Space Hostages

by Sophia McDougall

Overview

Space Hostages is an intergalactic quest full of humor, adventure, and, of course, aliens that will have you laughing out loud until the very last page! Now in paperback, this is the hilarious middle grade sequel to Mars Evacuees...the kids will have to save the galaxy all over again. And this time they don’t have any duct tape! Plucky heroine Alice Dare and her friends go on a second journey into space that goes spectacularly wrong when they realize that they are up against a whole new kind of alien.

Alice Dare is relieved that at last humans and the alien Morrors are now living peacefully together. But with an influx of too many Morrors, space on Earth is getting a bit tight. To find room for all the Morrors, they’ve begun terraforming a cold little moon in the Alpha Centauri system—and Alice and her friends are invited to the inauguration of the Morrors’ new home!

But once they arrive, the kids are kidnapped by the hostile Krakilluks and must save themselves and the Eemala people in the process.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062294036
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/14/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Sophia McDougall studied English literature at Oxford and is the author of plays, poetry, and the Romanitas trilogy (Romanitas, Rome Burning, and Savage City). She lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

Combines a rip-roaring adventure with a witty first-person narrative and enjoyable portrayals of human, alien, and robot characters. The second book in the Alice Dare series promises space-based fun, and it delivers.

Booklist

10/01/2015
Gr 5–7—Alice Dare, the now 13-year-old Exo-Defense cadet introduced in Mars Evacuees (HarperCollins, 2015), continues her interstellar adventures with friends Carl and Josephine and their persnickety and enthusiastic robot tutor, Goldfish. Peace has been made with the Morrors, and the Vshomu are contained. Millions of Morrors now live harmoniously with humans on Earth. As the story opens, Alice and "The Plucky Kids of Mars," along with Thsaaa (a Morror friend their own age), several siblings, and some scientists are invited to a ribbon cutting on the Morrors' new home world. Midway through the journey there, the lobsterlike Krakkiluk capture the ship and take everyone prisoner. The narrative splits to follow Alice's team (who end up on planet Yaela, with enslaved fruit bat-like creatures) and those who remain onboard, trying to outwit the Krakkiluk. The story moves briskly, with a large cast of nonhuman players. Astute readers will note lessons about slavery, friendship, and accepting differences within the human and alien interactions. The frequent use of invented vocabulary may confuse inattentive readers. An occasional damn or God pops up in context. VERDICT Alice is a spunky heroine, and the story combines otherworldly adventures with a kind and hopeful message. This book can stand alone but will be most appreciated where the first volume has found an audience.—Maggie Knapp, Trinity Valley School, Fort Worth, TX

School Library Journal

2015-11-03
The titles in McDougall's space-adventure series are a little misleading, and even the characters know it. The first book, Mars Evacuees (2015), was ostensibly the memoir of Alice Dare, a schoolgirl who fought aliens on the red planet. But the book didn't seem to be about Mars—not right away. As she says in this sequel, "when I had written fifty pages and had barely gotten to the place when we landed on Mars, I nearly gave up." There are no hostages in Space Hostages until Page 110, and if that makes the first few chapters slow reading, it also makes the book all the more frightening when the hostage-taking occurs. The kidnapping is so sudden and shocking that it changes the tone of the novel. Not only are the hijackers wonderfully scary, but they feel genuinely alien. The Krakkiluks value marriage above nearly everything, and their warriors speak in romantic poetry, so even their most vicious attacks are strangely beautiful. Every species Alice meets is a fully developed culture. But some readers' favorite character will be the Helen, a soulful, intelligent spaceship who's in love with her captain. The surprise plot twists are genuinely surprising, and there are moments when it really seems possible the main characters won't survive. The book's odd pacing may disorient some readers, but they'll be very happy to be disoriented. (Science fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews