There's a COVID story in how I came to read these books. I found Book 3 at my local library and pulled it off the shelf before the library shut down in March 2020. I loved it! And it was so easy to enter the series, even on book 3. It was clear the author was a skilled writer and cognizant that not all readers enter series on book 1.
So I asked my local library to purchase books 1,2, & 4, 5. The purchase request was approved in June 2020, and I waited. And waited. And waited some more. With COVID delaying publishing schedules and printing from China delayed by the bankruptcy of Hanjin (shipping company), I waited some more.
And this year, June 2021, books 2, 4, 5 came to my library. I only get three (3), 3-week checkouts, so I read them while waiting for this one, book 1, but there was always a question in the back of my mind, because this is billed as "neurodiverse science fiction," and it's clear at least one character, Mira, is non-verbal. So how are the other characters neurodiverse?
This book answeres that, and it finally came in August. I devoured it. Once we finally got our hands on it, my son read them, too. We really enjoyed this upper middle grade sci-fi series.
Book 1: Earth Force Rising, by Monica Tesler
Jasper's a Bounder Breeding program baby, now 12 and about to join Earth Force, the space military organization responsible for spear-heading Earth's sally into the galaxy and beyond. Earth has already discovered the Tunneler planet, Gulaga, which has rich deposits of occuldium, the element that enables Earth Force aeronauts to "bound," or travel between planets.
But there's an accident early in the space travel program on Bounder Base 51, and five (5) adult aeronauts bound and go into the ether...never to be seen again. And the Bounder Breeding program is born. The genes that will enable humans to bound more safely and easily were "bred" out of Earth's population, because they increased instances of neurodiversity. Turns out, their neurodiverse brains are actually better suited to bounding technology than other humans'.
Enter Jasper, on his first 6-week tour of duty as an Earth Force cadet. He'll encounter all the bullying you'd expect from fellow cadets. He's assigned to a "pod" of cadets, led by the only civillian scientist, John Waters, at the academy. There's Mira, who's non-verbal and sensory sensitive; Jasper, who has some serious attention-span issues but can't stay still; Lucy, who talks and talks and talks; Cole, who's brilliant at the online strategy military game, but has a hard time interacting with others; and Marco, who totters between joining the bullies or not. The main bully is quick to anger and doesn't always grasp the circumstances and social cues around him.
Once in their pods, Earth Force scientist Gedney gets them their bounder gloves. The kids begin to learn how to use them. They compete in a series of trials against the other cadet pods to showcase what they've learned. It ends with a trip to the Paleo Planet, when the kids finally confront the alien species, the Yuli, and learn Earth's at war -- and has been, since the Base 51 bounding disaster.
Worse, they learn they weren't just bred for their various neurodiverse abilities. They were bred to be Earth's soldiers. And no one told them, or their parents.
This is a great introduction to the series. Enjoy!
Book 2: Tundra Trials, by Monica Tesler
Jasper and his fellow Earth Force Bounders travel to the Tunneler planet, Gulaga, to train, but they learn they're not exactly wanted or welcomed.
John Waters, the kids' pod leader, sidetracks Mira and Jasper and gives them secret alien tech: a "brain patch" that enables them to speak to one another. He vaguely refers to them as part of his plans to avert all out war with the Yuli, but the kids aren't sure what he's referring to, and they're even less sure he's got Earth Force's blessing.
The patches take time to kick in, and they don't work the way Jasper imagined. Besides, speech is not how neurodiverse Mira thinks or communicates, anyway, so why would they? Jasper's got some serious Mira-brain-thought learning to do.
They get sidetracked in Gulagaven on the way to the burrow barracks and saved by a mysterious Tunneler, Barrick, who has an old translator and gets them back to where they belong, before he vanishes.
Lucy meets Tunneler teen Neeka, also the pod's Tunneler liason, who's a bit too loose-lipped to keep under wraps there's going to be a big summit in a few weeks. Lucy and Neeka are BFFs, practically soul-mates, and the joined-at-the-hip friendship will continue throughout the books, and at times be pivotal to the plot.
The pod has to share Tunneler quarters with their Earth Force and fellow-Bounder arch nemesis, Regis, and his bully sidekicks, Hakim and Randall. The nasty pranks begin with worms in Jasper's bed and quickly escalate to putting Mira in serious danger on a bridge over a chasm. All the while, Jasper and Mira are learning to use their brain patches.
The Bounders learn they have to navigate the surface of Gulaga looking for what are essentially geo-cashed items. The first pod to bring them all back, wins. Of course, this pits Jasper's pod against Regis'.
The pranks continue to get worse, until Regis steals Mira's bounding gloves before one of the geo-cache expeditions, and that leads to Jasper and Mira getting left out on the freezing Gulagan surface after the doors to the city close.
Barrick arrives to save them, and while they're recuperating in the tunnels below Gulagaven, they learn more about the summit -- they think. Or are there two summits? One in public, the other in private -- with Waters, the Gulagans and the Yuli?
I won't spoil how it ends. Enjoy this super-great space-opera sci-fi read!
