Emperor Dad is a Best Novel Darrell Award winner by the YA sci-fi author, Henry Melton. (The cover is showing up kind of funky on my blog for some reason, to see it as it truly is, instead of this psychedelic one, go to one of the links at the bottom of the post.)
In it, teenage football player James begins to suspect that his dad, recently laid off, has invented something huge – teleportation. When his dad’s new mysterious job begins to take him out of town around the same time a bodiless voice calling himself the “Emperor” begins making an appearance throughout the world (and creating quite a stir as he sets himself above the nations of Earth), James is determined to find out what’s going on…
Emperor Dad is very original in its presentation of the creation and control of teleportation. The way in which James’ father deals with his scientific discovery is very unique and an attention grabbing take. Henry Melton’s novels come across to me as having a broad appeal to readers, but with an extra-special potential fan base in the aficionados of the classic sci-fi genre.
I really liked the concept of Emperor Dad and can see the novel (as well as the recently released Pixie Dust I reviewed a couple weeks ago) translating well on the big screen, if that ever were to happen.
My only problem was that I began to find the technical jargon and nitty-gritty scientific detail to be difficult to grasp, and felt that it began to chop up the narrative flow, which is the part I prefer. This made sections of the book, especially maybe the final third of Emperor Dad, to be a bit more laborious to read, personally.
But, this is only my opinion. There are so many people, particularly – as I mentioned previously – the enthusiasts of traditional science fiction, that I believe would LOVE everything about Emperor Dad. And don't get me wrong - I really did like Emperor Dad a lot! I just think it paled a little in comparison to Pixie Dust.
And because of that, and the ingenious way Henry Melton presented the idea of teleportation in a fresh way, I recommend Emperor Dad to those of you who would like a taste of sci-fi in your bibliophile diet.
In it, teenage football player James begins to suspect that his dad, recently laid off, has invented something huge – teleportation. When his dad’s new mysterious job begins to take him out of town around the same time a bodiless voice calling himself the “Emperor” begins making an appearance throughout the world (and creating quite a stir as he sets himself above the nations of Earth), James is determined to find out what’s going on…
Emperor Dad is very original in its presentation of the creation and control of teleportation. The way in which James’ father deals with his scientific discovery is very unique and an attention grabbing take. Henry Melton’s novels come across to me as having a broad appeal to readers, but with an extra-special potential fan base in the aficionados of the classic sci-fi genre.
I really liked the concept of Emperor Dad and can see the novel (as well as the recently released Pixie Dust I reviewed a couple weeks ago) translating well on the big screen, if that ever were to happen.
My only problem was that I began to find the technical jargon and nitty-gritty scientific detail to be difficult to grasp, and felt that it began to chop up the narrative flow, which is the part I prefer. This made sections of the book, especially maybe the final third of Emperor Dad, to be a bit more laborious to read, personally.
But, this is only my opinion. There are so many people, particularly – as I mentioned previously – the enthusiasts of traditional science fiction, that I believe would LOVE everything about Emperor Dad. And don't get me wrong - I really did like Emperor Dad a lot! I just think it paled a little in comparison to Pixie Dust.
And because of that, and the ingenious way Henry Melton presented the idea of teleportation in a fresh way, I recommend Emperor Dad to those of you who would like a taste of sci-fi in your bibliophile diet.
Ways to find out more:
hmelton@mac.com -- http://www.henrymelton.com/ -- http://henrymelton.blogspot.com/
http://www.HenryMelton.com/0/Webstore.html Twitter @HenryMelton Facebook: HenryMelton
hmelton@mac.com -- http://www.henrymelton.com/ -- http://henrymelton.blogspot.com/
http://www.HenryMelton.com/0/Webstore.html Twitter @HenryMelton Facebook: HenryMelton
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