The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells, is a classic science fiction tale of Martian invasion.  The story is narrated by a philosopher who lives a quiet life in the English country with his wife.  When visiting an astronomer friend at his observatory one night, they witness what would seem to be shooting stars, but for the fact that they appeared to have been fired directly from Mars.  It is not too long before a large metallic cylinder comes crashing into the earth near their homes.  The news gets out of course, but no one is alarmed at first, since it takes a rather long time for the martians to emerge from their cylinder, and once they are out, they don't appear to be capable of leaving the crater their vessel made.  Their sluggishness and apparent immobility is attributed to their not being able to adjust to the additional gravitational force on this planet, and everyone feels quite safe because of it.

Up until the martians finish constructing their deadly heat ray, that is, and begin burning to death everything within its range.

This unfortunate turn of events is...well...unfortunate.  But they still can't get out of the crater, right?  So as long as you're not in range of this heat ray, you're safe.

Except then it turns out the martians have also brought along things to put together humongous death machines to roam about the countryside in, burning up stuff with their heat rays and snatching up people to feed upon, and causing a widespread general panic.  The military of course was called in, but this is the late 19th century, so their weapons are obviously no match against the superior technology of the martians.  Humankind is pretty screwed, yeah?

Maybe, maybe not.  

Glory Alley and the Star Riders

Glory Alley and the Star Riders, by C. Deanna Verhoff, is a young adult sci-fi/fantasy about fourteen-year-old Glory Alley, amateur spelunker and geologist.  She lives on Tullah, a planet very much like Earth.  Glory's life isn't what you'd call "ideal" - it's anything but.  Her mother died after giving birth to her youngest brother, and things have been going rapidly downhill since then.  Her father is a drunk, and alternates between being Mean Dad or Nice Dad, but with their family's financial situation being what it now is, coupled with her father's abusive behavior when drunk, the authorities have been a presence looming over the family.  Despite his drunken meanness, and the fact that the Alley family is pretty much the town joke, Glory would do or give anything to keep them all together.  

Little does she know that one solo trip into the caverns at Queen's Mesa will put into motion a chain of events that will change her and her world forever.  

Everyone has heard the stories about the Elboni, but to the people of Tullah, the stories are just myth.  Glory isn't sure what to believe anymore when she barely escapes from the Mesa with her life after picking up a beautiful stone, unlike anything she's seen before either in books or with her own eyes.  Could all the stories be true?  Everyone except her grandfather thinks she's gone crazy.  When three strange-looking men come looking for something, though, she realizes that the stories may indeed be true, the stone she found is much more than what it seems, and there is much more to the universe than the science of her world has been capable of uncovering so far.

The Invasion

The Invasion is the first book in K.A. Applegate's Animorphs series.  Jake and his friends Cassie, Marco, Rachel, and Tobias are cutting through an abandoned construction site on their way home from the mall one evening when they see a bright light in the sky that appears to be getting closer...it doesn't take long for them to realize that the light is actually a spaceship.  The ship lands and the kids get a message of warning from the dying alien who was piloting it; the people of Earth are in danger.  Another alien race is working on enslaving people by controlling their minds and bodies.  Until help comes, Jake and his friends may have to try and fight the invasion.  To help them, the alien gives them all a gift:  the ability to morph into any animal after acquiring its DNA sequence by touching it.  When the kids start realizing just how many people are already under the alien control, it hits them just how in over their heads they might be.

These books were right up there with Baby-Sitters Club and Goosebumps when I was a kid; come Book Fair time, Animorphs were certainly at the top of the Want List.  There is something very appealing about having the power to change into any animal at will, and to do so in order to fight for the human race would be pretty awesome.  Reading it again as an adult, I realize how cheesy the writing is, but I imagine it isn't so easy to write in the voice of a pre-teen or teenager in a way that might be believable enough to keep the target audience invested in the characters - especially when the way kids talk changes so much over the years.  

The characters so far are pretty one-dimensional, but there are a lot of books in the series, so there is plenty of room for development where that is concerned.  There are things these kids deal with, though, that are definitely not fluffy and childish.  Marco and Tobias don't have the easiest home lives, and the rest of them are about to have to grow up a lot more pretty soon here if they plan to survive the coming war until the Andalites arrive to fight the Controllers.