What do you think?
Rate this book
The Fellowship for Alien Detection
Two kids from opposite sides of the country find themselves on a road trip to save the world from an impending alien attack - and bolster their middle-school transcripts in the process.
First came the missing people, missing time events, and untraceable radio signals. Then came Juliette, Arizona, a town that simply disappeared from existence. Suffice it to say, something strange is going on. Enter Haley and Dodger, two kids from opposite sides of the country who both think they can prove that these unexplained phenomena have a very real cause: aliens, and they are about to discover that their fledgling theories about extraterrestrial life are one-hundred-percent accurate.
Having each been awarded a Fellowship for Alien Detection (a grant from a mysterious foundation dedicated to proving aliens have visited earth), Haley and Dodger and their families each set off on a cross-country road trip over summer vacation to figure out what is happening in towns across America. They soon realize that the answers to many of their questions lie in the vanished town of Juliette, AZ, but someone, or something, is doing everything in its power to ensure they never reach it. If Haley and Dodger don't act quickly, more people may go missing, and the world as we know it may change for the worse.
First came the missing people, missing time events, and untraceable radio signals. Then came Juliette, Arizona, a town that simply disappeared from existence. Suffice it to say, something strange is going on. Enter Haley and Dodger, two kids from opposite sides of the country who both think they can prove that these unexplained phenomena have a very real cause: aliens, and they are about to discover that their fledgling theories about extraterrestrial life are one-hundred-percent accurate.
Having each been awarded a Fellowship for Alien Detection (a grant from a mysterious foundation dedicated to proving aliens have visited earth), Haley and Dodger and their families each set off on a cross-country road trip over summer vacation to figure out what is happening in towns across America. They soon realize that the answers to many of their questions lie in the vanished town of Juliette, AZ, but someone, or something, is doing everything in its power to ensure they never reach it. If Haley and Dodger don't act quickly, more people may go missing, and the world as we know it may change for the worse.
432 pages, Hardcover
First published February 26, 2013
13 people are currently reading
1287 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Emerson
40 books446 followersAuthor of sixteen novels for children and young adults, most recently LAST DAY ON MARS, BREAKOUT, and the ATLANTEANS series. His books have been published in ten different countries. Formerly a science teacher and a creative writing teacher, Kevin is also a singer and drummer. He has won a spelling bee, lost a beauty pageant, and once appeared in a Swedish TV commercial.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
March 18, 2019
This book is very impressive, well-plotted, and choc-full of information that sounds like the author took their time in getting this book right...all in all, a great read!
July 2, 2018
I was extremely impressed by the first third of this book. The way Emerson sets up his X-Files-ish mystery is excellent. As with anything I read to my kiddo (currently 6yo), her enjoyment of the book is paramount, but I am happiest when I can enjoy the book, too. I can honestly say I was really "into it" while reading most of this book.
Emerson did a fantastic job portraying his protagonists as intelligent kids. They're sympathetic, have genuine problems, and handle them according to internal motivations that are made clear to us, the readers. I was especially impressed by Haley's internal thought processes during the setup and as the real adventure began.
The book doesn't manage to keep up that initial level of perfection when our point of view abruptly shifts to another character and the mystery becomes less of a solvable series of logical events and steers into the "what the heck is going on?" variety. For a while, it's all a little uncomfortably close to magic (and yes, I'm aware of the applicability of a certain Arthur C. Clarke quote to what I've just written).
But the pace never slackens, so I never lost interest in the story or felt as if it were bogging down.
I was truly pleased to find that everything wrapped up as well as it did. It's a self-contained story. I also liked that this book has some of the grand scale that I've always loved in science fiction. I wasn't expecting that, so it was a pleasant surprise. My kiddo hasn't been exposed to anything like that before (fantasy seems to be much more prevalent than SF in children's books) and I suspect it will have made a big impression on her.
Emerson did a fantastic job portraying his protagonists as intelligent kids. They're sympathetic, have genuine problems, and handle them according to internal motivations that are made clear to us, the readers. I was especially impressed by Haley's internal thought processes during the setup and as the real adventure began.
The book doesn't manage to keep up that initial level of perfection when our point of view abruptly shifts to another character and the mystery becomes less of a solvable series of logical events and steers into the "what the heck is going on?" variety. For a while, it's all a little uncomfortably close to magic (and yes, I'm aware of the applicability of a certain Arthur C. Clarke quote to what I've just written).
But the pace never slackens, so I never lost interest in the story or felt as if it were bogging down.
I was truly pleased to find that everything wrapped up as well as it did. It's a self-contained story. I also liked that this book has some of the grand scale that I've always loved in science fiction. I wasn't expecting that, so it was a pleasant surprise. My kiddo hasn't been exposed to anything like that before (fantasy seems to be much more prevalent than SF in children's books) and I suspect it will have made a big impression on her.
February 6, 2017
Turned out to be a really neat sci-fi story, more for pre-teens and teens, but a good story none the less. I enjoyed how the author keeps you in suspense and throws you for a loop.
April 5, 2013
Haley is the kind of eighth grader who's already trying to pad her future college applications. She applied for the Fellowship for Alien Detection on a whim, as an alternative to her usual music camps and other enriching activities. Dodger is a shy loner who already feels like a failure at age thirteen. His parents are surprised when he's awarded the Fellowship for Alien Detection, since he's not exactly scholarship material. Both kids have stumbled upon some strange occurrences. Missing time. Missing people. Radio broadcasts from towns that don't exist. When they set out to investigate, from opposite sides of the country, they're hoping for a good story for their field reports, but they have no idea how far the Fellowship will take them.
Ok, first of all: hooray for middle grade science fiction. Double hooray for middle grade science fiction with a strong female protagonist. We don't see enough of it, and I personally know a small army of tween Whovians who think it's about goram time they had some intelligent, age-appropriate sci-fi to read. Bravo, Mr. Emerson.
And this title will be an easy sell to those Whovians. It's heavy on plot, with a spooky, intricate mystery that takes most of its 400 pages to unravel. I'm inclined to look askance at middle grade novels once they pass the 300 page mark, but this one doesn't feel particularly bloated. The skillful pacing spaces out the plot twists and cliffhangers effectively enough to keep the momentum going right up to the end. Plus, it's a standalone. The door is left slightly open for a sequel, but there is a full, self-contained story here, which is refreshing in these days of endless Chronicles of This-and-That.
This title should definitely be on your summer booktalk roster.
It will, however, probably not show up on the Newbery discussion table. The characters are inconsistently developed. Dodger's dad is complex - both infuriating and oddly sympathetic. Haley's parents and brother, on the other hand, are vague, blurry presences. Some of the settings are well-realized - especially the stark desert landscape - but some are barely noted. The best I can say for the prose style is that it's cinematic... not always in a good way, when we're measuring for literary distinction.
That same fast-paced cinematic prose makes this an excellent summer vacation book, though. I'm going to pass my copy along to a cool, smart, alien-loving eleven-year-old girl.
(Cross-posted from For Those About to Mock)
Ok, first of all: hooray for middle grade science fiction. Double hooray for middle grade science fiction with a strong female protagonist. We don't see enough of it, and I personally know a small army of tween Whovians who think it's about goram time they had some intelligent, age-appropriate sci-fi to read. Bravo, Mr. Emerson.
And this title will be an easy sell to those Whovians. It's heavy on plot, with a spooky, intricate mystery that takes most of its 400 pages to unravel. I'm inclined to look askance at middle grade novels once they pass the 300 page mark, but this one doesn't feel particularly bloated. The skillful pacing spaces out the plot twists and cliffhangers effectively enough to keep the momentum going right up to the end. Plus, it's a standalone. The door is left slightly open for a sequel, but there is a full, self-contained story here, which is refreshing in these days of endless Chronicles of This-and-That.
