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Junior
Puffin
Hardback £12.99
ISBN: 0141380403
Reviewed by Zizou Corder
[Armadillo 6.2 Summer 2004]
Eoin Colfer is the Irishman who wrote the Artemis Fowl books, and this book is quite like those because it is about a boy, and has lots of brilliant technological inventiveness. It is different because it is set in the future ('Soon', it says on page one), and Artemis is basically alone but this boy, Cosmo, has a gang, the Supernaturalists.
Cosmo is an orphan who has been used for medical experiments all his life. When he escapes from the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys, his life is saved by some very cool kids including Mona - my favourite - who has a bar-code tattooed on her eyebrow. They are fighting luminous blue creatures who seem to feed on human life. Cosmo joins them and has some fantastic adventures involving evil gang drag racers, a baby who is not really a baby at all, and the gigantic satellite which hovers over their city controlling all their technical needs.
.It is a very exciting book with twists and turns and disgusting bits, and treachery all the way through. Puffin says that at this stage there are no plans to make it a series. I think it definitely should be.