It's a brave new world.

The other day, I found myself wandering through the aisles of WHSmith’s, armed with a £15 gift voucher. I was on the lookout for something I hadn’t read, but was certain I would enjoy. I have a bit of thing with buying books; I want to know, beyond a doubt, that I’m making an investment. The book either has to be something I’ve read and know I’ll want to recommend or read again, or a book by an author I’ve read before. Generally, I don’t buy books I’ve never heard of, by authors I don’t know. However, Smith’s is not the best place to book browse with such specifics in mind so I wound up staring at their teen fiction, my never-fail fall-back option. And so I managed to discover two pretty cool things.

1. Because of the Teen love of all things supernatural, some Christopher Pike books have been re-released. Be still my heart.
2. Many, many, many of the popular teen books (a large majority of which are now supernatural or sci-fi based) were on a Buy-One-Get-One-Half-Price offer. Result!

So I picked up Pike’s Remember Me Volume 2 (I have book one hidden away somewhere, an old Point Horror edition, ah memories) and 0.4 by Mike Lancaster. Now 0.4 I’d never heard of. I’d never seen an advert or any promotional material. It wasn’t on my ever increasing list of must-read teen fiction. So, for the life of me, I have no idea why it intrigued me. The cover was pretty cool, the blurb vague but fascinating, and the tape recorder aspect reminded me of 13 Reasons Why, another teen book I read last year. So maybe that’s why. But once I’d picked it up, it did pull me in. The writing was pacy, the characters interesting, but not overly formed, and the action began almost immediately. The interruptions throughout the narrative from the blank bits of tape and the scholarly interludes added a feeling of depth to an otherwise fairly straightforward invasion scenario and that was definitely welcomed.

However, Lancaster’s book, although great, is quite simplistic (even for TF) and I feel it could have done with being a little longer. The concept is actually quite an interesting one and it’s a shame that certain aspects of the text make the possibility of a sequel seem remote. I would recommend it if you like a bit of light sci-fi but it’s one to find in your library rather than the bookshop.