This title should definitely be on your summer booktalk roster.
It will, however, probably not show up on the Newbery discussion table. The characters are inconsistently developed. Dodger's dad is complex - both infuriating and oddly sympathetic. Haley's parents and brother, on the other hand, are vague, blurry presences. Some of the settings are well-realized - especially the stark desert landscape - but some are barely noted. The best I can say for the prose style is that it's cinematic... not always in a good way, when we're measuring for literary distinction.
That same fast-paced cinematic prose makes this an excellent summer vacation book, though. I'm going to pass my copy along to a cool, smart, alien-loving eleven-year-old girl.
(Cross-posted from For Those About to Mock)
May 19, 2017
Okay, what a ride. This book was simultaneously exactly what I expected it to be, and in a way not at all close. Because what I thought I was going to read was an adolescent, X-Files-esque road trip to discover the reality of extraterrestrial existence, and what I got was Kind of. In a way, that's almost what the kids experienced too, and maybe that's the goal. There were a few picky things I didn't like--a third of the book was just from Haley's POV, a third from Dodger's, and then it alternated; getting used to that was a bit weird when regularly books flip-flip consistently. I was quite annoyed with Dodger's parents calling him "Franny" as a nickname for Francis, when clearly he didn't want to be called by either. And there were certainly avenues that I felt could have been explored more. But overall, I was really entertained by this story, by both its inventiveness and its characters.
November 4, 2013
I struggled between a 4.5 and a 5 for this, because I don't think it was a perfect read, but I think it deserved the 5 mainly for being so ballsy. 1) It's scary as shit, dude. The cover does not prepare you for how legit scary it is.
2) It does a lot of really sophisticated Hitchcockian things with the aliens and does not shy away from being sophisticated, either in plot or language.
3) I felt like the kids had been genderswapped, in the best possible way
4) The alien plot does not get overly tied up in itself, it has a really simple explanation that makes sense and doesn't need to be overblown
5) The ending! Is also really interesting and sophisticated for a MG book
6) It manages to be a real, action-packed adventure book that's also a coming of age and family dynamics novel without (almost) ever feeling anvilly or stretched.
Ugh. So good. Loved it.
2) It does a lot of really sophisticated Hitchcockian things with the aliens and does not shy away from being sophisticated, either in plot or language.
3) I felt like the kids had been genderswapped, in the best possible way
4) The alien plot does not get overly tied up in itself, it has a really simple explanation that makes sense and doesn't need to be overblown
5) The ending! Is also really interesting and sophisticated for a MG book
6) It manages to be a real, action-packed adventure book that's also a coming of age and family dynamics novel without (almost) ever feeling anvilly or stretched.
Ugh. So good. Loved it.
August 30, 2017
I love this book, it has everything I love in a book. I love science ficton and fantasy, I also like realistic ficton but it is far from being my favorite genre. I know I just read it but this is a book I would want to read again.
May 10, 2013
Summary:
At first, we start with two distinct characters. Hayley, is a very smart thirteen year old girl from Connecticut. She applies for the very first Fellowship for Alien Detection Scholarship given by the Gavin Keller Foundation and she gets it. This begins her journey to Arizona where she investigates these odd time lapses. An entire town loses 16 minutes. The town is disoriented, and someone is missing. In Hayley's attempt to build up her newspaper reporter resume, she begins an investigation into why Juliette has had this strange occurrence happen to them.
The other winner for the Fellowship for Alien Detection Scholarship is Dodger. Dodger is from Washington. He believes himself to be an outsider, even amongst his own family. He wins this scholarship because he can hear the radio broadcast from Juliette, Arizona playing in his head. No one has ever heard of Juliette, so he is off to discover what has happened to this little town, and why can he hear their radio station?
When Hayley and Dodger's stories collide, the real fun begins. Both of them make huge discoveries, meet other alien researchers (and maybe some aliens themselves), and add way more than either ever wanted for their resumes. What do aliens have in store for our planet?
My thoughts:
I often find alien stories to be scary or hokey. There aren't a ton that are in-between. This one is just a lot of fun. There are some ridiculously funny parts where you want to slap your knee and shake your head, as well as several parts that have you reading into the wee hours of the night because of the never-ending suspense. Dodger is my favorite character because he is just so adorable you could squeeze him like a teddy bear, but Hayley is the persuasive character that will get to the bottom of anything. The two of them work very well as a duo and take the reader on an adventure of a lifetime all while attempting to protect their families or hide the "what's really going on here". Other than aliens, this is a tale of friends, family, and reaching for what you believe in. The language is not difficult, but the size can be daunting. I would have no problem putting this into a middle school or high school library (yes, older kids love alien adventure as well). I don't know if I would hand this off to a 4th of 5th grader without knowing that they were very strong readers.
At first, we start with two distinct characters. Hayley, is a very smart thirteen year old girl from Connecticut. She applies for the very first Fellowship for Alien Detection Scholarship given by the Gavin Keller Foundation and she gets it. This begins her journey to Arizona where she investigates these odd time lapses. An entire town loses 16 minutes. The town is disoriented, and someone is missing. In Hayley's attempt to build up her newspaper reporter resume, she begins an investigation into why Juliette has had this strange occurrence happen to them.
The other winner for the Fellowship for Alien Detection Scholarship is Dodger. Dodger is from Washington. He believes himself to be an outsider, even amongst his own family. He wins this scholarship because he can hear the radio broadcast from Juliette, Arizona playing in his head. No one has ever heard of Juliette, so he is off to discover what has happened to this little town, and why can he hear their radio station?
When Hayley and Dodger's stories collide, the real fun begins. Both of them make huge discoveries, meet other alien researchers (and maybe some aliens themselves), and add way more than either ever wanted for their resumes. What do aliens have in store for our planet?
My thoughts:
I often find alien stories to be scary or hokey. There aren't a ton that are in-between. This one is just a lot of fun. There are some ridiculously funny parts where you want to slap your knee and shake your head, as well as several parts that have you reading into the wee hours of the night because of the never-ending suspense. Dodger is my favorite character because he is just so adorable you could squeeze him like a teddy bear, but Hayley is the persuasive character that will get to the bottom of anything. The two of them work very well as a duo and take the reader on an adventure of a lifetime all while attempting to protect their families or hide the "what's really going on here". Other than aliens, this is a tale of friends, family, and reaching for what you believe in. The language is not difficult, but the size can be daunting. I would have no problem putting this into a middle school or high school library (yes, older kids love alien adventure as well). I don't know if I would hand this off to a 4th of 5th grader without knowing that they were very strong readers.
June 27, 2013
Haley is a highly motivated student who applied for an odd summer program because she stumbled upon a mystery perfect for a budding journalist. Dodger applied to the same program, hoping to discover the truth behind a phenomenon that makes him even more awkward than he might be otherwise. Thus, the two set out to find aliens on their summer vacations.
And Suza Raines, featured in interludes throughout the novel, keeps living the same day over and over.
I enjoyed THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION and I am always going to give props to standalone science fiction. I do feel it ran a bit long, especially for the target age group. Much of the sections before Haley and Dodger meet could have been streamlined. I am happy that the book kept going back to Suza, because she was my favorite character. Focusing on her would've gotten boring fast, but the amount given of her repeating life was the right amount of creepy.
However, the length does make THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION a good candidate for keeping a passenger occupied on a long car ride. Given the multiple road trips featured within, I think THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION is a great choice for the sci-fi lover on the road this summer.
