling in the brainy Hermione-type role with aplomb) has personal issues with the aliens that go beyond the usual you-froze-my-planet grudge. Even the Goldfish, perky robot that he is, seems to have limits on his patience. He’s also American for some reason, a fact I shall choose not to read too much into, except maybe to say that if I were casting this as a film (which considering the success of Home, the adaptation of Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday, isn’t as farfetched as you might think) I’d like to hear him voiced by Patton Oswalt. But I digress.
When tallying up the total number of books written for kids between the ages of 9-12 that discuss the intricacies of alien sex, I admit that I stop pretty much at one. This one. And normally that wouldn’t fly in a book for kids but McDougall is so enormously careful and funny that you really couldn’t care less. Her aliens are fantastic, in part because, like humans, there’s a lot of variety amongst them. This is an author who cares about world building but also doesn’t luxuriate in it for long periods of time. She’s not trying to be the Tolkien of space here. She’s trying to tell a good story cleanly and succinctly.
The fact that it’s funny to boot is the real reason it stands out, though. And I don’t mean it’s “funny” in that it’s mildly droll and knows how to make a pun. I mean there are moments when I actually laughed out loud on a New York subway train. How could I not? This is a book that can actually get away with lines like “If you didn’t want me to build flamethrowers you shouldn’t have taught me the basic principles when I was six.” Or “It was a good time in Earth’s history to be a polar bear. Unless the rumors were true about the Morrors eating them.” Or “Luckily I don’t throw up very easily, but it made me feel as if I was being hit lightly but persistently all over with tablespoons.” That’s the kind of writing I enjoy. Silly and with purpose.
So it’s one part Lord of the Flies in space (please explain to me right now why no one has ever written a book called “Space Lord of the Flies”), one part Smekday, and a lot like those 1940s novels where the kids get evacuated during WWII and find a kind of hope and freedom they never would have encountered at home. It’s also the most fun you’ll encounter in a long time. That isn’t to say there isn’t the occasional dark or dreary patch. But once this book starts rolling it’s impossible not to enjoy the ride. For fans of the funny, fans of science fiction, and fans of books that are just darn good to the last drop.
For ages 9-12.
At first it seemed like a good thing that the aliens had come. When you’ve got a planet nearly decimated by global warming, it doesn’t sound like such a bad deal when aliens start telling you they’ve got a way to cool down the planet. The trouble is, they didn’t STOP cooling it down. Turns out the Morrors are looking for a new home and if it doesn’t quite suit their needs they’ll adapt it until it does. Earth has fought back, of course, and so now we’re all trapped in a huge space battle of epic proportions. Alice Dare’s mother is the high flying hero Captain Dare, killer of aliens everywhere. But all Alice knows is that she’s being shipped off with a load of other kids to Mars. The idea is that they’ll be safe there and will be able to finish their education in space until they’re old enough to become soldiers. And everything seems to be going fine and dandy . . . until the adults all disappear. Now Alice and her friends are in the company of a cheery robot goldfish and must solve a couple mysteries along the way. Things like, where are the adults? What are those space locust-like creatures they’ve found on Mars? And most important of all, what happens when you encounter the enemy and it’s not at all like you thought it would be?
The first sentence of any book is a tricky proposition. You want to intrigue but not give too much away. Too brash and the book can’t live up to it. Too mild and people are snoring before you even get to the period. Here’s what McDougall writes: “When the polar ice advanced as far as Nottingham, my school was closed and I was evacuated to Mars.” I could not help but be reminded of the first line of M.T. Anderson’s Feed when I read that (“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck”). But it’s not just her first sentence that’s admirable. In a scant nine pages the entire premise of the book is laid out for us. Aliens came. People are fighting them. And now the kids are being evacuated to Mars. Badda bing, badda boom. What I didn’t realize when I was first reading the book, though, was that this chapter is very much indicative of the entire novel. There is a kind of series bloat going on in children’s middle grade novels these days. Books with wild premises and high stakes are naturally assumed to be the first in a series. There’s a bit of a whiff of Ender’s Game and The White Mountains about this book when you look at the plot alone, and so you assume that like so many similar titles it’ll either end on a cliffhanger, or it’ll solve the immediate problem, but save the bigger issue for later on. It was only as I got closer and closer to the end that I realized that McDougall was doing something I almost never encounter in science fiction books these days: She was tying up loose ends. It got to the point where I reached the end of the book and found myself in the rare position of realizing that this was, of all things, a standalone science fiction novel. Do they even make those anymore? I’m not saying you couldn’t write a sequel to this book if you didn’t want to. When McDougall becomes a household name you can bet there will be a push for more adventures of Alice, Carl, Josephine and Thsaaa. But it works all by itself with a neat little beginning, middle, and an end. How novel!
For all that, McDougall cuts through the treacle with her storytelling, I was very admiring of the fact that she never sacrifices character in the process of doing so. Carl, for example, should by all rights be two-dimensional. He’s the wacky kid who doesn’t play by the rules! The trickster with a heart of gold. But in this book McDougall also makes him a big brother. He’s got his bones to pick, just as Josephine (filling in the brainy Hermione-type role with aplomb) has personal issues with the aliens that go beyond the usual you-froze-my-planet grudge. Even the Goldfish, perky robot that he is, seems to have limits on his patience. He’s also American for some reason, a fact I shall choose not to read too much into, except maybe to say that if I were casting this as a film (which considering the success of Home, the adaptation of Adam Rex’s The True Meaning of Smekday, isn’t as farfetched as you might think) I’d like to hear him voiced by Patton Oswalt. But I digress.
When tallying up the total number of books written for kids between the ages of 9-12 that discuss the intricacies of alien sex, I admit that I stop pretty much at one. This one. And normally that wouldn’t fly in a book for kids but McDougall is so enormously careful and funny that you really couldn’t care less. Her aliens are fantastic, in part because, like humans, there’s a lot of variety amongst them. This is an author who cares about world building but also doesn’t luxuriate in it for long periods of time. She’s not trying to be the Tolkien of space here. She’s trying to tell a good story cleanly and succinctly.
The fact that it’s funny to boot is the real reason it stands out, though. And I don’t mean it’s “funny” in that it’s mildly droll and knows how to make a pun. I mean there are moments when I actually laughed out loud on a New York subway train. How could I not? This is a book that can actually get away with lines like “If you didn’t want me to build flamethrowers you shouldn’t have taught me the basic principles when I was six.” Or “It was a good time in Earth’s history to be a polar bear. Unless the rumors were true about the Morrors eating them.” Or “Luckily I don’t throw up very easily, but it made me feel as if I was being hit lightly but persistently all over with tablespoons.” That’s the kind of writing I enjoy. Silly and with purpose.
So it’s one part Lord of the Flies in space (please explain to me right now why no one has ever written a book called “Space Lord of the Flies”), one part Smekday, and a lot like those 1940s novels where the kids get evacuated during WWII and find a kind of hope and freedom they never would have encountered at home. It’s also the most fun you’ll encounter in a long time. That isn’t to say there isn’t the occasional dark or dreary patch. But once this book starts rolling it’s impossible not to enjoy the ride. For fans of the funny, fans of science fiction, and fans of books that are just darn good to the last drop.
For ages 9-12.
February 17, 2015
Opens: When the polar ice advanced as far as Nottingham, my school was closed and I was evacuated to Mars
Earth has been invaded by invisible aliens called Morror. They like things cold so settle in the polar icecaps – trouble is they are extending the ice caps and the liveable area for humans is getting less, so now war has broken out between the two groups. Scientists are in the process of terraforming Mars but it is not quite ready for permanent human habitation. Still it is decided that 300 children aged between 8 and 16 should be sent to Mars anyway – doesn’t matter that there is not enough oxygen or that the sun can burn you to a crisp. Twelve-year-old Alice Dare is one of the 300 – her mother is a war hero flying ace battling the enemy and her father is also on the frontline.