We entered this series on this book, #3, which can sometimes be problematic, but in this case, it wasn't and that's a real testament to the author, Monica Tesler's, writing skill. We were pulled into the story right away, mostly through use of familiar tropes -- kids with special "bounding" or space travel, abilities headed off to a special, military training academy -- and although two entire stories happened before this one, setting it up, you don't really need to read them to understand what's going on.
It starts with older brother Jasper, who's on leave at home and waiting to head back to the EarthBound Academy and a new assignment. He's trying to navigate what he can tell his little sister, Addy, about the Academy and an alien species, the Youli, who are out to exterminate humans. Addy's about to join him at the Academy and she needs to learn the truth, to stay safe. He's also not told her about his stolen Youli mind link with another cadet, Mira.
His family expects him to look after Addy as she trains at the Academy, which is more unrealistic than even they know, as Jasper and his team are sent as the advance "cadet" group to pave positive relations with a second alien race, the underwater and somewhat mysterious, Alkalinians. They've agreed to let the Academy set up a cadet training facility on their planet, but insist on a field that interferes with the cadets' abilities to bound.
Of course, absolutely nothing is as it seems. The Alkalinians are using Youli virtual reality technology to turn weeks into seeming days and conduct experiments on the cadets while luring the cadets' superior (and even for middle grade, amazingly idiotic) officer into a false sense of complacency.
Jasper figures out the Alks are in cahoots with the Youli and this was all a ruse to steal back his mind link with Mira. The Youli are coming, and they're arriving just after Addy does.
I won't spoil how it ends, but it was a fast-paced, roller coaster ride of action and intrigue that prompted me to request the rest of the series (there's 5 books, total) from my public library. Super summer space opera reading! Enjoy!
Of all the books in this series, this one I least enjoyed. I'm a former newspaper & broadcast journalist, and the entire time I was reading and thinking, why aren't the characters able to spot propaganda? Or reference Earth history, specifically WWII, when propaganda was used by both sides for these exact same purposes? Why are none of the characters, other than the main characters, Jasper and his sister Addy, particularly critical of the "news" they're receiving from Earth Force? But I realize that may just be me, and others may enjoy the story.
The book centers on Jasper's return from the Rift in time with the original heroes who vanished in the Youli attack on Bounder Base 51 so many years ago. Mira stays with the Youli and doesn't return with him. There's a lot of angst on Jasper's part over Mira's failure to return with him that I felt most 14-year-olds would figure out long before Jasper did, but that just speaks to my overall frustration with the storyline in general.
For the adult Base 51 heroes, it's been two weeks. For Earth, they've been gone 15 years. Jasper's been gone a few hours after the battle on Alkalinia, but on Earth, it's a year. They all return home to a vastly changed Earth Force led by a single admiral (one of the heroes' former girlfriends) who has doubled-down on her intentions (like a toddler throwing a tantrum) to get what she wants -- revenge on the Youli -- even though her boyfriend just popped back into existence, completely unharmed. Rescued by the Youli, I might add.
The Base 51 heroes pose a particularly prickly problem for Earth Force's propaganda team, which now includes Lucy as the "Face of Earth Force!" In pink, stilettos and tons of makeup. Ugh. I much prefered her fighting as a Bounder. Specifically, their return does not fit Earth Force's "narrative" of a savage Youli foe that needs to be attacked, at any cost to Earth. Or Earth Force's goal of preventing us from joining an Intragalactic Council that will restrict how we exploit and force into near-slavery alien races on other worlds. Prime example: the Tunnelers on Gulaga, who're now mining the occludium needed to fuel the ships needed to bound and attack the Youli.
So Earth Force puts them all on a Hero Homecoming tour, which I found reminiscent of Katniss' tour of Panem after she won. Down to the makeup team for Jasper.
Jasper makes friends, who he can't trust, in the broadcast biz who're really working for the Resistance and his sister, Addy and her boyfriend and Jasper's former pod mate, Marco. Jasper ends up escaping from the tour in a box with Regis, of all people, and one of the adult Base 51 heroes, on a secret trip to Gulaga, again, to meet with Waters and the Tunnelers and figure out what the admiral is planning.
But Jasper rightfully doesn't trust his former pod leader, Waters, either. The plan is to blow the top off of Earth Force's narrative by broadcasting their own Resistance truths.
I won't ruin it for you. Read it for yourself and see how it ends. There are some eerie parallels to the political discourse of the past few years, and I may just be fatigued from all that. But I really wanted more in-space alien sci-fi space opera, not Earth political intrigue. All of which the next book delightfully delivered. ;-)
And finally, the Bounders Jasper, Marco, Lucy, Cole, and Jasper's sister Addy all get to go to Youli with Mira and learn how to really use their Bounder abilities and the gloves to defeat the admiral and join the Intragalactic Council.
Basically, Mira's been fighting for a new timeline wtih the Youli Travelers, since Jasper's few hours in the time rift, and there's only a very slim chance anything will turn out differently. And it all rests on Jasper's shoulders.
I honestly can't say a word more. If I do, it'll ruin it. But it involves time travel, which normally makes my head hurt, but this I felt was done exceptionally well.
Read, enjoy this wonderful conclusion to the Bounders' tale. It's a great series for under the tree or for Hanukkah and will keep upper middle grade readers entranced for a couple of days, at least. Enjoy!
