The Angel Factory

by Terence Blacker

Have you ever imagined that you might be living in a dream reality? That your parents, your sister, your best friend, even your dog isn't who you think they are? Ever felt that while your friends gripe about their dysfunctional families and their grades, you can't really complain? Have you ever thought your life is just a little too good to be true?
If your answer is yes, than you can imagine how Thomas Wisdom feels. Once he starts digging for clues about his family's history and identity, he begins to uncover a truth and a responsibility that are almost too fantastic and tragic for one boy to bear....

Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Childrens, Angels, Dystopia

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Terence Blacker wanted to be a jockey when he grew and up. In fact, he could ride before he could walk, and his childhood hero was the great steeplechaser Mill House (a horse). He lives in Norfolk, England.

Reviews

[AuroraIce]

Bookshelf reread. I don’t know where this came from, I didn’t intend to reread it because I figured I liked it enough the first time that I didn’t need to make sure I still did, except I remembered too little of it.

The book follows Thomas Wisdom, who notes how perfect his life is, with his wonderful parents who never raise their voices, all their comfortability and success, and how he does well at school and dresses nice and is a sort of golden boy. He feels like all his own achievements stem only from coming from this perfect family and aren’t his own, making him feel like an outsider. He tells this to his friend Gip, who concludes he’s saying his parents are hiding something and invites himself over.

Thomas tries to back out, since he was only venting, but Gip finds humor in serious things and takes jokes seriously. Gip is a nickname borne from his uneven legs leading to a crooked walk and mockery. He is also gangly and has straggly hair and a bad home life. His real name is Gary Sanchez. He seems an easy target for bullying, but he accepts his ways and sees little value in the ways others treat him. He’s even friends with the teacher everyone makes fun of. Thomas’ friendship with him strikes people are strange, to have the put together perfect boy be such close friends with the weird outcast, but Thomas values their friendship.

His parents don’t like Gip, much like the rest of the world, which seems like the perfect chance to jab his finger at them and say, “You’re prejudiced! Ha! Flaw!” But it never occurs to him.

So while his parents are out, Gip comes over and snoops through his dad’s computer, being a computer genius himself, and finds a weird coded file in the Tax document that he prints off. Then he goes to check the toilet since Thomas has mentioned his parents seem to go to the bathroom at a specific schedule, and he reveals a weird valve in it, along with a box on the same spot on the outside of the house. He says this is how CIA send messages in secret, even though they’re British, and his parents must be spies. Thomas regrets this whole thing, but Gip takes the papers with him to decode.

Thomas’ sister Amy is returning from college, 9 years older than him, and he acts annoyed by her return with no real reason behind that, just obligatory sibling disgust, which actually doesn’t make sense over getting to see a sibling again after a long time separated if they get along at all. Amy is perfect like the rest of the family, with their blond hair and intelligence, and her university admittance is all impressive and stuff, but I find it weird that she’s supposed to be so smart yet doesn’t know what oxymoron means. I knew that in elementary school.

Amy reports she has a new boyfriend, who she’s very serious about this time unlike her past boyfriends, which doesn’t seem so perfect. His name is Luke and he’s a surfer, which her family obligatorily teases and acts put off by but really aren’t bothered. He gets invited to their annual trip to Santa Barbara. Gip urges Thomas to keep an eye out for weird behavior and spy stuff, which he doesn’t intend to take seriously but can’t help himself.

Luke is very quiet and dull, barely speaking, but the family seems to accept him and get on well. Thomas finds that odd and notes how they don’t accept Gip that way. He seems to annoy Luke with his occasional talking, which seems a rude feeling to have toward the younger sibling of your girlfriend when he’s being welcoming and just asking questions or pondering life, not trying to annoy you, and the family paid for you to travel with them when you just came for the waves. Thomas tries to get him to see the weirdness too by talking about all the perfection, and Luke, in the most he’s ever said, brings up this story of a well loved successful guy who retired early and put himself into therapy because things were too great, and it’s called Paradise Syndrome, warning not to pick at something that’s already good.