The sending of the children to Mars is very reminiscing of the evacuations of children from London to the country during WWII. Only instead of being billeted out to people’s homes when they arrive on Mars the kids come under the care of a handful of Scientists, military personnel and some teacher robots such as a giant Teddy Bear who makes 7-year-olds cry and an annoyingly cheerful mechanical Goldfish that will shoot you with lasers if you don’t do your homework. The idea is that the children will be trained in warfare and when they come of age they will be sent back to earth to join the war effort. On the flight to Mars Alice befriended the odd Josephine, more by accident than design, Josephine has victim written all over her when it comes to being picked on by the other kids. They also strike up a sort of friendship with Carl and his younger brother Neil. The alliance comes in useful when the adults suddenly all disappear and the older kids take over the base, the situation quickly disintegrate into a Lord of the Flies type scenario. Finding themselves kicked off the base Alice, Josephine, Carl and Neil steal a spaceship and take off, along with the Goldfish robot which constantly wants them to do their homework, to try to get to the nearest base to find help. This is when the adventure really starts!
MARS EVACUEES is a very clever, action-filled, space adventure that had me on the edge of my seat more than once. LOVED Goldfish. The kids were all very believable – taking into consideration that they were braniacs and brave so not likely to end up in whimpering piles. They did adult things as a child would, and were still innocent enough to be more accepting of the weird and wonderful than adults – and I really liked that the distinction was made rather than falling into the trap making the kids do things that wouldn’t have come naturally. There are a few sub-plots going on – and lots of humour, including ‘gallows humour’ as the kids will face dire consequences if things go belly up. A fun yet meaningful space opera for middle school with enough hidden messages to keep an English teacher happy.
April 25, 2015
First posted on Views from the Tesseract: https://shanshad1.wordpress.com/2015/...
Alice Dare is going to Mars. She’s not entirely sure she wants to go (even if she does want to escape the Muckling Abbot School for Girls). Mars isn’t exactly human friendly just yet. It’s only partially safe for humans. Only some of the air is breathable. But the Emergency Earth Coalition has declared that Alice, along with a group of other kids, will be evacuated to Mars where they will live and be schooled by robot teachers and live in the relative safety of the planet away from the ongoing war.
Welcome to the future, where the aliens have invaded and are trying to take over. The humans are putting up a good fight, but things are not going as well as they would like. Alice’s mom is one of the star fighter pilots when it comes to battling the invaders– and that’s the reason Alice is part of the group heading to the red planet. All the other young teens and tweens that are a part of the trip come from different parts of the world–many from the families of the elite in the Coalition. Now this select group of young people are all going to have to live together and learn together on a new planet. And as you might expect isn’t long before things go wrong. The adults vanish. Chaos reigns. Alice and her friends are caught out on the Martian landscape trying to survive they might just have to find common ground with their long-time enemies in order to combat an even greater threat to the entire solar system.
Science fiction adventure that’s a wild ride of danger, daring and delight. We have Alice with her rather dry sense of humor and observation, quirky Josephine who just can’t help taking things apart, reckless Carl who loves to show off and his younger brother Noel whose intuitive compassion for other creatures comes in handy. Add to that an aggressively optimistic Goldfish teaching robot, two sets of aliens and a lot of surprises and it’s just the sort of bang-up read I love. I admit I’ve been waiting and waiting for this book since I learned it was being published in Britain last year. And I was not disappointed when I finally got my hands on a copy. Our characters are satisfyingly complex, and our main alien enemies are not so simple a “bad guy” to contemplate. No bug-eyed monsters here. The Morrors are another intricate race from out in the galaxy and their needs and goals are not simply broad villainy and destruction. And really, can you name me a book that discusses alien reproduction that involves more than a male/female binary and yet manages to keep it firmly middle grade?
Sophia McDougall pulls off a great story from the first-person perspective of Alice. The writing is strong and well balanced between description, explanation and dialog. The book never gets bogged down in long histories or reflective passages, preferring to keep readers moving with the characters through their adventure. It’s a great science fiction book to hand any reader who enjoys a good story–even if they haven’t read science fiction before. Beautifully accessible for middle grade readers, upbeat and ultimately positive in its resolution–this is the kind of science fiction I’ve been hoping to see more of for a long time.
Can’t wait to see what the author has in store next!
Alice Dare is going to Mars. She’s not entirely sure she wants to go (even if she does want to escape the Muckling Abbot School for Girls). Mars isn’t exactly human friendly just yet. It’s only partially safe for humans. Only some of the air is breathable. But the Emergency Earth Coalition has declared that Alice, along with a group of other kids, will be evacuated to Mars where they will live and be schooled by robot teachers and live in the relative safety of the planet away from the ongoing war.
Welcome to the future, where the aliens have invaded and are trying to take over. The humans are putting up a good fight, but things are not going as well as they would like. Alice’s mom is one of the star fighter pilots when it comes to battling the invaders– and that’s the reason Alice is part of the group heading to the red planet. All the other young teens and tweens that are a part of the trip come from different parts of the world–many from the families of the elite in the Coalition. Now this select group of young people are all going to have to live together and learn together on a new planet. And as you might expect isn’t long before things go wrong. The adults vanish. Chaos reigns. Alice and her friends are caught out on the Martian landscape trying to survive they might just have to find common ground with their long-time enemies in order to combat an even greater threat to the entire solar system.
Science fiction adventure that’s a wild ride of danger, daring and delight. We have Alice with her rather dry sense of humor and observation, quirky Josephine who just can’t help taking things apart, reckless Carl who loves to show off and his younger brother Noel whose intuitive compassion for other creatures comes in handy. Add to that an aggressively optimistic Goldfish teaching robot, two sets of aliens and a lot of surprises and it’s just the sort of bang-up read I love. I admit I’ve been waiting and waiting for this book since I learned it was being published in Britain last year. And I was not disappointed when I finally got my hands on a copy. Our characters are satisfyingly complex, and our main alien enemies are not so simple a “bad guy” to contemplate. No bug-eyed monsters here. The Morrors are another intricate race from out in the galaxy and their needs and goals are not simply broad villainy and destruction. And really, can you name me a book that discusses alien reproduction that involves more than a male/female binary and yet manages to keep it firmly middle grade?
Sophia McDougall pulls off a great story from the first-person perspective of Alice. The writing is strong and well balanced between description, explanation and dialog. The book never gets bogged down in long histories or reflective passages, preferring to keep readers moving with the characters through their adventure. It’s a great science fiction book to hand any reader who enjoys a good story–even if they haven’t read science fiction before. Beautifully accessible for middle grade readers, upbeat and ultimately positive in its resolution–this is the kind of science fiction I’ve been hoping to see more of for a long time.
Can’t wait to see what the author has in store next!
February 15, 2015
This is such a great read! Quite fun but also at times quite scary!!
When Earth is invaded by Aliens and the war between humans and Morrows has been going on for a long time, it is decided that it may be safer to send some kids to Mars. It has been terraformed and is habitable by humans. AliceDare is one such "lucky" child. Her mother is a fighter pilot and Alice has been sent to live away from the danger. Unbeknownst to anyone, Earth isn't the only planet in danger and when all the grownups disappear on Mars, Alice Josephine, Carl and his brother Neil set off to find help.
With a lot of colourful characters I think Alice and her crew were definitely my favourite. All of them are the exiles, as such. Josephine is extremely smart but is always being picked on for being odd and Alice finds it hard to fit in. Carl is a ball of energy and always seems to be doing something that gets himself into trouble. They are all brave, selfless and strong. It's nice to have an odd ball assortment of characters that get on so well together.
I think the world building was amazing in Mars Evacuee. Earth is at war with the aliens and the kids are sent to an unhospitable place. Everything about Mars is weird, even with Terraforming happening. There aren't that many adults on Mars because most of the things are robotic, they have some awesome robotic teachers, with the Goldfish being the best. This is a Goldfish shaped Robot that teaches the kids, he ends up on the adventure with Alice and co and brings a comic atmosphere with him. He was so awesome!! Also the Teddy Bear teacher that the junours have sounded so funny! Alice describes it as a scary bear and all the younger kids are terrified of it!! Even the aliens were awesome!!
Despite this being fun, there were some incredibly tense and scary bits!! The Sky Locusts were one such part. I was on the edge of my seat at that part and was so scared for the kids!! There is much levity in the story but its also a scary rollercoaster.
Anyway, Mars Evacuee was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the book and can't wait to let my boys read it. Its a fun filled, action packed and adventurous read! Can I just say that the Duck Tape is epic!!! Lol, Duck Tape fixes everything ;) Highly recommend!!
When Earth is invaded by Aliens and the war between humans and Morrows has been going on for a long time, it is decided that it may be safer to send some kids to Mars. It has been terraformed and is habitable by humans. AliceDare is one such "lucky" child. Her mother is a fighter pilot and Alice has been sent to live away from the danger. Unbeknownst to anyone, Earth isn't the only planet in danger and when all the grownups disappear on Mars, Alice Josephine, Carl and his brother Neil set off to find help.
With a lot of colourful characters I think Alice and her crew were definitely my favourite. All of them are the exiles, as such. Josephine is extremely smart but is always being picked on for being odd and Alice finds it hard to fit in. Carl is a ball of energy and always seems to be doing something that gets himself into trouble. They are all brave, selfless and strong. It's nice to have an odd ball assortment of characters that get on so well together.
I think the world building was amazing in Mars Evacuee. Earth is at war with the aliens and the kids are sent to an unhospitable place. Everything about Mars is weird, even with Terraforming happening. There aren't that many adults on Mars because most of the things are robotic, they have some awesome robotic teachers, with the Goldfish being the best. This is a Goldfish shaped Robot that teaches the kids, he ends up on the adventure with Alice and co and brings a comic atmosphere with him. He was so awesome!! Also the Teddy Bear teacher that the junours have sounded so funny! Alice describes it as a scary bear and all the younger kids are terrified of it!! Even the aliens were awesome!!
Despite this being fun, there were some incredibly tense and scary bits!! The Sky Locusts were one such part. I was on the edge of my seat at that part and was so scared for the kids!! There is much levity in the story but its also a scary rollercoaster.
Anyway, Mars Evacuee was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the book and can't wait to let my boys read it. Its a fun filled, action packed and adventurous read! Can I just say that the Duck Tape is epic!!! Lol, Duck Tape fixes everything ;) Highly recommend!!
March 10, 2016
This was recommended to me by lightreads, who compared it to The True Meaning of Smekday. And while this doesn't quite reach the heights of perfection that Smekday did, it's still really, really, really fun.
Basic plot is, you know, the earth has been invaded by aliens, Alice gets sent off to Mars, adventures ensue. And once those adventures start, they don't stop -- the last three-fourths of the book is pretty much a read-at-a-gallop-in-one-sitting action festival with brief fixing stuff interludes (although obviously I could've stood a lot more detail in the fixing stuff arena). So, like I said, it's super fun.
But it's also smart, and good in the way where adults can love it, too. There's kids being kids (including a frankly terrifying mini Lord of the Flies situation -- don't worry, though, it doesn't go on for long), there's kids being heroes, there's alien kids being alien and kids, and all in all it's sort of like the juvenile space romp books of yore. (Sort of like Heinlein, except not sexist, not racist, not horrible or smug or preening. So like Heinlein if you took out all the Heinlein parts and just left in the space romps, which i really wish someone had thought to do back when Heinlein was Heinleining.)
Also, it's got a sarcastic girl as the hero, which I loved, and a bunch of brown kids, and an alien race with five genders (though the Boov are still winning with their seven), and family stuff and friendship stuff and bravery and crying in the face of certain death (before squaring up, leveling up, and making death uncertain again). Basically, I heartily recommend this, unless you haven't read Smekday (in which case read that first), or you didn't like Smekday (in which case, honestly, don't take my advice about anything; our tastes don't align).
Basic plot is, you know, the earth has been invaded by aliens, Alice gets sent off to Mars, adventures ensue. And once those adventures start, they don't stop -- the last three-fourths of the book is pretty much a read-at-a-gallop-in-one-sitting action festival with brief fixing stuff interludes (although obviously I could've stood a lot more detail in the fixing stuff arena). So, like I said, it's super fun.
But it's also smart, and good in the way where adults can love it, too. There's kids being kids (including a frankly terrifying mini Lord of the Flies situation -- don't worry, though, it doesn't go on for long), there's kids being heroes, there's alien kids being alien and kids, and all in all it's sort of like the juvenile space romp books of yore. (Sort of like Heinlein, except not sexist, not racist, not horrible or smug or preening. So like Heinlein if you took out all the Heinlein parts and just left in the space romps, which i really wish someone had thought to do back when Heinlein was Heinleining.)
Also, it's got a sarcastic girl as the hero, which I loved, and a bunch of brown kids, and an alien race with five genders (though the Boov are still winning with their seven), and family stuff and friendship stuff and bravery and crying in the face of certain death (before squaring up, leveling up, and making death uncertain again). Basically, I heartily recommend this, unless you haven't read Smekday (in which case read that first), or you didn't like Smekday (in which case, honestly, don't take my advice about anything; our tastes don't align).
July 13, 2016
"What about our human rights,' demanded Carl, who'd gathered a small deputation of kids within minutes. 'There is a WAR ON,' said Crewman Devlin, shortly. I wondered if this meant grown-ups actually listen to you when there wasn't a war on, because somehow I was sceptical."
Teccc - my reading partner - is unquestionably right: The book loses some of its naughty snappiness and sarcasm as it proceeds and it gets more and more predictable after the small, nerdy gang of kids and their maniacally cheerful, robotic goldfish tutor flee the kiddie cadet academy on Mars in a stolen spaceship in order to find adult help or a way back home to earth. Also, the characters - both human and alien - reminded me often of those in "The True Meaning of Smekday".
Still, I enjoyed the story and its messages well enough. As "Smekday" does, it encourages the reader to have a look at the enemy's position/reasons/lack of other options/history, it stresses that there are always people who flourish because of war - career-wise, money-wise or morality-wise (meaning actions which are cautiously sanctioned or meticulously dissected angle by angle in a well-functioning society are overlooked or hastily permitted in war, because survival as a whole is at stake and long-term problems or ethical qualms suddenly play a secondary role to immediate results), and it certainly devises not to give up at any seemingly hopeless point of any endeavor.
The ending wrapped up everything pretty nicely while pointing out that in most disputes compromises have to be tolerated and that the notion to be able to return a society or a country to what it was "before"/in good old times/at a certain point is always unrealistic/undoable. Change happens.
I can imagine reading the sequel at some point. Yes, definitely. Goldfish, bring it on!
Teccc - my reading partner - is unquestionably right: The book loses some of its naughty snappiness and sarcasm as it proceeds and it gets more and more predictable after the small, nerdy gang of kids and their maniacally cheerful, robotic goldfish tutor flee the kiddie cadet academy on Mars in a stolen spaceship in order to find adult help or a way back home to earth. Also, the characters - both human and alien - reminded me often of those in "The True Meaning of Smekday".
Still, I enjoyed the story and its messages well enough. As "Smekday" does, it encourages the reader to have a look at the enemy's position/reasons/lack of other options/history, it stresses that there are always people who flourish because of war - career-wise, money-wise or morality-wise (meaning actions which are cautiously sanctioned or meticulously dissected angle by angle in a well-functioning society are overlooked or hastily permitted in war, because survival as a whole is at stake and long-term problems or ethical qualms suddenly play a secondary role to immediate results), and it certainly devises not to give up at any seemingly hopeless point of any endeavor.
The ending wrapped up everything pretty nicely while pointing out that in most disputes compromises have to be tolerated and that the notion to be able to return a society or a country to what it was "before"/in good old times/at a certain point is always unrealistic/undoable. Change happens.
I can imagine reading the sequel at some point. Yes, definitely. Goldfish, bring it on!
February 14, 2019
אחרי מלחמה ארוכה עם חייזרים על כדור הארץ אליס, בת 12 ובת לטייסת קרב מפורסמת, מפונה עם עוד 300 ילדים למאדים שנמצא באמצע הארצה אבל עדיין לא ממש מוכן. גם במאדים העניינים הולכים ומשתבשים.
ספר חמוד, קצבי ונראה שגם די מציאותי ואמין מדעית. מד"ב מוצלח לילדים.
