STEPSISTER FROM THE PLANET WEIRD and NEIGHBORS FROM OUTER SPACE
By: Denise DumarsDate: Friday, August 11, 2000
C'mon'fess up. You really think your stepfamily is from outer space, right? I mean, they talk funny; they eat strange foods and seem waaaay too interested in dumb TV shows like Wheel of Fortune. Well, if your name is Megan and your mom is a former surfing champ who now owns a surf shop and has just met a guy with the unlikely name of Cosmo Cola, you may just be right.
STEPSISTER FROM THE PLANET WEIRD is a delightful young people's science fiction book that gets the reader into the minds of Megan, an earth girl who surfs, and Ariel, a girl from the planet Zircalon-6 whose inhabitants are telepathic clouds of pink gas, unafraid of anything--except a strong wind.
The diary entries of Ariel, which begin the book and alternate throughout with chapters from Megan's point of view, are written in a formal kind of English that adds to the poignancy of her expressions of homesickness and her unhappiness at slowly losing her boyfriend back home to another pink-gas girl.
Ariel's father provides the comic relief in the book as he marvels at everything Earthly, delighting in bad TV shows and pizza. Megan's mom falls for him in part because she mistakes his enthusiasm for everything from brightly-colored beachwear to Coca Cola as expressions of his love of life; in reality, he's simply delighted with all of our 'stuff,' which is completely new to him. In the meantime, Ariel and Megan, each miserable in her own way, plot to ruin the budding romance between the two adults, while also dealing with their own love triangle, since Cutter, the boy that Megan likes, is more attracted to Ariel.
Ariel has befriended the New-Agey manager of her apartment complex, and schemes to get her father together with her. Meanwhile, Megan cooks up a scheme to renew her parents' romance. None of it works, of course, and Megan's dad falls for the New Age lady in the bargain even as Megan's mom and Ariel's dad get back together.
Overall this is a thoughtful book which I found thoroughly enjoyablejust enough slapstick to keep the reader interested, and some thrills and chills to keep the plot moving, some romance, as well as some nice SF tropes (Ariel and her dad have to suck helium from balloons for nourishment, for example) that make this a cut above the usual young people's science fiction novel. It's marketed at middle graders, but is sophisticated enough--especially in its vocabulary and themesto interest older teens as well. At least two sequels are plannedwatch for them.
NEIGHBORS FROM OUTER SPACE effectively skewers our TV-watching, newly-improved-product-buying society. The protagonist, Russell, is a boy whose dad writes TV advertising and whose mother is an actress in TV commercials. He is, naturally, intrigued when new neighbors move in next door and appear to watch TV non-stop. He meets his neighbors and learns about themthey're aliens from the planet X-10 who idolize TV commercials and don't realize that the characters portrayed on them aren't real. Even worse, their planet is overrun by barbarians who hog all the Earthly TV signals.
Russell helps the aliens acclimate to their new life on Earth, but it isn't easy. They act up in the mall upon first encountering all of the products they've seen advertised on TV for so many years, and they don't understand the difference between television programs and commercials. This is prime territory for satire and slapstick comedy, and both are handled very well in the book.
But Russell is bothered by the fact that the aliens are in exile, and he wants to help them reclaim their planet. At first, he despairs of helping the aliens--Motor Oil, Aspirin, and their son, Minivan--until a miraculous device they have concocted brings to life the very TV commercial heroes who are up to the challenge of smiting the alien barbarians. Can such TV commercial characters as Captain Spotless, Lady Bug, and the Stickky Elves help? Yes, but at what cost? The loss of TV on X-10 forever? Is it worth it?
Needless to say, both Russell and his alien neighbors learn that there's more to life than TV, junk food, and all the other consumerist nonsense advertised on commercials. My recommendation: buy STEPSISTER FROM THE PLANET WEIRD and NEIGHBORS FROM OUTER SPACE, get your kids out from in front of the TV and send them to the beach. Maybe they'll learn the joys of reading and getting some exercise.
Maybe they'll even learn to surfand to keep watching the skies.
NEIGHBORS FROM OUTER SPACE, by Francess Lantz. 176 p. $3.95 from Rainbow Bridge/Troll publishers. ISBN 0-8167-3869-6.
STEPSISTER FROM THE PLANET WEIRD, by Francess Lantz. 170 p. $3.99 from Random House. ISBN 0-679-87330-9.
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