And Suza Raines, featured in interludes throughout the novel, keeps living the same day over and over.
I enjoyed THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION and I am always going to give props to standalone science fiction. I do feel it ran a bit long, especially for the target age group. Much of the sections before Haley and Dodger meet could have been streamlined. I am happy that the book kept going back to Suza, because she was my favorite character. Focusing on her would've gotten boring fast, but the amount given of her repeating life was the right amount of creepy.
However, the length does make THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION a good candidate for keeping a passenger occupied on a long car ride. Given the multiple road trips featured within, I think THE FELLOWSHIP FOR ALIEN DETECTION is a great choice for the sci-fi lover on the road this summer.
November 3, 2012
(read an uncorrected proof)
Good Science-fiction story about two kids who discover aliens and a town that has been in a loop, repeating a single day for the last 20 years.
There is a mystery to solve, people to save, aliens to beat, a town to save.
Good Science-fiction story about two kids who discover aliens and a town that has been in a loop, repeating a single day for the last 20 years.
There is a mystery to solve, people to save, aliens to beat, a town to save.
Want to read
January 23, 2013I just received the ARC! It looks awesome! Thanks to goodreads voor hosting the giveaway and Walden Pond Press for providing the ARC of course! Really excited for this one, will begin reading this after my current reads :D.
September 1, 2017
Kind of slow and confusing, but overall is a fine book.
January 26, 2015
The story: from completely different areas of the country, three 8th-graders stumble onto the biggest story of the century (or maybe ever): aliens getting ready to invade, already running experiments on earthlings to decide whether to wipe them out entirely, or just allow them to survive as a sub-species. Don't let the cartoon-like front cover fool you: life on earth is about to come to an end if Suza, Dodger, and Haley can't solve the puzzle in time.
June Cleaver’s ratings: Language PG-13; Nudity G; Sexual Content G; Violence PG; Magic and the occult G; Substance Abuse G; GLBT contentG ; Adult themes PG (lying to parents, kidnapping); Overall rating PG.
Liz's comments: Judging from the cover, I really thought this was going to be an extra-terrestrial sci-fi parody--but much to my surprise (and despite some funny, accurate MS humor), it turned out to be an action-filled story about aliens, kids who interact with aliens, and the conflict between following your dreams and doing what's right for your family. Boys would actually be the best target audience for this, but sadly, Dodger's story doesn't begin until more than 150 pages into the book…and generally, boy readers won't have stuck around through that much girl stuff to get to the boy part. Sad, because Emerson's teens are very authentic and both boys and girls who like science fiction would find something to identify with if they'd give it a go.
Annotation with spoilers: Suza Raines suspects that something is deeply wrong. She doesn't know it, but she's been abducted by aliens and plugged into a sort of Groundhog-Day scenario where the same day repeats over and over again as the alien species runs simulations to determine whether Earth is the best place for them (since their home planet, Krypton-like, has been damaged and is unsuitable for life). Suza just knows that there's something wrong--something she's supposed to do--but the controlling voice in her head is insistent and keeps her under its sway. For the time being.
Haley is bummed that she didn't get chosen for the music and journalism summer camps she'd wanted--but she did win the FAD (or, the Fellowship for Alien Detection) award, and she and her family are going on a 2-week trip to track down the truth about Missing Time (MT) events that have been happening in random places around the country. Most importantly, she's tracked down a girl, Stephanie Raines, who gives information about her missing sister, Suza. Their hometown of Amber, Pennsylvania, is the first stop on Haley's trip.
Haley had already figured out that a number of towns around the US had experienced these events, where everyone essentially goes into suspended animation for 16 minutes before waking up. Since the MTs only occur late at night, few people notice them, and most people explain them away. The only reason that Steph Raines is different is that the MT in Amber ended up with her sister going missing several months ago.
Haley comes to realize out that every place with an MT also seems to have a mining operation run by United Conglomerate Amalgamations (UCA). When Steph takes her down into the UCA mine in Amber, they first see a shiny steel door with hand-sized black plates on the front--and when Haley takes a picture of it, an orange hologram instantly begins to form. The girls take off, and as they reach the door of the mine cave, there's already a UCA truck on hand with its group of short, squat construction workers in hard hats and orange jumpsuits,, who seem to have plastic skin. The girls barely manage to get away, mostly because Steph knows her way around the woods and their pursuers don't.
Part of the deal for her fellowship is to email reports to the Gavin Keller Foundation as she goes, which Haley does--perhaps telling just a little too much of the truth, because her contact there, Alex Keller, now tells her that it seems this hunt for information has gotten a little too dangerous for a kid. She tells Haley to back off, tell her parents everything, and head home; that she'll still get the $25k scholarship. But able to connect more dots, Haley realizes that an MT is going to happen in just a couple of days fairly close to where they are--so she lies to Alex and directs her still-clueless family further down the road to Kentucky.
At a fair there, she runs into The Alto, sent by the Keller Foudation and arriving just in time to help her escape from the aliens, who had gotten her picture from and tracked her after the encounter in Amber. The Alto says they need to go cross country to pick up the other Foundation award winner, which seems a bit extreme when she's barely met him--but Haley decides to trust the man because he's already saved both her and her family…and she can't bear to give up on her story now. She knows that her parents will shut her down, knows that if she stays with her family, the aliens will not just go after her but after them as well, so she needs to split up with them to keep them a bit safer. With real trepidation, she gets into the Alto's car and heads west. (Not going to mention what a freaky thought this would be for the mother of a teenage girl in a non-suspension of disbelief moment!)
Francis "Dodger" Lane has always known he's different--he doesn't have any friends, doesn't get along well with his parents, doesn't fit in anywhere. But he and his dad are about to set off on their FAD trip, trying to track down a mysterious radio station and a missing town, Juliette, as proof of alien abductions. The theory won him the fellowship…but he hasn't told anyone that he can actually hear the radio station in his head. The trip is tense and strange, because he has nothing real to say to his dad, and vice versa. They go first to the Heavenly Frequencies gathering in Oregon, where he has the bizarre experience of having his body turn into a sort of radio tuner, with the Juliette broadcast coming out his mouth (causing the other kids present to think he's an alien), but where he also ends up with their "PhoneHome" radio and, upon opening it, finds a shard of a crystal glowing a mysterious orange color. He learns something new from the broadcast: it originated in 1994, so now he thinks Juliette is stuck in a time loop, and that he needs to find an old map to see where it was originally located (it isn't on any current map he's searched). Turns out that old-but-not-historical maps are hard to find because no one sees them as having much value: he and his dad have to drive to Lucky Spring, Nevada, in order to find a map collector who can give him the coordinates of Juliette (which turns out to be in Arizona).
However, while down in the collector, Vee's, map preservation area (part of--ta-dah!--an old mine) Dodger is chased by short, plasticky looking people wearing black sunglasses, whom he realizes are probably aliens. He comes up to a sleek steel door with hand plates--and fitting his hands onto the plates, he's pulled THROUGH the door and into a large spherical chamber beyond, where a glowing orange crystal hangs suspended in the air. With the aliens hot on his heels, Dodger decides to chance interfacing with a console there, and as he does, he is able to use it to transport himself back out of the chamber to a spot on the other side, where he runs into his father. The two of them get away from the aliens, and are soon back on the road, this time heading not to Juliette, but to Roswell, New Mexico, in a feint designed to throw the aliens off their track.
It's when they get to Roswell that his dad finally comes out with the truth, shocking Dodger to his core: Dodger was abducted by aliens as a toddler during a Missing Time event years earlier. He was gone for 8 days, and then, for some unknown reason, returned. His parents, hoping things could just go back to normal, never told him about it--instead, they just watched and worried as their son turned out to be a weird loner, hearing radio shows in his head. Dodger is pretty freaked out by this revelation, and he takes off--just to find that One and Two, the aliens who tried to abduct Haley earlier, and who had been after him in the mine shaft, have reappeared. He is only saved from the temporal anomaly they've created because at the pivotal moment, Haley and The Alto burst through it, disruption emitters behind their ears, and tell him enough to convince him to get into the car with them and get the heck out of Dodge. So to speak.
The obvious thing to do next is to head to Juliette. On the way, they figure out a little more about The Alto. He's working for the Keller Foundation, yes, but he's also the victim of brainwashing. He can remember his childhood, and some things in the recent past, but it's clear that large sections of his memory have somehow been wiped clean. Alto wears a charm bracelet with five strange symbols on it, found sewn into the hem of his pants when he woke up in an unknown hospital with amnesia, which he believes will help him unlock the riddle of his past (if he can just figure it out).
Hearing Dodger's story about uploading himself into the crystal machine in Lucky Springs, they decide to head to the closest town to them with a UCA mine and a recorded MT (as they've deduced that the MTs are taking place when the aliens are installing their underground crystals, creating a network) and see whether Dodger can transfer them all to Juliette. As they make a rest stop, a small alien drone spots them, and Dodger realizes he can interface with the crystal inside it and actually control it. He deflects its path away so it doesn't discover them. Then they make a sprint for the car and continue on their way to Mesa Top...where they find three rocks shaped like one of the charms on The Alto's bracelet. Not only that, there's a UCA truck that they can follow for a while. It takes them to the edge of what appears to be a meteor crater, and where they realize a cloaking device is in use.
Bit by bit, The Alto's memory comes back, and he remembers that this hollowed-out crater is UCA's center of operations. When they hear an engine behind them, they get ready to run, thinking it's all over--only to find that it's an RV, not the UCA truck, and inside it are Gavin and Alex Keller. Turns out Keller is a rich eccentric who tries to live off the grid, and Alex is his daughter, here for the summer coordinating Gavin's strange excursion into philanthropy. At the moment, though, Gavin is accusing The Alto of luring the kids into danger to further his own interests--yelling so loud, in fact, that he brings a UFO down on them. Haley suggests that maybe Dodger can capture and control this one as well.
In the meantime, Suza's will to resist is getting a little stronger with each repeating day. She knows something isn't right. She knows she needs to take the key to the observatory and give it to AJ. Eventually, one day she's able to do it. That same day, AJ is able to break through the temporal loop and broadcast on Juliette's radio station, calling for help and letting anyone who's listening know what's going on. And of course, Dodger is listening--in fact, it's another round of his opening his mouth and having the transmission blare out of it--right at the time the UFO is looking for them! But Haley was right: when it spots them, Dodger is able to control the craft, bring it down, and make it open up so they can climb inside and have it take them the several hundred miles to Juliette in just 12 minutes.
At the Juliette Observatory, the townsfolk have figured out most everything, except for the last symbol of the password used to disengage the temporal loop. Dodger, about to supply it, is suddenly whisked away, together with Haley, across space and into the presence of The Director: the alien being on PaHa'Ne who is in charge of this 20-year long experiment to see whether Earth is the best place for their species to relocate. It becomes clear that their "coexistence" policy really means that humans would be in a subservient class, much like living in a zoo. The director admits that Dodger had been part of one of their genetic experiments a number of years ago, and when that caused him to become immune to their mind control, he'd been returned to his home after 8 days. The PaHa'Ne now realize that this immunity is what makes him able to control the crystal, as well as that he's no longer 100% human--so they offer to let him become one of them, with a very favored status…and even to let Haley come too, because they can tell he likes her. Dodger thinks it over, and decides that being a human isn't such a bad gig after all. With that, he telepathically enters the final symbol into the crystal computer, which aborts the experiment, allows the humans in Juliette to wake up, and sends all the aliens scuttling for their ships to make a quick getaway.
Juliette wakes up to find itself 20 years older, and decades behind in technology--but amazed to be alive, and ready to tell their story to the news media swarming to the place because of Keller's announcement. Haley is in the middle of the journalistic coup she'd been dreaming of; Suza is reunited with her family, the Keller Foundation has rights of first publication of the entire story, and THEodore RiALTO is reunited with his wife, Caroline--the two of them hitting the road as quickly as possible. Dodger gets a real hug from his dad, and sees the promise of a little more regular life, even though he knows that he'll never be quite normal.
And of course, there's a hint and a promise of Further Adventures…because why would any author only publish ONE book when he can easily stretch it out into THREE?
June Cleaver’s ratings: Language PG-13; Nudity G; Sexual Content G; Violence PG; Magic and the occult G; Substance Abuse G; GLBT contentG ; Adult themes PG (lying to parents, kidnapping); Overall rating PG.
Liz's comments: Judging from the cover, I really thought this was going to be an extra-terrestrial sci-fi parody--but much to my surprise (and despite some funny, accurate MS humor), it turned out to be an action-filled story about aliens, kids who interact with aliens, and the conflict between following your dreams and doing what's right for your family. Boys would actually be the best target audience for this, but sadly, Dodger's story doesn't begin until more than 150 pages into the book…and generally, boy readers won't have stuck around through that much girl stuff to get to the boy part. Sad, because Emerson's teens are very authentic and both boys and girls who like science fiction would find something to identify with if they'd give it a go.
Annotation with spoilers: Suza Raines suspects that something is deeply wrong. She doesn't know it, but she's been abducted by aliens and plugged into a sort of Groundhog-Day scenario where the same day repeats over and over again as the alien species runs simulations to determine whether Earth is the best place for them (since their home planet, Krypton-like, has been damaged and is unsuitable for life). Suza just knows that there's something wrong--something she's supposed to do--but the controlling voice in her head is insistent and keeps her under its sway. For the time being.
Haley is bummed that she didn't get chosen for the music and journalism summer camps she'd wanted--but she did win the FAD (or, the Fellowship for Alien Detection) award, and she and her family are going on a 2-week trip to track down the truth about Missing Time (MT) events that have been happening in random places around the country. Most importantly, she's tracked down a girl, Stephanie Raines, who gives information about her missing sister, Suza. Their hometown of Amber, Pennsylvania, is the first stop on Haley's trip.
Haley had already figured out that a number of towns around the US had experienced these events, where everyone essentially goes into suspended animation for 16 minutes before waking up. Since the MTs only occur late at night, few people notice them, and most people explain them away. The only reason that Steph Raines is different is that the MT in Amber ended up with her sister going missing several months ago.
Haley comes to realize out that every place with an MT also seems to have a mining operation run by United Conglomerate Amalgamations (UCA). When Steph takes her down into the UCA mine in Amber, they first see a shiny steel door with hand-sized black plates on the front--and when Haley takes a picture of it, an orange hologram instantly begins to form. The girls take off, and as they reach the door of the mine cave, there's already a UCA truck on hand with its group of short, squat construction workers in hard hats and orange jumpsuits,, who seem to have plastic skin. The girls barely manage to get away, mostly because Steph knows her way around the woods and their pursuers don't.