ספר חמוד, קצבי ונראה שגם די מציאותי ואמין מדעית. מד"ב מוצלח לילדים.
March 22, 2016
I LOVED THIS ADORABLE BOOK.
July 16, 2015
Originally posted at: http://iliveforreading.blogspot.com/2...
I received Mars Evacuees around a year ago, but since I’d never really heard of it, I put off reading it–until now. This book was so much fun! Although it’s aimed at a younger audience, I ended up loving this space adventure. It was really easy to get onboard with the setting, the characters, and the conflict at hand. The concept was so original as well. I don’t read much science-fiction, which is unfortunate, but this one seemed to stand apart from the ones that I have read.
It was sometimes difficult to believe that these kids were twelve years old (or even younger!). They seemed so much more mature than the children I know, which is probably why, I guess, I didn’t feel too different from the characters despite the age gap. Alice was such an awesome character–she would be the type of girl I would have loved to hang out with when I was in middle school. Josephine was a great character too, and I loved Carl and his younger brother Noel, who was super adorable. Even Goldfish–literally a teaching robot goldfish–was a fantastic addition to the cast. They obviously end up meeting more characters along the way, and all in all, while this story was more plot-driven than character-driven, it was an enjoyable journey of four friends and a robot insistent on teaching them algebra on the way. The characters were also pretty diverse as well! We’ve got a black character, Australian characters...however, I wish it could have been even more so. This evacuation to Mars involved children from around the world, but they weren’t even part of the book–I just think that this was a little bit of a missed opportunity.
I really liked this story, which is why when I found out that there would be a sequel, I was ecstatic! Mars Evacuees was a fun and action-packed story that readers of all ages will enjoy. Sophia McDougall definitely knows how to tell an epic story. I can’t wait for Space Hostages as I’m sure it will be as good–or even better–than the first in the series. Looking forward to it!
I received Mars Evacuees around a year ago, but since I’d never really heard of it, I put off reading it–until now. This book was so much fun! Although it’s aimed at a younger audience, I ended up loving this space adventure. It was really easy to get onboard with the setting, the characters, and the conflict at hand. The concept was so original as well. I don’t read much science-fiction, which is unfortunate, but this one seemed to stand apart from the ones that I have read.
It was sometimes difficult to believe that these kids were twelve years old (or even younger!). They seemed so much more mature than the children I know, which is probably why, I guess, I didn’t feel too different from the characters despite the age gap. Alice was such an awesome character–she would be the type of girl I would have loved to hang out with when I was in middle school. Josephine was a great character too, and I loved Carl and his younger brother Noel, who was super adorable. Even Goldfish–literally a teaching robot goldfish–was a fantastic addition to the cast. They obviously end up meeting more characters along the way, and all in all, while this story was more plot-driven than character-driven, it was an enjoyable journey of four friends and a robot insistent on teaching them algebra on the way. The characters were also pretty diverse as well! We’ve got a black character, Australian characters...however, I wish it could have been even more so. This evacuation to Mars involved children from around the world, but they weren’t even part of the book–I just think that this was a little bit of a missed opportunity.
I really liked this story, which is why when I found out that there would be a sequel, I was ecstatic! Mars Evacuees was a fun and action-packed story that readers of all ages will enjoy. Sophia McDougall definitely knows how to tell an epic story. I can’t wait for Space Hostages as I’m sure it will be as good–or even better–than the first in the series. Looking forward to it!
April 12, 2014
This book was just enormously fun - a bit like if Dodie Smith (of I CAPTURE THE CASTLE) had decided to write a rollicking science fiction adventure set on Mars. There are definite resonances with WWII child evacuees, but in this case, the war is against invading aliens, and the kids are being evacuated all the way off-planet to Mars (which is in the process of being terraformed). The voice of the heroine, Alice, is just absolutely fabulous, all the characters are wonderful (and ethnically diverse!), and the adventure is fast-paced and really fun.
The only thing that occasionally niggled at me was that I didn't personally buy that they were (mostly) twelve-year-olds - I thought the heroine and her best friend felt more like fourteen-year-olds than twelve-year-olds, and the tone of the book felt more like a young YA novel to me (like John Scalzi's ZOE'S TALE) than an upper-MG. That's just a shelf-classification issue, though, nothing that ever got in the way of the story or how much I loved the characters. I really hope that there's a sequel!
The only thing that occasionally niggled at me was that I didn't personally buy that they were (mostly) twelve-year-olds - I thought the heroine and her best friend felt more like fourteen-year-olds than twelve-year-olds, and the tone of the book felt more like a young YA novel to me (like John Scalzi's ZOE'S TALE) than an upper-MG. That's just a shelf-classification issue, though, nothing that ever got in the way of the story or how much I loved the characters. I really hope that there's a sequel!
June 10, 2018
This book was a fun rollicking science fiction adventure set on Mars. There are resonances with WWII child evacuees, and Lord of the Flies before the book turns into a first contact Sci-Fi story for middle graders. There is a great cast of main characters that is also ethnically diverse and with kick ass heroines, which is always good. My only caveat was with the beginning of the book which was rather slow for my taste. And although I did enjoy the book, it is a quintessential children's book which has less to offer a adult reader who've seen it all before.
April 24, 2019
I loved this book a lot. At first I thought it was a stupid book, but that changed quick. Over all this book was amazing.
May 19, 2015
Alice Dare takes life in strides. Aliens taking over the planet. Whatever. Parents fighting in the war. Check. She has never known life to be any different. The war has been going on for fifteen years. She rarely sees her parents and has to live at a boarding school. When she finds out she's being evacuated to Mars to be trained as a fighter she thinks, "...I'd gotten a general idea of my future a long time ago, and whether I liked it or not, it was always going to involve shooting things." Her biggest issue is trying to live up to her hero mother, a famous fighter pilot in the war and worrying that her parents will be killed. Alice has one misadventure after another. They pile up on her and her friends and they keep tackling each one with optimism and spunk.
This reminds me of living overseas. So many things go wrong. I just bought a mystery tea and thought it was green tea. No, I can't read Chinese. Nothing like the runs before I run tonight. VISA's get messed up, items get stolen or lost, strange foods make you ill, you have different medical procedures, you face some prejudice, your bad attempts at learning the language are laughed at over and over, and so on. But in the end, it is one grand adventure that gives you plenty of memories and stories to talk about with family and friends. And then there is the joy of learning a new culture and making new friends just like Alice does in this book.
Twelve-year-old Alice Dare has a name adults mispronounce as "Alistair." Earth has been overtaken by aliens called, "Morrors." Humans are attempting to colonize Mars as they are losing the war against the aliens and Alice is on her way there to be trained as a soldier with 300 other children ages 7-18. I wondered if this was going to be an "Ender's Game," but it isn't. More "Lord of the Flies," but I'll get to that. On the Mars flight, Alice makes friends with Josephine, a genius that wants to be a scientist not a soldier. She meets the hyperactive, pilot-prodigy and theatrical teenager, Carl Dalisday, and his younger brother, Noel. Everyone expects Alice to be a great pilot like her mother but she discovers her talents elsewhere. When the adults disappear from the space station, the three hundred children take over the space station with bullies beating up others to force them to do what they want. Alice high-tails it out of there with her group of friends in search of the adults.
Their adventure leads them through treacherous terrain where they discover another alien that threatens not only them, but the Morrors. When they make friends with a teenage Morror, Thsaa, the group learns to bridge differences and get the adults to work together in face of an enemy that will not only annihilate them both, but will destroy Earth. Overcoming their fears and prejudices, Alice's group and Thsaa become friends and help the adults work together. If an enemy is going to take over the planet do you commit genocide and have one species destroy the other or do you try to coexist? Whereas, "Ender's Game," goes the genocide route, this book takes the coexistence route when faced with interstellar war.
Alice's voice comes out strong at first, but then I thought it got lost during the "Lord of the Flies" segment. Josephine wants to leave and Alice wants to organize everyone to work together. Alice was having issues with bullies from the get-go and is presented as a person that likes to stay out of the limelight, so I was surprised she tried to get kids to team up. The author never really goes back to that subplot and it felt unfinished to me. She gives a tiny wrap up but I would have liked a bit more. It doesn't matter overall, but I didn't think it fit in the plot as smoothly as other elements. Once the group takes off from the space station, so does the action and the nonstop problems they need to overcome. They have to use their wits to survive and each has a unique skill that helps them work together. Alice shows her resilience all along.
