The Bodies of the Ancients

by Lydia Millet

Overview

In the third and final installment in the thrilling Dissenters series, the Sykes family are hoping to enjoy a normal Cape Cod summer. But there are strong and surprising forces lined up against them and there will be unexpected revelations and the highest price will have to be paid.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781618731296
Publisher:	Small Beer Press
Publication date:	12/19/2016
Series:	Dissenters Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	253 KB
Age Range:	10 Years

About the Author

Lydia Millet is the author of many novels for adult readers, including My Happy Life, which won the PEN-USA Award for Fiction in 2003, and Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, about the scientists who designed the first atomic bomb, which was shortlisted for the UK’s Arthur C. Clarke Prize. She has also written three books for children in her Dissenters series. She has taught at Columbia University and the University of Arizona and now works as a writer and editor at an endangered-species protection group called the Center for Biological Diversity.

Editorial Reviews

2016-11-02
Children, adults, and myriad creatures fight the final battle in a war over climate change.The Cold One, an obscure being living under the ocean, has spent centuries both piggybacking on and masterminding global warming so he can colonize the Earth's surface (The Shimmers in the Night, 2012). Fighting against him are fantastical creatures ancient and modern, a handful of white kids from Cape Cod, and a mother who's a shape shifter (otter, bear, marine biologist) and "part of an ancient culture with its own secret knowledge." This ancient knowledge is vast: genius youngest sibling Jax—a Charles Wallace Murry type—can control others, read minds, and enter the internet with his mind; sister Cara sees places from afar. None of this "old way technology" is explained, just used; genrewise, the book completely fuses science fiction with fantasy. Action moves between a Boston technological institute/refuge and the open Atlantic for battles. The Cold One takes control of a U.S. Navy submarine to discharge a nuclear missile, which brings narrative urgency and desperation; however, the question of climate change aside from what might be wrought by that imminent nuclear explosion fades, oddly, weakening the eco-fantasy thrust. Pacing is dense, rushed back stories feel inorganic, and characterizations are loose—but relationships are tender. Memorably unusual but haphazard; the series peaked with its opener, The Fires Beneath the Sea (2011). (Fantasy. 9-13)

Kirkus Reviews