Part of the deal for her fellowship is to email reports to the Gavin Keller Foundation as she goes, which Haley does--perhaps telling just a little too much of the truth, because her contact there, Alex Keller, now tells her that it seems this hunt for information has gotten a little too dangerous for a kid. She tells Haley to back off, tell her parents everything, and head home; that she'll still get the $25k scholarship. But able to connect more dots, Haley realizes that an MT is going to happen in just a couple of days fairly close to where they are--so she lies to Alex and directs her still-clueless family further down the road to Kentucky.
At a fair there, she runs into The Alto, sent by the Keller Foudation and arriving just in time to help her escape from the aliens, who had gotten her picture from and tracked her after the encounter in Amber. The Alto says they need to go cross country to pick up the other Foundation award winner, which seems a bit extreme when she's barely met him--but Haley decides to trust the man because he's already saved both her and her family…and she can't bear to give up on her story now. She knows that her parents will shut her down, knows that if she stays with her family, the aliens will not just go after her but after them as well, so she needs to split up with them to keep them a bit safer. With real trepidation, she gets into the Alto's car and heads west. (Not going to mention what a freaky thought this would be for the mother of a teenage girl in a non-suspension of disbelief moment!)
Francis "Dodger" Lane has always known he's different--he doesn't have any friends, doesn't get along well with his parents, doesn't fit in anywhere. But he and his dad are about to set off on their FAD trip, trying to track down a mysterious radio station and a missing town, Juliette, as proof of alien abductions. The theory won him the fellowship…but he hasn't told anyone that he can actually hear the radio station in his head. The trip is tense and strange, because he has nothing real to say to his dad, and vice versa. They go first to the Heavenly Frequencies gathering in Oregon, where he has the bizarre experience of having his body turn into a sort of radio tuner, with the Juliette broadcast coming out his mouth (causing the other kids present to think he's an alien), but where he also ends up with their "PhoneHome" radio and, upon opening it, finds a shard of a crystal glowing a mysterious orange color. He learns something new from the broadcast: it originated in 1994, so now he thinks Juliette is stuck in a time loop, and that he needs to find an old map to see where it was originally located (it isn't on any current map he's searched). Turns out that old-but-not-historical maps are hard to find because no one sees them as having much value: he and his dad have to drive to Lucky Spring, Nevada, in order to find a map collector who can give him the coordinates of Juliette (which turns out to be in Arizona).
However, while down in the collector, Vee's, map preservation area (part of--ta-dah!--an old mine) Dodger is chased by short, plasticky looking people wearing black sunglasses, whom he realizes are probably aliens. He comes up to a sleek steel door with hand plates--and fitting his hands onto the plates, he's pulled THROUGH the door and into a large spherical chamber beyond, where a glowing orange crystal hangs suspended in the air. With the aliens hot on his heels, Dodger decides to chance interfacing with a console there, and as he does, he is able to use it to transport himself back out of the chamber to a spot on the other side, where he runs into his father. The two of them get away from the aliens, and are soon back on the road, this time heading not to Juliette, but to Roswell, New Mexico, in a feint designed to throw the aliens off their track.
It's when they get to Roswell that his dad finally comes out with the truth, shocking Dodger to his core: Dodger was abducted by aliens as a toddler during a Missing Time event years earlier. He was gone for 8 days, and then, for some unknown reason, returned. His parents, hoping things could just go back to normal, never told him about it--instead, they just watched and worried as their son turned out to be a weird loner, hearing radio shows in his head. Dodger is pretty freaked out by this revelation, and he takes off--just to find that One and Two, the aliens who tried to abduct Haley earlier, and who had been after him in the mine shaft, have reappeared. He is only saved from the temporal anomaly they've created because at the pivotal moment, Haley and The Alto burst through it, disruption emitters behind their ears, and tell him enough to convince him to get into the car with them and get the heck out of Dodge. So to speak.
The obvious thing to do next is to head to Juliette. On the way, they figure out a little more about The Alto. He's working for the Keller Foundation, yes, but he's also the victim of brainwashing. He can remember his childhood, and some things in the recent past, but it's clear that large sections of his memory have somehow been wiped clean. Alto wears a charm bracelet with five strange symbols on it, found sewn into the hem of his pants when he woke up in an unknown hospital with amnesia, which he believes will help him unlock the riddle of his past (if he can just figure it out).
Hearing Dodger's story about uploading himself into the crystal machine in Lucky Springs, they decide to head to the closest town to them with a UCA mine and a recorded MT (as they've deduced that the MTs are taking place when the aliens are installing their underground crystals, creating a network) and see whether Dodger can transfer them all to Juliette. As they make a rest stop, a small alien drone spots them, and Dodger realizes he can interface with the crystal inside it and actually control it. He deflects its path away so it doesn't discover them. Then they make a sprint for the car and continue on their way to Mesa Top...where they find three rocks shaped like one of the charms on The Alto's bracelet. Not only that, there's a UCA truck that they can follow for a while. It takes them to the edge of what appears to be a meteor crater, and where they realize a cloaking device is in use.
Bit by bit, The Alto's memory comes back, and he remembers that this hollowed-out crater is UCA's center of operations. When they hear an engine behind them, they get ready to run, thinking it's all over--only to find that it's an RV, not the UCA truck, and inside it are Gavin and Alex Keller. Turns out Keller is a rich eccentric who tries to live off the grid, and Alex is his daughter, here for the summer coordinating Gavin's strange excursion into philanthropy. At the moment, though, Gavin is accusing The Alto of luring the kids into danger to further his own interests--yelling so loud, in fact, that he brings a UFO down on them. Haley suggests that maybe Dodger can capture and control this one as well.
In the meantime, Suza's will to resist is getting a little stronger with each repeating day. She knows something isn't right. She knows she needs to take the key to the observatory and give it to AJ. Eventually, one day she's able to do it. That same day, AJ is able to break through the temporal loop and broadcast on Juliette's radio station, calling for help and letting anyone who's listening know what's going on. And of course, Dodger is listening--in fact, it's another round of his opening his mouth and having the transmission blare out of it--right at the time the UFO is looking for them! But Haley was right: when it spots them, Dodger is able to control the craft, bring it down, and make it open up so they can climb inside and have it take them the several hundred miles to Juliette in just 12 minutes.
At the Juliette Observatory, the townsfolk have figured out most everything, except for the last symbol of the password used to disengage the temporal loop. Dodger, about to supply it, is suddenly whisked away, together with Haley, across space and into the presence of The Director: the alien being on PaHa'Ne who is in charge of this 20-year long experiment to see whether Earth is the best place for their species to relocate. It becomes clear that their "coexistence" policy really means that humans would be in a subservient class, much like living in a zoo. The director admits that Dodger had been part of one of their genetic experiments a number of years ago, and when that caused him to become immune to their mind control, he'd been returned to his home after 8 days. The PaHa'Ne now realize that this immunity is what makes him able to control the crystal, as well as that he's no longer 100% human--so they offer to let him become one of them, with a very favored status…and even to let Haley come too, because they can tell he likes her. Dodger thinks it over, and decides that being a human isn't such a bad gig after all. With that, he telepathically enters the final symbol into the crystal computer, which aborts the experiment, allows the humans in Juliette to wake up, and sends all the aliens scuttling for their ships to make a quick getaway.
Juliette wakes up to find itself 20 years older, and decades behind in technology--but amazed to be alive, and ready to tell their story to the news media swarming to the place because of Keller's announcement. Haley is in the middle of the journalistic coup she'd been dreaming of; Suza is reunited with her family, the Keller Foundation has rights of first publication of the entire story, and THEodore RiALTO is reunited with his wife, Caroline--the two of them hitting the road as quickly as possible. Dodger gets a real hug from his dad, and sees the promise of a little more regular life, even though he knows that he'll never be quite normal.