Take note that there is more swearing in this book than I normally see in middle grade novels. The aliens also speak a gobbledygook language, but its not hard to figure out what they mean. It definitely gives the characters an alien culture and the fact that they can have up to five parents was funny. Josephine and Thsaaa make connections through art that helps them appreciate each others culture. Before that moment they were putting each others cultures down. Thsaaa didn't like the food, planes, weapons and vice versa. Leapfrog through low gravity in this fun read.
This reminds me of living overseas. So many things go wrong. I just bought a mystery tea and thought it was green tea. No, I can't read Chinese. Nothing like the runs before I run tonight. VISA's get messed up, items get stolen or lost, strange foods make you ill, you have different medical procedures, you face some prejudice, your bad attempts at learning the language are laughed at over and over, and so on. But in the end, it is one grand adventure that gives you plenty of memories and stories to talk about with family and friends. And then there is the joy of learning a new culture and making new friends just like Alice does in this book.
Twelve-year-old Alice Dare has a name adults mispronounce as "Alistair." Earth has been overtaken by aliens called, "Morrors." Humans are attempting to colonize Mars as they are losing the war against the aliens and Alice is on her way there to be trained as a soldier with 300 other children ages 7-18. I wondered if this was going to be an "Ender's Game," but it isn't. More "Lord of the Flies," but I'll get to that. On the Mars flight, Alice makes friends with Josephine, a genius that wants to be a scientist not a soldier. She meets the hyperactive, pilot-prodigy and theatrical teenager, Carl Dalisday, and his younger brother, Noel. Everyone expects Alice to be a great pilot like her mother but she discovers her talents elsewhere. When the adults disappear from the space station, the three hundred children take over the space station with bullies beating up others to force them to do what they want. Alice high-tails it out of there with her group of friends in search of the adults.
Their adventure leads them through treacherous terrain where they discover another alien that threatens not only them, but the Morrors. When they make friends with a teenage Morror, Thsaa, the group learns to bridge differences and get the adults to work together in face of an enemy that will not only annihilate them both, but will destroy Earth. Overcoming their fears and prejudices, Alice's group and Thsaa become friends and help the adults work together. If an enemy is going to take over the planet do you commit genocide and have one species destroy the other or do you try to coexist? Whereas, "Ender's Game," goes the genocide route, this book takes the coexistence route when faced with interstellar war.
Alice's voice comes out strong at first, but then I thought it got lost during the "Lord of the Flies" segment. Josephine wants to leave and Alice wants to organize everyone to work together. Alice was having issues with bullies from the get-go and is presented as a person that likes to stay out of the limelight, so I was surprised she tried to get kids to team up. The author never really goes back to that subplot and it felt unfinished to me. She gives a tiny wrap up but I would have liked a bit more. It doesn't matter overall, but I didn't think it fit in the plot as smoothly as other elements. Once the group takes off from the space station, so does the action and the nonstop problems they need to overcome. They have to use their wits to survive and each has a unique skill that helps them work together. Alice shows her resilience all along.
Take note that there is more swearing in this book than I normally see in middle grade novels. The aliens also speak a gobbledygook language, but its not hard to figure out what they mean. It definitely gives the characters an alien culture and the fact that they can have up to five parents was funny. Josephine and Thsaaa make connections through art that helps them appreciate each others culture. Before that moment they were putting each others cultures down. Thsaaa didn't like the food, planes, weapons and vice versa. Leapfrog through low gravity in this fun read.
September 15, 2014
A Seriously Kick-Butt Heroine; An Immersive Setting; A Rollicking Adventure
You know, there are lots of strong female characters out there for middle grade fiction readers, but there's always room for one more. And the star of this book is a particularly appealing heroine.
AliceDare, (even the name is great), isn't funny, exactly. She isn't snarky, exactly. She's courageous, but not in a Sheena the Barbarian sort of way. For a middle grade heroine she is grown up, world weary, and ruefully attuned to her surroundings. The Earth she lives in has been invaded by invisible aliens who have occupied the polar regions, sending ice, snow and cold to the temperate zones as a consequence of their terraforming. Alice has been relocated to a camp on Mars for her safety and to train her up for combat.
This is a pretty sly play on the relocation of kids to the English countryside during World War II. It also serves to explain how a tween girl can be so weary and worldly wise at such a young age. The set up underscores the slight tone of gallows humor and desperation that underlies the tale, and it also gives the author free reign, (which she seizes with delight), to create all manner of Mars and space based adventures, conflicts and sub-plots.
The result is a story that has a rich but vaguely skewed atmosphere, a novel but seemingly realistic premise, and characters who cover a wide and varied spectrum. This isn't just teen drama, or extraterrestrial adventure, or alien invasion stuff - there's a bit of all of that, but it is wrapped up in a more thoughtful and intriguing story of how Alice copes with it all. This is one of those odd and idiosyncratic books that is loaded up to the gills with plot and background and world building and action, but still revolves mostly around the thoughts and reactions of the heroine and her mates.
It can also be very funny. Between the outlandish characters, (like the goldfish and teaching robots), and the antic service-comedy scenes, and some of the interactions among the principle characters, there is some deft humor, and some very dry, deadpan humor.
All of this is enhanced by the author's light but probing touch. There are many brief conversations and passing thoughts that are arresting or insightful or touching, or some combination of all three. This isn't just gee-whiz action/adventure. Can you have a decent middle grade coming-of-age space opera? This book suggests that the answer is yes.
So, a remarkably engaging and rewarding work that breaks a lot of new ground and even covers some old ground in a refreshing way, this is a very nice find.
You know, there are lots of strong female characters out there for middle grade fiction readers, but there's always room for one more. And the star of this book is a particularly appealing heroine.
AliceDare, (even the name is great), isn't funny, exactly. She isn't snarky, exactly. She's courageous, but not in a Sheena the Barbarian sort of way. For a middle grade heroine she is grown up, world weary, and ruefully attuned to her surroundings. The Earth she lives in has been invaded by invisible aliens who have occupied the polar regions, sending ice, snow and cold to the temperate zones as a consequence of their terraforming. Alice has been relocated to a camp on Mars for her safety and to train her up for combat.
This is a pretty sly play on the relocation of kids to the English countryside during World War II. It also serves to explain how a tween girl can be so weary and worldly wise at such a young age. The set up underscores the slight tone of gallows humor and desperation that underlies the tale, and it also gives the author free reign, (which she seizes with delight), to create all manner of Mars and space based adventures, conflicts and sub-plots.
The result is a story that has a rich but vaguely skewed atmosphere, a novel but seemingly realistic premise, and characters who cover a wide and varied spectrum. This isn't just teen drama, or extraterrestrial adventure, or alien invasion stuff - there's a bit of all of that, but it is wrapped up in a more thoughtful and intriguing story of how Alice copes with it all. This is one of those odd and idiosyncratic books that is loaded up to the gills with plot and background and world building and action, but still revolves mostly around the thoughts and reactions of the heroine and her mates.
It can also be very funny. Between the outlandish characters, (like the goldfish and teaching robots), and the antic service-comedy scenes, and some of the interactions among the principle characters, there is some deft humor, and some very dry, deadpan humor.
All of this is enhanced by the author's light but probing touch. There are many brief conversations and passing thoughts that are arresting or insightful or touching, or some combination of all three. This isn't just gee-whiz action/adventure. Can you have a decent middle grade coming-of-age space opera? This book suggests that the answer is yes.
So, a remarkably engaging and rewarding work that breaks a lot of new ground and even covers some old ground in a refreshing way, this is a very nice find.
March 5, 2016
It's always a great pleasure, especially nowadays, to read a book meant for children.
And a good one, without any excessive simplifications ('oh, never mind, they are young, they won't notice anyway'), with characters behaving in a credible manner.
And don't forget the humour! The book is really funny, not because of big jokes, but because of the lovely and clever writing.
