This is a solid cover. We get our alien design for the book and it's pretty freaky, specially the worm-like antennae and the reflective looking bug eyes. It does a good job in selling that this is indeed another planet and the beings who reside are just as creepy as the planet itself. Also free Planet X postcard inside! But unfortunately it's not in this copy I'm reading on Openlibrary so I can't show it to you!
Our protagonist, Nicolai "Nicky" Gogol, has a rather abrupt awakening. He's strapped down on a metal slab with wires and hoses on his body. He can't remember much, but definitely knows that this wasn't something he was doing before his nap. He also can't find his family anywhere. But Nicky thinks there must be a logical explanation for, you know, wires on his body. It's then that Nicky remembers that before he blacked out, his family's plane had crashed, with his parents and five year old sister Zoe inside as well. Nicky's dad is a pilot, who has his own aircrafts, including the plane he was piloting to fly to their grandmother's house. Also Zoe is described as a whiny brat who throws fits when she doesn't get her way. And Mr. Gogol, who had been teaching Nicky how to fly a plane, decides to let him fly for a minute, which, given that Nicky's on a metal table with no sign of his family, you can see how good an idea that was. Because in mid-flight, the plane got caught by a flying hovercraft and lost all control, crashing below into a tree before being pulled into the hovercraft. So Nicky realizes that, oh crap, they've been abducted by aliens.
The aliens arrive and Nicky is repulsed by their giant heads, squished up faces and gigantic noses, pale skin and the largest, the obvious leader, has black wiry things sticking out of their arms. Okay, THAT should have been the alien on the cover. The leader, Dr. Ickle, has his smaller assistants ready Nicky for operation to examine his brain. Also Nicky has somehow learned the alien language through being comatose for a week. Nicky tries to say that he's not an alien, and definitely doesn't consent to an alien lobotomy, but given he's strapped to a table and ready for inspection, he's shit out of luck here. But before Dr. Ickle can go all Nick Gage pizza cutter on Nicky's brain (there's my wrestling reference per blog!), the sirens go off. Turns out the aliens haven't been able to control the tantrums of Zoe. The aliens say Ickle should just tear out her vocal chords, but Ickle thinks she's better off in a zoo for being so feral. Oh so she's a real bad sibling character then. Joyous.
Just as the other aliens leave, another alien shows up, smaller than the others with bright blue eyes. This turns out to be Dr. Ickle's niece Rachael. She hates her uncle and wants to live with her grandparents, but there's a zoning law issue and all that, so she's stuck here with the job of uncle hater and exposition dumper. Also I didn't mean to do back to back stories about someone hating their uncle. Luck of the draw I suppose. But she does free Nicky. Rachael wants to leave her uncle and go to Nicky's planet instead. Given he doesn't want to piss off an alien who has access to sharp object, he reluctantly agrees. She tells him that his family are on level six of the ship and they have to sneak there. However, they get caught by a large boulder-like alien and a skinny but also still threatening alien. They go to shoot Nicky, but Rachael gets them to stop since if they kill Ickle's niece they'll be the next ones dead. Rachael and Nicky make a run for it and make it to the basement, where Dr. Ickle has Zoe strapped to a table, about to stab her eye with a needle. Oh, and Zoe is more mad at Nicky than Ickle. Oh, great. She IS a real bad sibling character.
Ickle tries to tell Rachael that his experimenting on aliens is for the safety of the universe, but Rachael sees through his BS and hits him with a strange hairy pole, which is actually just a mop. Okay, that actually is pretty funny. You earned a point, book. They free Zoe, who screams and panics because, well, I mean she's been described as a brat already but she's also going from one alien to another so I can cut her some slack. More aliens, along with the boulder head and skinny one, show up with their lasers pointed at Nicky. But before they can fire, Zoe starts to scream, which is powerful enough to almost kill the aliens. After that freak out, Rachael tells her that she'll help Zoe find her parents, which is enough to calm her down for now. They head to a glass tube that acts as an elevator, which takes them outside of the spaceship. They see Rachael's race's version of the sun, along with what appears to be Earth below, but it's more like a primordial tarpit.
It's there that they also see Nicky and Zoe's parents being led away in a cage. The kids make it to ground level, with Rachael warning them that Ickle likely sent the militia out for them, and it's likely game over if they get caught since the militia will indeed shoot to kill. They find Dr. Ickle's four-wheeler spacecraft, but Rachael can't drive it since she doesn't know how. How fortunate it is then that Nicky was getting flying lessons. Granted, not for spaceships, but how different could that be? But as they argue semantics over how driving a vehicle at twelve is illegal, even to aliens, a frog headed alien shows up and asks for directions. And despite Rachael's best attempts to hide Nicky and Zoe, the alien sees them and starts to panic. So, now they'll definitely be getting a visit from that militia.
The three hop into the four-wheeler and Nicky is forced to drive the thing, which he barely knows how to control, what with it being his first day doing so and all. This leads the ship to almost crash, but manages to duck under a 16-wheeler like the Griswolds getting a Christmas tree. Realizing that maybe they shouldn't be on the freeway, Rachael tells them that they should head to her Grandmother's house. This leads Nicky to believe that he's been fooled this whole time. That Rachael was never going to help them get their parents back and that maybe her grandmother is like a giant brain or something. So like a Grand-mother brain? Is this a stealth Metroid book? But Rachael assures them that her grandmother is the rare person around here that will actually help them. But to get there they have to drive through a crystal desert and a mountain where meteors are falling. Never has this book felt more "I wish this was a movie" than it has right now.
But, before we can even travel through this dark, desolate wasteland with the meteors and everything, Zoe's got to go to the bathroom. So, once again, bladder-related issues have possibly resulted in downfall. Also, their vehicle runs out of fuel. But thankfully they manage to find a fueling station called Seemor's Sunco. Seemor being a large alien with a huge, dripping nose. Lotta large noses on this planet. Hayfever season must fucking suck. They cover Nicky in a hood and have Zoe lay low as Rachael and Nicky enter the nearby store to get food. Which they see that Nicky's face is plastered all over the news so yeah, hood or no hood, this might be a trickier endeavor. They also meet the blob inside who is also Seemor's wife Sally. As they get snacks, suddenly they see cops outside harassing Seemor, due to his history of armed robbery and skyjacking. Dude, Seemor's sounding more badass by the minute.
The cops soon discover Nicky and go to attack him, but Zoe shows up and throws another tantrum, which again gives the three time to escape. They manage to get a hold of one of the cop transport vehicles and head to Grandma's. However, Grandma's house is crawling with militia, Dr. Ickle, the fat and skinny guy, oh and a giant worm as well. Hell of a motley crew. Ickle tells Nicky that Rachael was in on this the whole time, leading them right into a trap, which Rachael denies, but Nicky believes because he's an idiot, plus we have about 20 pages left for some added drama... only to be resolved like a page later anyway. So Nicky really IS an idiot. But instead of killing the three right now, Ickle has sleeping gas fired on them instead. Because, again, still some pages left.
Nicky awakens on the operating table again, as Ickle is ready to finally do this autopsy. Nicky calls Ickle barbaric for doing autopsies on live creatures. But before Ickle can stop gloating and going on about how stupid an alien Nicky is, another alien in a black mask shows up and frees Nicky. This turns out to be Rachael's grandmother, who scolds Ickle, saying that his brother Sonny was always better than him. She takes Nicky to a transport where Rachael is wating. His parents and Zoe are inside as well, but unconscious. As they drive off, fat neck and skinny chase after them, but what's more concerning is being zapped by a huge flying saucer again.
Mr. and Mrs. Gogol awaken as everyone is greeted by green aliens that look like something out of Star Trek, which is something that Rachael knows of, for reasons that should start to be obvious. The leader, a Captain Zenex, tells them that while he's glad that they're all well, they were given instructions to destroy Planet X, or Earth as it's called. Because despite Rachael and Grandma being like the rare pair of Earthlings to be good, the planet is considered too hostile to be left standing. Nicky pleas for Grandma and Rachael to be spared, which Zenex allows, so long as they don't act like Earthlings. He then sets the laser on Earth and is about to blast it. Which means...
BOOM! SECRET ALIENS WHO CLAIMED TO NOT BE ALIENS BUT ACTUALLY WERE ALIENS WHO ALSO BLOW UP SHITTY PLANETS FOR THE HELL OF IT, BITCHES!!
Nicky is a decent protagonist, even if he's a bit of an idiot, which is fair given he's an alien on another alien planet. Although his arc of not trusting Rachael, then trusting her, then not trusting her, then trusting her, then not trusting her to immediately trust her again was annoying, but, again, isn't the worst take we've had. Rachael is awesome, the one rational character in this whole situation. The Earthling dealing with an alien who actually wants to do good by them. The one who trusts aliens to be kind and non-lethal. Which, given again she just aided in a planetary genocide, was that ever a fuckin' whoops! Ickle is our villain who doesn't do much other than gloat and not kill Nicky at any given time because he needs to be in his overdramatic villain mode. Also Zoe screams a lot, but otherwise, like I said, we've had much worse.
So I really liked this one. It offers the alien adventure that Earth Geeks Must Go didn't provide for me, making me feel less annoyed than that book did. It does the secret aliens twist almost as good as Camp Nightmare, and less annoying as My Best Friend is Invisible. There are some logic errors, namely in how some of the vehicles on Planet X are described, stuff like Seemor apparently skyjacking someone, and even how certain things like terrain and the like are handled. But the book makes it clear that clearly Nicky has no idea what the sun is, or what he thought Earth actually looked like, so I can forgive those when the book turns out to be more fun than it had any right to be. Deadtime Stories still keeping it consistently solid, even if the last one we covered was a dud. This one truly marked the spot. Nightmare on Planet X gets an A-.
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