And of course, there's a hint and a promise of Further Adventures…because why would any author only publish ONE book when he can easily stretch it out into THREE?
July 21, 2024
Haley stumbled across a summer fellowship that just may be her ticket to the Ivy League & journalism path she wants to be on. But it sounds crazy. It’s from The Fellowship of Alien Detection. Haley has found patterns in a string of small towns where missing persons have been reported, EMPs affected the whole town, and everyone there lost 16 minutes. She’s going to visit a whole bunch of them over the next 2 weeks with her family to see if she can figure out the cause, but she’s not telling her parents about the missing people since that may freak them out and make them cancel the trip.
Dodger has always felt a bit odd. He doesn’t fit in, and then there’s the radio station from Juliet, a town not on any map that he picks up with his head always playing reports from the same day in April 1994. He would think he’s crazy, but on the internet he’s found reports from others who have tuned in the same radio station. With his fellowship money, he and his dad are going to a meeting of these radio enthusiasts to see if he can find a missing town and answers to why he’s never felt normal.
In Juliet, Suza wakes up every day to the same day. She knows she has to do something to break out of the cycle. But she has to hide her thoughts or they will know and stop her, and start the day all over again.
I picked this up because I’ve read two of Emerson’s later books/series (Drifters and Chronicles of the Dark Star) that had ties to the FAD and read in the back of one of those that this one also tied into the broader plot line going on behind many of these disparate series. I think it would have helped to read this first before Drifters but not entirely necessary. This started a little slow for me as neither Haley nor Dodger trust the adults in their lives, so they are keeping important and dangerous secrets from them and it was driving me crazy. Could it be realistic? Yes, definitely. But it still drove me crazy. (And as it turns out, mostly unnecessary, hopefully readers will learn a little lesson from this book to give adults a chance with secrets.) It also takes a while until you find out why it is important Haley and Dodger figure out what is going on and imperative they do something to stop it. Once that is revealed it is very hard to put the book down.
Notes on content:
Language: 1 minor swear.
Sexual content: A little crush develops between Haley and Dodger but nothing other than handholding. I believe an adult couple kisses later in the book if I remember right.
Violence: Violence is threatened at one point, but nothing more than some scratches on page.
Ethnic diversity: The main characters are described as white, with some people of color among side characters.
LGBTQ+ content: None specified
Other: Kids lying to parents and withholding full truth. The truth does eventually come out, everyone is better for it, and greater trust is established. Mind control experiments and people being held against their will are a huge part of the story.
Dodger has always felt a bit odd. He doesn’t fit in, and then there’s the radio station from Juliet, a town not on any map that he picks up with his head always playing reports from the same day in April 1994. He would think he’s crazy, but on the internet he’s found reports from others who have tuned in the same radio station. With his fellowship money, he and his dad are going to a meeting of these radio enthusiasts to see if he can find a missing town and answers to why he’s never felt normal.
In Juliet, Suza wakes up every day to the same day. She knows she has to do something to break out of the cycle. But she has to hide her thoughts or they will know and stop her, and start the day all over again.
I picked this up because I’ve read two of Emerson’s later books/series (Drifters and Chronicles of the Dark Star) that had ties to the FAD and read in the back of one of those that this one also tied into the broader plot line going on behind many of these disparate series. I think it would have helped to read this first before Drifters but not entirely necessary. This started a little slow for me as neither Haley nor Dodger trust the adults in their lives, so they are keeping important and dangerous secrets from them and it was driving me crazy. Could it be realistic? Yes, definitely. But it still drove me crazy. (And as it turns out, mostly unnecessary, hopefully readers will learn a little lesson from this book to give adults a chance with secrets.) It also takes a while until you find out why it is important Haley and Dodger figure out what is going on and imperative they do something to stop it. Once that is revealed it is very hard to put the book down.
Notes on content:
Language: 1 minor swear.
Sexual content: A little crush develops between Haley and Dodger but nothing other than handholding. I believe an adult couple kisses later in the book if I remember right.
Violence: Violence is threatened at one point, but nothing more than some scratches on page.
Ethnic diversity: The main characters are described as white, with some people of color among side characters.
LGBTQ+ content: None specified
Other: Kids lying to parents and withholding full truth. The truth does eventually come out, everyone is better for it, and greater trust is established. Mind control experiments and people being held against their will are a huge part of the story.
July 2, 2018
The Fellowship for Alien Detection was a very good story about two young people who know there is more in life for them and find the courage to go out and find it. By doing so, they end up saving the world from invading aliens who want to take over their planet. The story was fun, and the main character were believable. The aliens were a bit hard to swallow, but the ending fit well with the story.
May 8, 2017
I am not a big sci-fi fan and I loved this book! The two main characters start out completely removed from each other and then move towards their inevitable meeting. Good suspense, action, and mystery made this book hard to put down. I like the fact that the two characters come from completely different backgrounds. A very entertaining title for middle grade readers.
January 26, 2018
If you like alien abduction stories and loads of suspense this is the perfect book for you. It has tons of alien encounters which always keep you at the edge of your seat. The characters are a perfect match for this book. There are lots of arguments and unsettled affairs that lead to great scenes. Every single abduction has a great mystery that follows it.
July 14, 2018
Personally, I think that Emerson's books would "move" a lot more in libraries if shelved with YA material, but... this was in the Children's collection.
Wow! He writes a great SF Adventure story that sucks the reader in. At least it sucked me in completely. The only reason it took 10 days to read is the 4th of July Holiday and some family responsibilities.
Wow! He writes a great SF Adventure story that sucks the reader in. At least it sucked me in completely. The only reason it took 10 days to read is the 4th of July Holiday and some family responsibilities.
May 13, 2017
This is cute.
A young girl and young boy earn scholarships and must do research for the group. They both discover that aliens are very real and have their own agendas.
A young girl and young boy earn scholarships and must do research for the group. They both discover that aliens are very real and have their own agendas.
July 23, 2017
The Fellowship for Alien Detection is an amazing book on mind-controlling aliens. I loved this book because it provided an idea of what aliens are and can do.
January 17, 2018
I really wanted to LOVE this book because I love aliens! BUT I just liked it. It was very interesting and exciting, but there wasn't anything WOW about it. I definitely enjoyed it though.
March 5, 2018
not my type of book. little green men dont interest me, they give me nightmares. it was entertaining though. my daughter will be happy that I read it... lol
July 26, 2018
This was a really good book! It was suspenseful and really cool the way Kevin Emerson wrote it. I highly recommend reading this book!
August 23, 2018
A fun read.
September 6, 2018
Fun, fast-paced, with great heart.
August 4, 2022
I needed to read this to find the connections to Drifters. It was a good family read aloud in its own right.
June 2, 2023
This was a lot of fun to read! I really liked the character interactions. Aliens exist!
June 18, 2013
3.5 stars
I found The Fellowship for Alien Detection to be an enjoyable read! In all of my reading through the years I can't remember one of them being about aliens. (Surely, I'm forgetting at least one, though). For that reason, this one was a refreshing change of pace for me. It had the "weird" quality going on for it, as you would expect in a book about aliens.
Haley is disappointed that she won't be attending Thorny Mountain Music Camp or The Daily Times Junior Correspondent Fellowship during her summer break. She did get into the Fellowship for Alien Detection program, though, which means she gets an all expenses paid, 2 week road trip with her family in order to do some alien research.
Dodger has also been accepted into the Fellowship, so he's going on his alien research trip with his dad. They don't have the best of relationships, and his dad is constantly looking at him oddly. Worse, Dodger keeps picking up radio signals from a town called Juliette, which isn't even on a map. These signals give him headaches and nose bleeds. No wonder he's getting those looks, huh?!
When Dodger and Haley start making connections between missing people and missing spaces of time, they come together to make an even bigger discovery involving aliens.
Despite the fact that I really did enjoyed this book, I have quite a few issues that will keep me from fully recommending it to some of you. My first issue came along pretty quickly. The characters are children and they call their parents by their first names. At 31, I'm not *that* old, but I grew up in a time where that was just plain disrespectful. I don't/won't allow my children to call me by my first name(at least to my face) at any point either. I almost think that this approach *might* have been an attempt to keep things less confusing. Sadly, I found it more confusing. I would have preferred to have saw "Dodger's dad" repeatedly as opposed to his name, Harry. I had to flip back and re-read at times to make sure it was referring to a set of parents, as opposed to a new character.
Another big issue was the word of profanity used. It was only one word. In a children's book, I find profanity at any level intolerable. I know! Some of you may be rolling your eyes. ;) I simply expect when picking up a children's book or handing it over to a child, that we will get the chance to escape into a clean world without worrying about "bad" words. We hear enough of that out in the real world. Fiction reading is a creative escape/journey from the real world. Expecting a clean read is a *huge* reason I enjoy middle grade books so much. Adult books are packed so full of content I don't like, and I hate to see children's books becoming more and more of the same. (*Bas**** was the word used. Not in the "child without a father way", but in the "I don't like you, so I'm going to call you a bad name" kind of way.)
The book is divided into 3 sections. The first part is around 200 pages, and it's about Haley. I was flipping the pages at rapid speed totally into the story, and then part 2 happens. It's almost like a completely new story happens as we now learn about Dodger. (Part 3 is combined efforts at the aliens). When part 2 came along, I was so disappointed that I was thrown into another story that my interest level in the book plummeted a great deal. I still enjoyed it, but it took me awhile to get back into the story and a much harder time picking it back up to read. I'm not against long books! I actually like a great deal of them, and feel I have a better chance at bonding with the characters. I started feeling its length as my reading progressed with *this one*, though, and I think it would have benefited from a shorter length.
For me to have enjoyed this book, I sure have did a great deal of complaining, huh?!
Once again, though, I did appreciate the uniqueness of this book, and it's made me want to look into finding more "alien" books, especially when I need a change of reading pace. Also, I greatly appreciated that the parents are involved! They are good parents, and the fact that each set of parents went on a 2 week road trip in order for their children to do alien research shows their love for Dodger and Haley.
The Fellowship for Alien Detection is a book I do recommend (for those of you who think you might enjoy a middle grade alien book), but only with warnings!
*I did have an ARC, so *maybe* that word was cut out of the final copy.
**I was provided a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
I found The Fellowship for Alien Detection to be an enjoyable read! In all of my reading through the years I can't remember one of them being about aliens. (Surely, I'm forgetting at least one, though). For that reason, this one was a refreshing change of pace for me. It had the "weird" quality going on for it, as you would expect in a book about aliens.
Haley is disappointed that she won't be attending Thorny Mountain Music Camp or The Daily Times Junior Correspondent Fellowship during her summer break. She did get into the Fellowship for Alien Detection program, though, which means she gets an all expenses paid, 2 week road trip with her family in order to do some alien research.
Dodger has also been accepted into the Fellowship, so he's going on his alien research trip with his dad. They don't have the best of relationships, and his dad is constantly looking at him oddly. Worse, Dodger keeps picking up radio signals from a town called Juliette, which isn't even on a map. These signals give him headaches and nose bleeds. No wonder he's getting those looks, huh?!
When Dodger and Haley start making connections between missing people and missing spaces of time, they come together to make an even bigger discovery involving aliens.
Despite the fact that I really did enjoyed this book, I have quite a few issues that will keep me from fully recommending it to some of you. My first issue came along pretty quickly. The characters are children and they call their parents by their first names. At 31, I'm not *that* old, but I grew up in a time where that was just plain disrespectful. I don't/won't allow my children to call me by my first name(at least to my face) at any point either. I almost think that this approach *might* have been an attempt to keep things less confusing. Sadly, I found it more confusing. I would have preferred to have saw "Dodger's dad" repeatedly as opposed to his name, Harry. I had to flip back and re-read at times to make sure it was referring to a set of parents, as opposed to a new character.
Another big issue was the word of profanity used. It was only one word. In a children's book, I find profanity at any level intolerable. I know! Some of you may be rolling your eyes. ;) I simply expect when picking up a children's book or handing it over to a child, that we will get the chance to escape into a clean world without worrying about "bad" words. We hear enough of that out in the real world. Fiction reading is a creative escape/journey from the real world. Expecting a clean read is a *huge* reason I enjoy middle grade books so much. Adult books are packed so full of content I don't like, and I hate to see children's books becoming more and more of the same. (*Bas**** was the word used. Not in the "child without a father way", but in the "I don't like you, so I'm going to call you a bad name" kind of way.)
The book is divided into 3 sections. The first part is around 200 pages, and it's about Haley. I was flipping the pages at rapid speed totally into the story, and then part 2 happens. It's almost like a completely new story happens as we now learn about Dodger. (Part 3 is combined efforts at the aliens). When part 2 came along, I was so disappointed that I was thrown into another story that my interest level in the book plummeted a great deal. I still enjoyed it, but it took me awhile to get back into the story and a much harder time picking it back up to read. I'm not against long books! I actually like a great deal of them, and feel I have a better chance at bonding with the characters. I started feeling its length as my reading progressed with *this one*, though, and I think it would have benefited from a shorter length.
For me to have enjoyed this book, I sure have did a great deal of complaining, huh?!
Once again, though, I did appreciate the uniqueness of this book, and it's made me want to look into finding more "alien" books, especially when I need a change of reading pace. Also, I greatly appreciated that the parents are involved! They are good parents, and the fact that each set of parents went on a 2 week road trip in order for their children to do alien research shows their love for Dodger and Haley.
The Fellowship for Alien Detection is a book I do recommend (for those of you who think you might enjoy a middle grade alien book), but only with warnings!
*I did have an ARC, so *maybe* that word was cut out of the final copy.
**I was provided a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
March 8, 2013
The Fellowship for Alien Detection is a suspenseful, fast-paced, mysterious, alien adventure!
The first sci-fi that I have ever read that is based in the present and highly believable.
If you are not a believer, Haley and Dodger will definitely make you into one!!!
The story starts with Haley trying to figure out a way to keep the majority of her fellowship a secret from her family. If they knew half the things that were going on, they would not let Haley go on with her investigation. And Haley is determined to follow through; she wants all the credit she can get to build her resume, her dream is to become a newspaper reporter.
So far, Haley has figured out that there has been a pattern of missing time coinciding with missing persons. Every time a Missing Time Field goes off, everyone within a 16 mile radius experiences a loss of 16 minutes and then 'wakes up' disorientated, confused and with similar stories of what they experienced and saw.
The closer Haley gets to putting the pieces together, the closer she gets to finding out why the aliens are here and what they have been doing.
Dodger lives 3,000 miles away from Haley. He's also won a fellowship. But Dodger's reason's for applying for the fellowship and investigating the possibility of aliens is quite the opposite of Haley's:
Dodger has been receiving a radio frequency through his head from a town called Juliette; a town that does not exist on any current map, a town that no one has ever heard of.
Dodger knows that he's always been different from other kids and has never felt like he's ever fitted in anywhere, not even home with his parents. He is determined to find out why - why can he hear this radio station in his head? Why is he so different from everyone else? Why does his father always glook at him like something is not right?