These kind of books are rather rare nowadays; like the first Harry Potter's books for instance, or the last Jonathan Stroud's series (The Screaming Staircase).
The beginning of the book reminded me of Scalzi's Old Man's War, with the same wry, wise and disillusioned tone. And of course the main idea evokes Ender's Game.
But the author never, ever, forgot that her characters are children, and neither do the adults of the story.
Children are still behaving as children, in the limit of the story to be sure, but they aren't artificial tiny adults. And even if their fate is dire, they are not used like inhuman tools, the adults keep in mind their age and limits, especially the younger ones (the scary teddy-bear ^-^).
And even if the story is rather positive and never scarring (all will finish well), I appreciated that the science-fi context was polished and credible.
With all these points acknowledged, the rest is great: a lovely read, supple and fast, good and likeable characters (the goldfish!), a good sense of wonder, a lot of fun (the goldfish!) and an interesting development (no, not the goldfish; the space shrimps ^-^).
And a good one, without any excessive simplifications ('oh, never mind, they are young, they won't notice anyway'), with characters behaving in a credible manner.
And don't forget the humour! The book is really funny, not because of big jokes, but because of the lovely and clever writing.
These kind of books are rather rare nowadays; like the first Harry Potter's books for instance, or the last Jonathan Stroud's series (The Screaming Staircase).
The beginning of the book reminded me of Scalzi's Old Man's War, with the same wry, wise and disillusioned tone. And of course the main idea evokes Ender's Game.
But the author never, ever, forgot that her characters are children, and neither do the adults of the story.
Children are still behaving as children, in the limit of the story to be sure, but they aren't artificial tiny adults. And even if their fate is dire, they are not used like inhuman tools, the adults keep in mind their age and limits, especially the younger ones (the scary teddy-bear ^-^).
And even if the story is rather positive and never scarring (all will finish well), I appreciated that the science-fi context was polished and credible.
With all these points acknowledged, the rest is great: a lovely read, supple and fast, good and likeable characters (the goldfish!), a good sense of wonder, a lot of fun (the goldfish!) and an interesting development (no, not the goldfish; the space shrimps ^-^).
September 16, 2016
Earth has been invaded by an alien race called the Morrors. They've settled in the polar icecaps - and are slowly but surely freezing the entire planet to better suit their liking for cold environment. Humanity is fighting back, but the war's been going on for over a decade and there's no end in sight, with more and more parts of Earth becoming uninhabitable. Now, a government programme has come up with a new scheme: Several hundred children, chosen by various means, are to be evacuated to Mars, which has been rendered kinda sorta inhabitable-ish by extensive terraforming efforts. There, they'll be enrolled into the army and trained up into an elite fighting force. One of those children is Alice, whose mother's warhero status won her a place in the programme. While she doesn't know quite what to expect from her new life, the reality of it turns out to be a lot crazier and a lot more dangerous than she could possibly have imagined.
I have to admit, when I picked this book up at random from the library's YA shelf, I rather expected the characters to be a little older than twelve... but oh well. The whole thing started out great, with Alice's sarcastic narration and the story proceeding at a fast pace providing a few highly entertaining opening chapters. Unfortunately, the further I got, the more of the snappy sarcasm was lost from the writing style. Added to that some extremely stereotypical twodimensional bullies, a number of TSTL moments and some overly convenient coincidences, and I found my enjoyment of the book diminishing by the chapter. A quick and still entertaining enough read, but ultimately this was just too juvenile for me.
I have to admit, when I picked this book up at random from the library's YA shelf, I rather expected the characters to be a little older than twelve... but oh well. The whole thing started out great, with Alice's sarcastic narration and the story proceeding at a fast pace providing a few highly entertaining opening chapters. Unfortunately, the further I got, the more of the snappy sarcasm was lost from the writing style. Added to that some extremely stereotypical twodimensional bullies, a number of TSTL moments and some overly convenient coincidences, and I found my enjoyment of the book diminishing by the chapter. A quick and still entertaining enough read, but ultimately this was just too juvenile for me.
April 4, 2017
With the world under attack by invisible aliens and being turned into a deep freeze by their massive geo-engineering project, Earth is on a war footing as the ice slowly but steadily slides down from the Poles. Alice Dare, daughter of a heroic spacefighter pilot is evacuated with three hundred other children to a half-terraformed Mars where they are to be trained as cadets to fight the alien menace. It's daunting and lonely, but an amazing experience with new friends on a planet where you can jump as high as your own head. When things go horribly Lord Of The Flies, Alice and her friends are forced to make an epic trek across the Martian landscape, fighting for survival the whole way, and in the path of an even deadlier alien menace.
This was a fun, rousing, lively sci-fi adventure with great, spiky, likeable,characters and a brilliant setting, well-written, and sparkling with wit and humour, and lots of science fictional surrealism, like giant mechanical spiders and floating goldfish and pink seas. I tore through it. Excellent.
This was a fun, rousing, lively sci-fi adventure with great, spiky, likeable,characters and a brilliant setting, well-written, and sparkling with wit and humour, and lots of science fictional surrealism, like giant mechanical spiders and floating goldfish and pink seas. I tore through it. Excellent.
September 3, 2020
A fun and wild adventure with humans on Mars, extra-terrestrials trying to take over earth, robots as classroom teachers, spaceships and space battles.
September 15, 2022
I did not expect that ending in the slightest, and I will be grabbing the sequel at the library post-haste. (Well, after I finish the stack of books I currently have from the library :)
March 5, 2016
‘Mars Evacuees’ opens up on Earth, an Earth in which an invisible, alien race called the Morrors has settled on.
They have settled on the Poles which are more suitable to their needs. Everything is fine to begin with but after a while, the Morrors want more than the Polar ice-caps and begin to reverse engineer global warming, potentially leading to a new Ice Age.
We are introduced to Alice Dare, our narrator, and daughter of all awesome Stephanie Dare, an all action super-hero pilot, scourge of the Morrors and rallying call for the Exo Defence Force (EDF).
Alice is being evacuated to Mars, for despite the best efforts of her mum and the EDF the war with the Morrors is not going at all well. Alice is packed off to an unfinished Martian colony, along with other children, who have been selected due to parental influence, aptitude and intelligent tests and via lottery.
This is an interesting take on how other countries would potentially look at an unfolding crisis and how the children of our future would be picked according to culture.
Alice is wonderfully deadpan and a descriptive narrator, whether discussing her school uniform in near arctic temperatures; ‘Horrifying sludge-green uniforms in which we were all slowly dying of hypothermia while the teachers could wear as many jumpers and coats as they liked’, Or when thinking on forgiveness; ‘I wasn’t sure if I had forgiven him over that Somnolum X stunt, but on the other hand I wasn’t sure I hadn’t’, Wonderful and true of all of us at one time or another.
Mars Evacuees is full of wit, action, humour, triumph, diversity and homework. It is superb and I cannot wait to get started on the sequel.
Oh, and as an aside, to the publisher who rejected Ms McDougall’s Mars Evacuees on the grounds of featuring too many girls in space, really?. You missed out on a fabulous book.
Reviewed by David at www.whisperingstories.com
They have settled on the Poles which are more suitable to their needs. Everything is fine to begin with but after a while, the Morrors want more than the Polar ice-caps and begin to reverse engineer global warming, potentially leading to a new Ice Age.
We are introduced to Alice Dare, our narrator, and daughter of all awesome Stephanie Dare, an all action super-hero pilot, scourge of the Morrors and rallying call for the Exo Defence Force (EDF).
Alice is being evacuated to Mars, for despite the best efforts of her mum and the EDF the war with the Morrors is not going at all well. Alice is packed off to an unfinished Martian colony, along with other children, who have been selected due to parental influence, aptitude and intelligent tests and via lottery.
This is an interesting take on how other countries would potentially look at an unfolding crisis and how the children of our future would be picked according to culture.
Alice is wonderfully deadpan and a descriptive narrator, whether discussing her school uniform in near arctic temperatures; ‘Horrifying sludge-green uniforms in which we were all slowly dying of hypothermia while the teachers could wear as many jumpers and coats as they liked’, Or when thinking on forgiveness; ‘I wasn’t sure if I had forgiven him over that Somnolum X stunt, but on the other hand I wasn’t sure I hadn’t’, Wonderful and true of all of us at one time or another.
Mars Evacuees is full of wit, action, humour, triumph, diversity and homework. It is superb and I cannot wait to get started on the sequel.
Oh, and as an aside, to the publisher who rejected Ms McDougall’s Mars Evacuees on the grounds of featuring too many girls in space, really?. You missed out on a fabulous book.
Reviewed by David at www.whisperingstories.com
February 19, 2016
Science fiction is a genre that isn't as common for middle graders as it is for adults, so I'm always interested when I see one for this age group. And Mars Evacuees is a great example of science fiction. The story focuses on a group of children that are sent to Mars to get away from the aliens that are trying to turn earth into an ice cube. The children are to be trained as warriors to help fight for Earth's survival. But things change abruptly when all the adults disappear and the station descends into chaos. Alice is an interesting narrator for several reasons, one she gutsy, but more of a peacemaker than a fighter, despite her's mother's status as one of the best fighter pilots Earth has. Plus the ongoing conflict between Alice and the other kids she teams up with feels very real as each has their own opinions about the best way to do things. Alice is kinda the leader by virtue of the fact that she manages to hold the group together (barely). But the adventures that the group has crossing Mars to another station to find help are fun to read about and the addition of a young alien from the Morrors that Alice's mother is fighting against complicates things mightily.
The only things I didn't like about the book were the inclusion of swearing and profanity, which were not at all necessary, especially in a middle grade book, and the discussion about Morror reproduction. Other than those two things though, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Alice's adventures and look forward to reading the sequel, Space Hostages.
The only things I didn't like about the book were the inclusion of swearing and profanity, which were not at all necessary, especially in a middle grade book, and the discussion about Morror reproduction. Other than those two things though, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Alice's adventures and look forward to reading the sequel, Space Hostages.
October 29, 2019
I did not like this one at all. To be fair, it had some promise in the beginning...then fell off a cliff.
Earth has plunged into an arctic freeze due to an alien species inhabiting the poles. Mars is being colonized in preparation for Earth becoming uninhabitable. A group of kids have been selected for Army training on Mars. Alice Dare is one of them. It's no coincidence that her mother is a banker turned fighter pilot. Immediately upon arrival, kids are assigned to groups with a robot leader. Alice's group has the goldfish robot which is obsessed with academics. Things get bad very quickly when all the adults disappear. Alice and several friends steal a spacecraft hoping to find them at the other base. En route, they run into a vicious species of space locusts, capture a Morror, and nearly run out of food and oxygen.
Sounds exciting, but this dragged on for 400 pages. And yet, so much is left unexplained. The science is glossed over or completely inaccurate. The characters are devoid of emotion, to the point of satire. Attempts at humor are weak. The final explanation for the Morror earth invasion is right in line with everything else. Ridiculous. I realize this is all intentional. It's the author's style. Unfortunately, it did not work for me.
Earth has plunged into an arctic freeze due to an alien species inhabiting the poles. Mars is being colonized in preparation for Earth becoming uninhabitable. A group of kids have been selected for Army training on Mars. Alice Dare is one of them. It's no coincidence that her mother is a banker turned fighter pilot. Immediately upon arrival, kids are assigned to groups with a robot leader. Alice's group has the goldfish robot which is obsessed with academics. Things get bad very quickly when all the adults disappear. Alice and several friends steal a spacecraft hoping to find them at the other base. En route, they run into a vicious species of space locusts, capture a Morror, and nearly run out of food and oxygen.
Sounds exciting, but this dragged on for 400 pages. And yet, so much is left unexplained. The science is glossed over or completely inaccurate. The characters are devoid of emotion, to the point of satire. Attempts at humor are weak. The final explanation for the Morror earth invasion is right in line with everything else. Ridiculous. I realize this is all intentional. It's the author's style. Unfortunately, it did not work for me.
July 5, 2015
Probably not a book I'll be spending forever thinking about now that I've read it, but I enjoyed this - a fun, well-paced kids' science fiction adventure, with both fairly serviceable characters (often an issue in middle-grade books) and a decent plot.
Even if elements of Mars Evacuees have been done before - "let us all live together and fight for a common cause instead of fighting each other", learning to share your home with refugees/immigrants from a very different culture is not a bad message in a children's book, obviously, but neither is it dazzlingly original, and bits of it (mercifully a very small part of the book) clearly owed quite a bit to Lord of the Flies (and any other book of the "what really happens if you leave a bunch of kids on their own without adults there to make sure they don't all viciously kill each other" kind since) - it had enough of its own ideas and mostly, well, was just a good and exciting adventure.
Even if elements of Mars Evacuees have been done before - "let us all live together and fight for a common cause instead of fighting each other", learning to share your home with refugees/immigrants from a very different culture is not a bad message in a children's book, obviously, but neither is it dazzlingly original, and bits of it (mercifully a very small part of the book) clearly owed quite a bit to Lord of the Flies (and any other book of the "what really happens if you leave a bunch of kids on their own without adults there to make sure they don't all viciously kill each other" kind since) - it had enough of its own ideas and mostly, well, was just a good and exciting adventure.
July 28, 2024
2024 reread
---
This is so great! It's a fun middle-grade space adventure that moves quickly and is funny, and has lots of girls and people of color and aliens with multiple genders, and the kids talk about which pronoun would be polite to use even though they're at war, and basically if you know any 10-13 year olds who like sf, you should give this to them. (It's also good for people who are, like me, way older than that.)
I'd say it's a descendant/antidote/response to the Heinlein juveniles, but I'm afraid that would put off people who have been put off by Heinlein, and also people who have been put off by other books supposed to be in the tradition of Heinlein juveniles, by which I mean me, by which I mean this doesn't have the smart alecky white male voice that makes me want to go to a gym so I can punch things.
---
This is so great! It's a fun middle-grade space adventure that moves quickly and is funny, and has lots of girls and people of color and aliens with multiple genders, and the kids talk about which pronoun would be polite to use even though they're at war, and basically if you know any 10-13 year olds who like sf, you should give this to them. (It's also good for people who are, like me, way older than that.)
I'd say it's a descendant/antidote/response to the Heinlein juveniles, but I'm afraid that would put off people who have been put off by Heinlein, and also people who have been put off by other books supposed to be in the tradition of Heinlein juveniles, by which I mean me, by which I mean this doesn't have the smart alecky white male voice that makes me want to go to a gym so I can punch things.
August 7, 2015
If you like sci-fi at all, this book is absolutely fabulous. In many ways, it's pure space opera for kids, complete with explosions and interplanetary travel. But it's definitely got parts that touch on deeper subjects, including the nature of war, understanding "others," and what makes people into friends. I also love the many funny parts (the robot Goldfish teacher who will not be deterred from its mission is a particular favorite) and that the kids are so obviously kids, not miniature adults. I loved it.
P.S. There is a good amount of cursing (mild, in the grand scheme, but not stuff I'd want my kids saying), so I'd keep this for 4th or 5th grade and up.
P.S. There is a good amount of cursing (mild, in the grand scheme, but not stuff I'd want my kids saying), so I'd keep this for 4th or 5th grade and up.
January 28, 2016
This is my new favorite- from its gripping first line to its satisfying conclusion, despite the fact it's a series, it packs in lots of adventure, fabulous, diverse characters, gratifyingly sciency science fiction and intriguing and imaginative alien worlds. Like the True Meaning of Smekday crossed with the Martian and a tiny bit of Lord of the Flies (by way of Ender's Game), except, of course it's it's own original thing.
February 10, 2017
FANTASTIC. Funny, and heartfelt, and so good. Sophia McDougall is now an auto-buy author.
October 19, 2016
My wife kept telling me how amazing this book was, and she's not wrong.
June 22, 2021
The red planet has captured humanity's imagination for a very long time, and there are a LOT of books centered on it -- The Martian Chronicles, Red Mars and its sequels, Red Planet Blues, John Carter of Mars, The Martian, etc. Mars Evacuees is aimed more at younger readers than the aforementioned books, but still manages to be an exciting adventure... and while aimed at kids, adults who are willing to put up with some junior-high shenanigans will enjoy it too.
Earth has been at war with the alien Morrows for all of Alice Dare's life, so she feels pretty used to it. But even she knows things can't be good when she and a select group of kids are evacuated to Mars, which has been terraformed to some degree but is still only sort of capable of supporting life. At first Alice focuses on training to be a soldier like her mother... but when every adult on the base vanishes without warning, she, three other kids, and a robotic goldfish obsessed with education set out on a dangerous journey to figure out what happened. And what they'll find could change their planet and the course of the war... or lead to their doom.
The writing of this book isn't superb, but it's decent enough and works well for this type of story. Sophia McDougall does a good job of capturing the feel of a modified Earth and Mars, the alien nature of the Morrows, and the tension and excitement of a science fiction adventure. The Morrows themselves are imaginatively realized, and the segments where we learn more about them are some of the best in the book. And there's plenty of humor sprinkled generously throughout, which helps keep the story from getting too bleak or dark.
While Alice and her friends are well fleshed-out, most of the other characters fall into general stereotypes -- the hard-nosed military commander, the quirky scientist, the distant mother, the bullies, etc. And the plot thread involving the worst of the bullies taking over the base after the adults have vanished is virtually dropped without a trace halfway through the book. There's a brief mention of it late in the book, but I have a hard time believing there wouldn't be worse fallout from it... and I admit, I was looking forward to seeing some of the worst characters get their comeuppance. Ah well.
Mars Evacuees is a fun sci-fi adventure, one geared towards younger readers but that older readers can enjoy as well. And while it may not be on the same level as Ray Bradbury's or Andy Weir's Mars epics, it's still a great ride.
Earth has been at war with the alien Morrows for all of Alice Dare's life, so she feels pretty used to it. But even she knows things can't be good when she and a select group of kids are evacuated to Mars, which has been terraformed to some degree but is still only sort of capable of supporting life. At first Alice focuses on training to be a soldier like her mother... but when every adult on the base vanishes without warning, she, three other kids, and a robotic goldfish obsessed with education set out on a dangerous journey to figure out what happened. And what they'll find could change their planet and the course of the war... or lead to their doom.
The writing of this book isn't superb, but it's decent enough and works well for this type of story. Sophia McDougall does a good job of capturing the feel of a modified Earth and Mars, the alien nature of the Morrows, and the tension and excitement of a science fiction adventure. The Morrows themselves are imaginatively realized, and the segments where we learn more about them are some of the best in the book. And there's plenty of humor sprinkled generously throughout, which helps keep the story from getting too bleak or dark.
While Alice and her friends are well fleshed-out, most of the other characters fall into general stereotypes -- the hard-nosed military commander, the quirky scientist, the distant mother, the bullies, etc. And the plot thread involving the worst of the bullies taking over the base after the adults have vanished is virtually dropped without a trace halfway through the book. There's a brief mention of it late in the book, but I have a hard time believing there wouldn't be worse fallout from it... and I admit, I was looking forward to seeing some of the worst characters get their comeuppance. Ah well.
Mars Evacuees is a fun sci-fi adventure, one geared towards younger readers but that older readers can enjoy as well. And while it may not be on the same level as Ray Bradbury's or Andy Weir's Mars epics, it's still a great ride.
July 6, 2022
This is one of those rare books I purchased from Amazon. I read book 2, Space Hostages, first, and loved it. Then COVID struck. I waited a year and a half for my library to re-start inter-library loans, but it still hadn't by the end of 2021. The only way I was ever going to get my hands on the start to the story was to purchase it. Of course later, my library subscribed to Hoopla, which has it, but I had no way of knowing that was going to happen.
In any case, I bought it and I wasn't disappointed.
Alice Dare is plucked from the Muckling Abbott (wink, wink! Get it? Mucking About? Anyway…) School for Girls in England to become a cadet in the Exo-Defense Force. She's always known, like all kids her age, she would end up in the military, learning to destroy the barrier the Morror aliens are erecting around the Earth so it cools to their Antarctic-preferred temps. She just had no idea it would happen so … fast. At age 12, no less.
Her mom's an ace space pilot, though, so when Alice learns she's being shipped off to Mars to train, that's kinda cool, right? She quickly meets her fellow cadets in this misadventure: Carl, who jumps into the ocean for one last swim before taking off, and his little brother, Noel; and Josephine, who's brilliant but super-angsty about spending a life in the military, even if she knows it's inevitable (and note: longing for gills -- yes, gills). On Mars, they're in basic training, under the command of Colonel Dirk Cleaver, who's as clueless to bullying as he is insistent the kids train every day; and the Goldfish robot teacher.
It's boot camp, no fun. But it's not so bad -- at least until all the adults disappear. One day, they're celebrating something. The next, they're gone. It takes about four days of routine instruction before the kids notice, and when they do, initially it's paaaartaaay time. Until the adults still don't come back, and then the whole place breaks down, aka Lord of the Flies, every kid for themselves.
Josephine and Alice, and Carl and Noel and the Goldfish escape the horror that is marauding bands of unsupervised teens in a spaceship and head to Mars' bigger outpost, where they figure the adults "went." On some kind of emergency, but what could cause them to abandon the kids to themselves like that?
Along the way, they encounter another, far deadlier enemy than the Morrors -- the equivalent of space locusts -- mindless eating machines working their way through entire planets in the galaxies. They stumble upon a Morror kid, Thsaa, whose parents' ship also crash-landed on Mars, damaged by these same space-locusts. And it turns out the cooling barrier the Morrors are building around Earth? It's to shield it from these voracious pests.
Now, all the kids -- and the Goldfish -- have to do is survive the Martian landscape long enough to get this info back to the adults, so they can do something about it.
But it's never that easy, is it?
This was a great, innovative start to this sci-fi duology.
Enjoy!
Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/
In any case, I bought it and I wasn't disappointed.
Alice Dare is plucked from the Muckling Abbott (wink, wink! Get it? Mucking About? Anyway…) School for Girls in England to become a cadet in the Exo-Defense Force. She's always known, like all kids her age, she would end up in the military, learning to destroy the barrier the Morror aliens are erecting around the Earth so it cools to their Antarctic-preferred temps. She just had no idea it would happen so … fast. At age 12, no less.
Her mom's an ace space pilot, though, so when Alice learns she's being shipped off to Mars to train, that's kinda cool, right? She quickly meets her fellow cadets in this misadventure: Carl, who jumps into the ocean for one last swim before taking off, and his little brother, Noel; and Josephine, who's brilliant but super-angsty about spending a life in the military, even if she knows it's inevitable (and note: longing for gills -- yes, gills). On Mars, they're in basic training, under the command of Colonel Dirk Cleaver, who's as clueless to bullying as he is insistent the kids train every day; and the Goldfish robot teacher.
It's boot camp, no fun. But it's not so bad -- at least until all the adults disappear. One day, they're celebrating something. The next, they're gone. It takes about four days of routine instruction before the kids notice, and when they do, initially it's paaaartaaay time. Until the adults still don't come back, and then the whole place breaks down, aka Lord of the Flies, every kid for themselves.
Josephine and Alice, and Carl and Noel and the Goldfish escape the horror that is marauding bands of unsupervised teens in a spaceship and head to Mars' bigger outpost, where they figure the adults "went." On some kind of emergency, but what could cause them to abandon the kids to themselves like that?
Along the way, they encounter another, far deadlier enemy than the Morrors -- the equivalent of space locusts -- mindless eating machines working their way through entire planets in the galaxies. They stumble upon a Morror kid, Thsaa, whose parents' ship also crash-landed on Mars, damaged by these same space-locusts. And it turns out the cooling barrier the Morrors are building around Earth? It's to shield it from these voracious pests.
Now, all the kids -- and the Goldfish -- have to do is survive the Martian landscape long enough to get this info back to the adults, so they can do something about it.
But it's never that easy, is it?
This was a great, innovative start to this sci-fi duology.
Enjoy!
Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?
Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/
Displaying 1 - 30 of 162 reviews