During dinner, his parents fret over having to go to a meeting nearby while Amy and Luke are going to a surf competition so there’s no one to watch Thomas, which he finds odd and reassures them he can watch himself. Why this was such a big deal and it seems like he passed a test for saying he would be fine, I still don’t understand. He also said he wasn’t a baby who needed his diaper changed and got scolded for being vulgar. Tiny comments like that sometimes got treated like he had cursed and needed to be corrected. His dad also always calls him, “Old boy,” which just bothers me. And Luke calls him Tom, which no one else does and he certainly wouldn’t have introduced himself that way, so Luke just took it upon himself to decide on this nickname that was never agreed to or given and hasn’t noticed that no one else does that. Not a big deal, but I somehow found it rude.

Thomas offers to drop his parents at the train station, citing a love of stations, and once there they get weird about where their train is, parting from him. He loops back around to follow them, but no train exists where they said and he eventually follows a girl with a briefcase. I must’ve misunderstand, because I thought he was following her to a roof, but it was a different train platform that only had one sleek futuristic train. Everyone was dull eyed and silent and had briefcases, no kids, yet didn’t find it odd he was there or taking the only empty seat. They stared straight ahead and he spotted his parents farther up, and Amy and Luke.

They work for a food company called Seraph Corporation, and now they’re headed to Seraph City, except they end up stopping in the deserted desert and everyone lines up at this tiny bunker door, going in one by one after stopping by a panel. Because Thomas knew about any of this from delivering a big letter from the hotel’s front desk for his dad and reading it first, once he gets to the panel for a code, he knows what to type from the letter. He goes alone into an elevator that lasts forever and then finds himself with the walls fallen away in this weird purple existence that feels alive. He’s scared, but it starts to calm him and he finds all these naked bodies in the floor of the people who had been on the train, including his parents. He can feel them in his head congratulating him for finding them and then saying they’d see him later.

He follows more briefcase people out, then wakes up at the hotel without recalling how he returned. He considers it being a dream, but finds a twig from the desert sagebrush on his shoe. At lunch, no one talks about what happened, and later his parents’ coworker Cy Gabriel joins them. He’s had a lot of mishaps in his life but is so cheerful about them, funny and friendly, and Thomas likes him quickly.

They return home and he feels less inclined to see Gip, and also annoyed to learn he handed the coded files off to the Beast, the nickname for the bullied teacher at school. At first Gip didn’t tell him where they came from, but later he apparently did as Mr. Collin realized how serious it was and wants to talk to Thomas’ parents, but Thomas goes alone instead to his house. Mr. Collins was a genius himself, but left his field and became a teacher, where he’s kind of oblivious and slow to pick up on things, not realizing he’s being made fun of until the end, one time even getting locked in a closet by the students. It all sounds very sad, like he has nothing good in his life, and now he takes care of his elderly mom alone while people pick on him. I hated that.

Collin goes to check on his mom and Thomas snatches the decoded files, freezes over the beginning of what he sees, and runs off to fully read them. They’re about a girl who had already put up one baby for adoption and then had another who also got adopted. The first couple fell through, allowing the second couple to come and get him and give him a good life. The baby was called Baby Michael, but he was renamed to Thomas.

He goes home to confront his parents and has a breakdown, seeing them are liars rather than the people who wanted him. He does this in the middle of the night and screams out all the bad words he knows. They tell him how they had Amy but couldn’t have another kid and their family felt incomplete, so they applied for adoption and eventually they got him despite the unlikelihood. He feels they’re leaving stuff out and they’re already liars because of the weird desert thing. They want to talk in the morning because everyone’s tired now, but this upsets him and he runs off instead, going to Gip for help. Gip usually thinks strangely, so Thomas finds it unusual that Gip seems to care so much and be worried about him. He takes him to his hideout squat downtown, where other people hide, but he says Thomas can’t stay there.

It might be at this point that Thomas feels, after everything Gip’s done for him, he should trust him to tell him what he’s learned, which he felt secretive about before like Gip didn’t deserve it. Gip seems disappointed.

He takes him back to Collin, where they meet his mom because he’s in the middle of helping her but they insist it’s urgent. They talk more about things, how he didn’t realize he was decoding a serious document and is going to hand the information over to the principle, like this is some big rare unheard of thing that no one knows how to handle. I find that weird. Adoption is normal, and should be left to the family on how to handle, and unless there’s health related things, there’s no reason the school would need to be made aware of this.

Thomas goes home and is still mad at his family, and maybe Luke is now there too. Cy Gabriel comes over for dinner and he gets swept up into a good mood again, feeling normal with his family, and they leave him to talk to Cy, who offers to let him come to work with him in the morning.

So he joins him and gets to watch this corporate video, except that’s not what it is. It sweeps him back into the purple stuff and explains that there is other life in the world who managed to grow beyond their own physical form or something and become very wise and aware, and they discovered humanity and were excited, except humanity was still young and stupid and responds to new things with fear and attack, and humans were going to destroy themselves, and nothing good would sit back and let that happen. So rather than just watching, it created the Angel Factory on Earth, making human forms and implanting the consciousness of its own beings into them to help guide humanity and save the world.

He comes out and Cy talks to him more about it, explaining the voice is the Presence (Thomas asks if it’s like a deity, but he says no it’s real, which is rude). They are good and on a mission and the next phase is incorporating humans to save themselves, believing as humans do that children are the future, and thus many were adopted and raised by Angels, as they’re called, to make them the ones who will steer humanity the right way. This inspires Thomas and he feels better about everything, going home and feeling like him and his family understand each other now, and they gift him a computer.

He feels a strange aversion to Gip now, who calls him with urgency because he can’t contact Collin. Thomas wants to avoid him, but Gip says he’ll come over so Thomas goes to him instead to keep him away. He also comments on the computer like it’s a buyout. They go to Collin’s house only to find a nurse looking after his mom, who wonders where he is. The nurse reveals he was in a traffic accident and died, and Gip begins to fret because they must have killed him. Thomas learned how to identity Angels by a strange discolored patch of skin somewhere on their bodies called a Derm, and how it’s cold and needs recalibrated daily, done with thing hooked up to toilet except when they go to the factory once a year. The world is full of special new toilets with this design incorporated. He spots a Derm on the nurse and thus has doubts, but insists to himself and Gip that Gip is being paranoid.

He also had a dream telling him Gip was evil, and when he plays on the computer, his worries fade. He finds that strange and Gip pesters him again to say he tried to talk to the principle, Daisy Dover (I never knew Daisy could be a boy name) about Collin since he did report the adoption, and Dover let slip where Thomas’ birth mom is. He offers to take him, and Thomas at first refuses, but later changes his mind.

Gip employs another friend, a big friendly guy named Manny, to drive them and they make the trip, where his mom is working as an overweight magician’s assistant who gets leered at and is always the joke in the show. She’s with a guy who doesn’t think much of her, but plans to try things with the magician once his divorce goes through. He seems protective enough of her, but is also a sleezy jerk, so I don’t know. She tries to deny knowing Thomas when he says who he is, but opens up when they’re alone, explaining she was too young for her first baby, and Thomas’ dad was a married guy who’s business later went under and he moved somewhere else. She was never good with kids, but is glad to have met him and gives him her number with the offer to be there if he needs her.

He phoned his family to let them know he would return in the morning, but they’re waiting when he gets home and a cop and Dover are there, and maybe Cy, to reveal they’re all Angels. They ask where he got the information about his parents and how Gip mentioned Thomas’ concerns about Collin due to the nurse, and he slightly admits to Gip’s inclusion, but when they say he sounds smart and want to bring him on, insisting it’s important, Thomas claims not to know where he is, feeling like their insistence of goodness and importance sound like threats.

Luke drops in and explains kewl discs, a device each Angel has that is the only way to kill them. When pressed to their Derm for a few seconds, it shuts them off. Pressing the other side to turn them back on. If they stay off for a few minutes, that’s brain death and they can’t be revived. He demonstrates this on Thomas’ dog, Dougal, who is an Angel dog. Cy had explained they had worked to make pets too (I don’t know how that works in terms of their own minds transferring into the Angels from their planet). They had tried to make cats, but for some reason it just never works and cats avoid Angels. Dougal gets cat moods, and so now Thomas wonders if some of their cat attempts were in his original creation before he was made into a dog.

He sneaks off to Gip’s hideout to report they’re looking for him, and Gip is certain they want to kill him like they did Collin and he’s doomed and can’t even return to school. He’s also started putting out feelers online for other adopted kids with families showing the same quirks, and there’s a lot.

Cy had explained he could look in on freshly made employees through their computer screens, and later Gip said people could influence minds with computers, which freaks Thomas out.

He goes home and claims he doesn’t know where Gip is and questions Amy about whether a life or the project would be chosen, and she says the project is priority, which makes him fear Gip is right about Collin. He has a slight epiphany and goes to his compute, his awareness allowing it to sweep him back into the purple so he can ask questions, where it insists it’s good and he must decide. He makes his decision.

He goes to Gip again, who says he shouldn’t be coming around anymore because the others hiding out know he’s not one of them. Thomas informs him of his choice and dictates out a message to send to all the hits Gip have gotten for other kids adopted by Angels. Once it’s done, Gip says the emails will have to be batched because it’s too much to do all together, and he’ll get to it later that night, questioning Thomas’ trust in him when he asks why wait. As he turns, Thomas sees a Derm on him, confirming his suspicion as they kept insisting none of this was an accident, he had been guided to finding the truth when he had accused that they would still be keeping secrets if he hadn’t found out the truth himself. He also realized he had told Gip his nurse concerns after Gip had spoken to Dover, yet Dover referenced it. And Gip had used the term kewl disc after Thomas told him about it, but he hadn’t told him that term.

Thomas had found his mom’s kewl disc and taken it, so he presses it to Gip’s neck, feeling confused, and Gip shuts down. Thomas snatches the laptop and sets up the emails, then hides it in a station locker and wonders who to trust since so many people are turning out to be Angels. He decides his birth mom and writes her a letter, then phones her to tell her she’ll be receiving a letter and must follow its instructions if anything happens to him. She thinks he’s either joking or a little crazy like his dad, but agrees. I don’t know why he would assume she or anyone else is truly human. At a certain point, I would have just concluded I was the only real person and there were no others. He also called his dad and told him Gip’s address and to save him, having not undone the shut down because Gip would’ve woken up and caught up and he was still confused.

He goes home to Cy and other people being angry and uncomfortable. They insist he go with them and they take a trip while the traffic is difficult due to a governmental meeting where the US president has flown in. Cy has been showing annoyance on and off toward him ever since he revealed the truth, which doesn’t sound very Angelic. He said Angels feels thinks just like humans, so their love for their children is real, they just don’t have the bad habits humans do. Thomas wonders whether his parents would choose their love for him or the project.

He gets taken to a plane and boards alone to meet the President, an Angel and a big part of their infiltration steps. He insists Thomas will give over the laptop and things will be fine and forgotten and progress like normal. He refuses and the president gets angry. He also keeps asking about Gip, whose info his family passed on for others to handle. The president says he’s not dead in the usual sense of the word. Deactivated Angel consciousnesses return back to their origin, so he’s in a better place, which sounds like death and is still a loss for those left behind.

The rest of the review in the comment section.

[Denver · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked up this book during a library session at school, and decided to read it because i figured it would cover a category for my wide reading. I think it was one of the most boring books i've read. The blurb sounded good and the plot seemed to have so much potential, but the book just bored on and on.

This dystopian novel completes the category: a book with a male main character. I just realised that i normally look for books with female protagonists, probably because my favourite books all have female main characters. Maybe it's because i can relate to them more than male characters.

This book is about a seemingly perfect family, the Wisdoms. Thomas Wisdom has a perfect life, until he starts to suspect things about his parents. Later, he follows his parents to a factory, where he discovers his family are all angels. My favourite quote from this book was: "My whole life was a lie. Those people who were previously my parents were knocking." I was drawn to this quote because it revealed just how completely betrayed he felt, even though i think he completely overreacted.

Something i learned from this book is that everything is not as it seems. This is demonstrated through Thomas' whole life. I guess learning much from this book was unlikely, because it was so dull it took me much longer than usual to finish.

A character that was interesting to me was Thomas' best friend, Gip. He was interesting because he was a very strange person, with an unstable family life and a limp. Everyone at school ostracized him, except Thomas, even though Thomas was perfectly normal. It was a real surprise when Gip turned out to be an angel as well.

Overall, i would not recommend this book to anybody. Although the plot had so much potential, the book was poorly executed.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading this book and found myself drawn to it. I couldn't put it down and there were parts that I kind of figured out, but the twist was different than what I expected. This story is about a young boy who thinks his family is too perfect. He mentions it to his friend Gip and his friend starts him on a journey to find out if his parents are secretly in the CIA. We come to find out that they are angels sent here to help earth save itself from destruction. The only problem is, is that there seems to be only one way to think or feel and choices are what the angels want to eliminate. The main character, the young boy, has to decide if he is with them or not. In the end, he wants his freedom to make those choices and eventually things work out. It is a book to cause some reflection on why we are here and what good we might achieve. It definitely kept my interest while reading it. I think children age 10 and older could read this book and enjoy it. Older children or adults reading it may have a nice discussion about freedom of choice and why it is so important to us. It might be a good choice for a middle school book club discussion.

[Krista the Krazy Kataloguer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about freedom of choice in a world where a boy discovers that angels are really aliens.

[Meghan Delesky · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay. It's not one of them where I'd jump to the chance to read again. But it was defintely an interesting read. I did like how it's something I've never read before.

[heyzil ☮ · Rating 5 out of 5]

after a few pages, I became extremely interested and after I finished the book I felt curious but at the same time very detached from the world considering that the book is all about a boy finding out that his whole life is basically a lie and that he's living in a simulation-like world.

I loved how he ended up reconnecting with his biological mother and realising that what she had done was for the best. the character made multiple important choices that would change his life forever and that's what I loved about it.

after a few days when I had already finished the book, I became so incredibly attached and re-read it. I definitely recommend it to anyone who needs something to think about at night because this book really changed my perspective of our world.

[Chris Haigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reread of a book I read at school - a great premise, okay execution, glad I rediscovered it.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good middle grade book to discuss the topic of choice.

[Lana Lazar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always an interesting read - I always come back to this one in the library

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty bizarre. The ending was the best.

[Logan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think that this book was amazing to read. It was very interesting and easy to understand. I liked reading it because it seemed to me that a boy was reading it. the pages were very large and the text was perfect size.

The main character in this book was Thomas wisdom. He was a very eager outgoing character that was trying to solve his families mystery. The family are angels sent or made to help protect the earth. There is a secret plan for the angels to help the people on earth and make sure they don't destroy it. there are many events in the story that twist everything around.

I do not connect to this book at all because angels aren't real. I have never had a friend who I killed. This book is not like me or my life.

[Sena Public · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story falls into the same general category as The Giver, if I remember correctly; it's a science-fiction base for social commentary. This one isn't as far a step from the way we currently live so it's a little less obvious, perhaps. Despite the unusual and fairly interesting concept, the story is just a little too easy, the characters a little too pale to be truly interesting to an adult reader; probably a young reader would enjoy it, although the deeper concepts would probably be lost on them. But what young reader needs to grapple with deep concepts in a good story? Honestly, I think the best part of this book is the cover.

[Linnae · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thomas Wisdom's family has always been happy. His parents even hold hands in public. That's just not normal...is it? So why does he feel out of place sometimes? What kind of kid wants some chaos in his life? As Thomas confides in a friend, he begins to realize that it's not asking the questions that will add chaos, it's finding the answers to those questions. All is not what is seems in his tidy little world. Nor in ours. And it will be his choice whether to be a part of the problem or the solution--if he can just figure out which is which.

Different. The ending didn't seem to fit the logic of the story. I would be interested to see what others have to say about it.

[Jespera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Wisdom has felt different from his family but when he conides in his friend, they find a coded file on his dad's computer. Thomas is unduly upsetthat his parents lied to him. Then he finds that they are "angels"/aliens. An alien prescence has come to earth to save humans from themselves, first by being angels among them, and then adopting human children. Thomas has a choice to make.
Good book, but the end was kind of abrupt. Things seemed more dramatic than they should and also falls short of really saying what was wrong with the plan.

[Jia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good book but I'm not really surprised.
Did you read the book the Wave? because, they're really alike.
Thomas Wisdom started to open his eyes and realized that his life were almost too perfect too be true. That was before when somebody finally explained to him about the project, and the fact that he's adopted. Then he was founded in a world of angels. And now he can't trust anyone, not his parents, sister, his best friend, not even his dog? Would the project take over the world?

[Camille Stanford · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was kind of weird. Especially the end. There were parts that made this book better, but they were tangled in with bizarre moments.
I was sitting on the fence of what I thought about this book until the last few chapters, which solidly placed it in the 'annoying and unsatisfying ending' category. Mostly, I just felt like the author was trying to manipulate my emotions at times, and it ended up just making me uncomfortable.

[Dotty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Wisdom seems like an ordinary human boy until he and his buddy, Gip, find a secret on Tom’s dad’s computer. Tom was adopted but not by any ordinary parents. His parents are angels on a mission to save Earth.

I didn’t totally recognize or get immersed in the London environment until part way through the book. I would love to see this in a book discussion group

[Vidushi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books is a Science Fiction book which has many twists on life and shows of a family that lives on Earth and they are angels. These ''angels'' come from another planet and have come to Earth to stop a major calamity. The answers are up to a normal boys to solve and to save the world. He has 2 options: (1) Leave the planet to it's own state or (2) Let Earth be ruled by a bunch of aliens...

[LeAnne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is well-written suspense although Thomas feels older than 12 to me. The angels feel like a cult although the words used are very close to Biblical, implying that the Christian worldview is something twisted. Goodness is suffocating. Religious experience is as manipulative as drugs. Salvation would destroy what is human in us. Very disturbing, but it could stimulate lots of discussion.

[Matt Mazenauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Draws you pretty quickly into a thriller sense of a giant scifi conspiracy. Then it unravels into a completely implausible scenario. I really wanted it to be good but the ending especially made it impossible to believe, even for sci-fi.

[Rasha Drapleck · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was mostly weird. It was annoying hereing the charactors perspective because he was an ansty teen ager. he was more disterbed by the fact that his parents adobted him than that they were alines.

[Angie Golaski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and interesting, probably written as a Y.A. novel. It's about an alien invasion, but they're friendly and attempting to save humankind from itself. The question is whether mankind wants this sort of help.

[Frost_light · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not too bad, only a little boring because I had guessed the ending. Anyway, it expressed the world we are living now. Life is not perfect when everything's perfect. If I were Thomas, I would choose the same choice.^^

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really like this one. I expected more from it somehow. The whole story wrapped up very suddenly and not entirely believably, in my opinion, in a very few pages at the end. Not too realitic feeling actions/etc toward the end either. Interesting premise though.

[Connie T. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas Wisdom's troubles begin when he discovers he's adopted. What other lies have his parents told him? As he begins to uncover the truth, he realizes everything - and everyone - isn't what he believed. Who can he trust and what should he do?

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lame. I didn't buy it. I liked Dougal, in a luke-warm sort of way, because he reminded me of a reverse Skippy Jon Jones, but the story just wasn't believable.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay. Typical dystopian novel. Literary Review is quoted as saying it "deserves to be ranked alongside Lois Lowry's The Giver" and that is only true if it is held up as an inferior book.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this story intriguing, and I am not a fan of science fiction. If you have a son or daughter who enjoys that genre, I would certainly recommend this read.

[Angela Sellers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh me oh my! This book was so gosh darn good.

[Karie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I've read too many "boys with secret histories" books lately, but this one really fell flat for me--and the climax and the ending were too weak and too unbelievable in comparison to the set up.