When Haley makes a new discovery, the fellowship tells her she must go home, she's in danger now. But Haley insists on going forward and getting to the bottom of things. The Alto is sent to help her - he works for the fellowship and knows about the aliens, how they work and what they are capable of. But, how does he know so much about them?
Soon after, Haley and the Alto catch up with Dodger - and things start to really pick up!
Discoveries are made!!! Many!!!
You will not be disappointed!
What really stood out to me the most is even though both Haley and Dodger had some frustrations with their families, in the end, family is what matters the most. Sacrificing and keeping them safe was their top priority.
Kevin Emerson's writing is so kid friendly, interactive and picturesque - which makes up for the length of this book. Seriously, do not be intimidated by 428 pages! The book is hard to put down once you get started and it just flies by!
I highly recommend this book to all sci-fi and E.T. fans! And even those who aren't - it is a great book to introduce those who have always been interested but wary of the sci-fi genre.
The first sci-fi that I have ever read that is based in the present and highly believable.
If you are not a believer, Haley and Dodger will definitely make you into one!!!
The story starts with Haley trying to figure out a way to keep the majority of her fellowship a secret from her family. If they knew half the things that were going on, they would not let Haley go on with her investigation. And Haley is determined to follow through; she wants all the credit she can get to build her resume, her dream is to become a newspaper reporter.
So far, Haley has figured out that there has been a pattern of missing time coinciding with missing persons. Every time a Missing Time Field goes off, everyone within a 16 mile radius experiences a loss of 16 minutes and then 'wakes up' disorientated, confused and with similar stories of what they experienced and saw.
The closer Haley gets to putting the pieces together, the closer she gets to finding out why the aliens are here and what they have been doing.
Dodger lives 3,000 miles away from Haley. He's also won a fellowship. But Dodger's reason's for applying for the fellowship and investigating the possibility of aliens is quite the opposite of Haley's:
Dodger has been receiving a radio frequency through his head from a town called Juliette; a town that does not exist on any current map, a town that no one has ever heard of.
Dodger knows that he's always been different from other kids and has never felt like he's ever fitted in anywhere, not even home with his parents. He is determined to find out why - why can he hear this radio station in his head? Why is he so different from everyone else? Why does his father always glook at him like something is not right?
When Haley makes a new discovery, the fellowship tells her she must go home, she's in danger now. But Haley insists on going forward and getting to the bottom of things. The Alto is sent to help her - he works for the fellowship and knows about the aliens, how they work and what they are capable of. But, how does he know so much about them?
Soon after, Haley and the Alto catch up with Dodger - and things start to really pick up!
Discoveries are made!!! Many!!!
You will not be disappointed!
What really stood out to me the most is even though both Haley and Dodger had some frustrations with their families, in the end, family is what matters the most. Sacrificing and keeping them safe was their top priority.
Kevin Emerson's writing is so kid friendly, interactive and picturesque - which makes up for the length of this book. Seriously, do not be intimidated by 428 pages! The book is hard to put down once you get started and it just flies by!
I highly recommend this book to all sci-fi and E.T. fans! And even those who aren't - it is a great book to introduce those who have always been interested but wary of the sci-fi genre.
March 11, 2013
Kevin Emerson's The Fellowship for Alien Detection is an out of this world (yeah, I went there, lol) and wildly fun read! Emerson offers readers a fantastic mix of adventure, mystery, and intergalactic excitement.
Thirteen year old Haley from Connecticut and Dodger from Washington have very little in common, but they've both won a two-week, fully funded research trip from the Fellowship for Alien Detection. Haley sets out with her parents and little brother, determined to uncover the truth behind towns that have experienced town-wide lapses in time and missing persons, while Dodger sets out with his father to uncover the truth behind the mysterious vanished city of Juliette, Arizona. Their separate journeys and research led them both right into the hands of danger and right to each other. Once together, the two teens must work together to save the world from an alien race.
The Fellowship for Alien Detection has everything I love in my middle-grade reads: adventure, fun, humor, great characters, and an author who is a superb storyteller. At over 400 pages, this is a longer MG book, but I gobbled it up quickly in one setting, unable to walk away from Haley and Dodger's intergalactic story for a single moment.
The story Emerson has created is wickedly clever, full of thrills and addicting mystery, and refreshingly unpredictable. The mystery behind Juliette, Arizona, the time-lapses, and the missing people, is so smartly and intricately crafted and kept me absolutely captivated until the very end. I had so much fun traipsing across the US with both Haley and Dodger, and I think younger readers will easily get caught up in the exhilarating pace, genuinely fascinating mystery, and alien fun. And I love how different the alien aspects are. There are no cliché green little men or probing abductions within these pages!
Haley and Dodger make for an excellent heroine and hero. They are both incredibly likable and relatable, and impossible not to root for. Young and old readers alike will love their clever minds, quick thinking, plucky attitudes, and endearing personalities. The two teens form a sweet and genuine friendship, with (innocent) hints of something more. Throw in a kick-butt guardian, a wacky benefactor, some eerie cool aliens, and determined townsfolk, and you have a cast of characters that shine and entertain.
This fast-paced story will keep readers on the edge of their seats and cheering Haley and Dodger on until the very last page.
MY FINAL THOUGHTS: Kevin Emerson has crafted a spectacular intergalactic romp that is as smart as it is fun. The Fellowship for Alien Detection, with its exciting story, superb characters, and shining storytelling, kept me enthralled until the very last page. A MUST read, for humans and aliens!
Thirteen year old Haley from Connecticut and Dodger from Washington have very little in common, but they've both won a two-week, fully funded research trip from the Fellowship for Alien Detection. Haley sets out with her parents and little brother, determined to uncover the truth behind towns that have experienced town-wide lapses in time and missing persons, while Dodger sets out with his father to uncover the truth behind the mysterious vanished city of Juliette, Arizona. Their separate journeys and research led them both right into the hands of danger and right to each other. Once together, the two teens must work together to save the world from an alien race.
The Fellowship for Alien Detection has everything I love in my middle-grade reads: adventure, fun, humor, great characters, and an author who is a superb storyteller. At over 400 pages, this is a longer MG book, but I gobbled it up quickly in one setting, unable to walk away from Haley and Dodger's intergalactic story for a single moment.
The story Emerson has created is wickedly clever, full of thrills and addicting mystery, and refreshingly unpredictable. The mystery behind Juliette, Arizona, the time-lapses, and the missing people, is so smartly and intricately crafted and kept me absolutely captivated until the very end. I had so much fun traipsing across the US with both Haley and Dodger, and I think younger readers will easily get caught up in the exhilarating pace, genuinely fascinating mystery, and alien fun. And I love how different the alien aspects are. There are no cliché green little men or probing abductions within these pages!
Haley and Dodger make for an excellent heroine and hero. They are both incredibly likable and relatable, and impossible not to root for. Young and old readers alike will love their clever minds, quick thinking, plucky attitudes, and endearing personalities. The two teens form a sweet and genuine friendship, with (innocent) hints of something more. Throw in a kick-butt guardian, a wacky benefactor, some eerie cool aliens, and determined townsfolk, and you have a cast of characters that shine and entertain.
This fast-paced story will keep readers on the edge of their seats and cheering Haley and Dodger on until the very last page.
MY FINAL THOUGHTS: Kevin Emerson has crafted a spectacular intergalactic romp that is as smart as it is fun. The Fellowship for Alien Detection, with its exciting story, superb characters, and shining storytelling, kept me enthralled until the very last page. A MUST read, for humans and aliens!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews