The 8th Continent: Build It. Run It. Rule It - Hardcover

London, Matt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1595147543 ISBN 13: 9781595147547

Verlag: Razorbill, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO CREATE A PLACE WHERE YOU COULD MAKE YOUR OWN RULES?

Evie and Rick Lane are determined to transform the Great Pacific Garbage Patch—a real life pile of floating garbage—into an eighth continent, using a special formula developed by their father. This new continent will be a place where their family can make their own rules and live free from the intervention of Winterpole, a global governing agency run by bumbling bureaucrats.

But eleven-year-old pink-and-plastic-obsessed Vesuvia Piffle, the secret mastermind behind the villainous Condo Corp, also has her sights set on this new land, and she wants to use it to build a kind of Miami-on-steroids.

Now, it’s a race against time and across the world as the kids gather the items they need to create their continent. Because whoever controls the eighth continent controls our future. And the future can’t be both “green” and pink.

BUILD IT - RUN IT - RULE IT
at 8thContinentBooks.com

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matt London (themattlondon.com) is a writer, video game designer, university instructor, and avid recycler who has published short fiction and articles about movies, TV, video games, and other nerdy stuff. Matt is a graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop, and studied computers, cameras, rockets, and robots at New York University. When not investigating lost civilizations, Matt explores the mysterious island where he lives—Manhattan.

Follow Matt on Twitter @themattlondon and build your own eighth continent at 8thContinentBooks.com!

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

“IF YOU KIDS DON’T KNOCK IT OFF, I’M GOING TO TURN THIS TREE AROUND AND GO HOME!”

At her father’s command, Evie Lane removed the two fingers she had curled into her brother’s nostrils. “But, Dad! We’re so close to the Buhana Jungle I can hear the birdsongs! I can smell the mangoes!”

Her brother, Rick, who at eleven was one year older than Evie and never let her forget it, released the grip he had on a lock of her wavy dark hair. “Mangoes aren’t indigenous to the Buhana Jungle. Everyone with a hundred sixty IQ knows that.”

Evie leaned back in her wood-carved cockpit chair and made a long, drawn-out snorting sound, like a snore. “Zszszszszsog! If only you used that big brain of yours for something other than shooting laser beams at space marines in your video games.”

Rick adjusted the glasses on his blushing face. “Studies show video games improve spatial reasoning and hand-eye coordination.”

“Coordinate your way to the evac room. We land in the Buhana Jungle in t-minus real soon.” Their father did not look away from the main viewport of theRoost’s cockpit as he spoke.

“Nerds first,” Evie said, offering Rick the chance to lead the way.

“Jerks second,” Rick retorted, racing toward the back of the Lane family’s personal hovership. He ducked under the hollow branches that piped water and fuel throughout the aircraft.

The Roost was unlike any flying machine the world had ever seen. It was carved from a giant sequoia named King Sargon that had fallen victim to a lightning strike in Yosemite National Park. Dad had discovered the great fallen tree while in the region rejuvenating bald eagle habitats. He took the remains back home to Switzerland, where he carved rooms and passageways through the trunk of the broken titan. Two custom repulsor engines had been grafted to its roots, which allowed the tree to fly at supersonic speeds.

In fourteen seconds (a new record) Evie and Rick reached the evac room, a large compartment where the exit ramp deployed.

Standing in the corner of the room was their robot teacher, 2-Tor, a seven-foot-tall mechanical crow. 2-Tor’s eyes glowed with life. Colors swirled on the video screen in his belly.

The birdbot stepped forward, flapping his chromium wings and cocking his head from side to side. When he spoke, his digitized voice sounded faintly British. “Aha! So you have deigned to grace me with your presences at last. Miss Evelyn, you are late for your algebra practice test.”

“Sorry, 2-Tor,” Evie said with an innocent smirk. “Duty calls!”

2-Tor hooted like an owl that had swallowed a kazoo. “If you continue to neglect your studies, Miss Evelyn, you will flunk your math exam . . . again! Mister Richard has never flunked anything in his life!”

Evie glared at Rick sourly. 2-Tor was always on her case. He never lectured Rick. Sometimes Evie suspected that her brother must have hacked into 2-Tor’s software and changed his programming so that 2-Tor would let him do whatever he wanted.

In this case, however, Rick came to her defense. “Difficult as it is to believe, 2-Tor, it isn’t Evie’s fault this time. Dad has us on another one of his ridiculous missions to ‘save an innocent bird from the evils of trash.’”

That was putting it lightly. In recent years, many of the earth’s most beautiful regions had been turned into dumping grounds. Deserts were doused in trash. Caves were clogged. Forests were overflowing! The Buhana Jungle was no exception. It was a festering wound poisoning the earth, jammed full of junk no one wanted anymore.

Evie’s dad sauntered into the room dressed like a goofy astronaut. His pointed nose and pouf of auburn hair made it look like the sun was rising behind his head. He zipped up his brown flight suit. “I’ve set the Roost to autopilot. Now remember, kids, the Buhana Jungle is the only habitat of the rare bird known as the Buhana of Paradise. If we don’t rescue this specimen, the whole species could be wiped out.”

Evie fidgeted as the Buhana Jungle grew large in the Roost’s portholes. The toxic storage site in this tropical paradise belonged to the Condo Corporation, a real estate and construction company that was owned by the father of the most popular girl at Evie’s school, Vesuvia Piffle. She was Empress of the Academy, and if you wanted to be anybody at the International School for Exceptional Students, you needed Vesuvia’s approval. Without it, you were nothing, a smear of mustard on the cafeteria floor that the janitor would mop up at the end of fifth period.

If Vesuvia found out that Evie’s family was raiding Condo Corp property, there was no telling what the platinum-blond monster would do. Maybe Vesuvia would hire a robo-shop quartet to follow Evie around school, and everywhere she went the robots would sing about what a poorly dressed and smelly loser she was. Then only Rick would hang out with her . . . and no one hung out with Rick.

“Everybody ready?” Evie’s father grinned like he had woken up to discover he had grown wings overnight. “Suits on! Grab your mouthmasks! Fresh water and cleaning supplies . . . check! Let’s go get that bird.”

Evie glanced out the window again at the ever-approaching jungle. “Dad, it looks like we’re coming in too fast.”

“Never fear, daughter dear! Compared to the Roost’s top speed, we will be landing at a snail’s pace!”

Compared to the Roost’s top speed, a snail’s pace meant they landed at approximately a zillion miles an hour. Old car tires, broken logging equipment, and other trash-dump projectiles went flying as the rocket-powered tree roared across the jungle, carving a canyon out of the littered landscape.

The Lane family hopped off the exit ramp and sank up to their waists in trash-filled mud. Evie struggled to pull her arms free of the sludge.

“Trash.” Dad retched, attaching a white respirator to his nose and mouth. “There is nothing I despise more than poorly discarded unsanitary waste products.”

Evie gagged. “Ugh! It smells like lasagna made with old socks.”

“Yech!” Rick added. “It smells like a toilet brush on an all-asparagus diet!”

Dad fanned away a swarm of flies. “I invented those deodorizing mouthmasks to block out unwanted odors and unwanted complaints! It does me no good if you don’t wear them.”

Evie fitted the mouthmask over her face and was surprised at how well it concealed the overwhelming stench. After so many missions with her dad around the world, swimming neck-deep in garbage and saving animals from damaged habitats, she was glad to have something to block out the nauseating smell. She turned to tell Dad that his latest invention was totally awesome, but he was already several feet ahead of her, cutting a path through the mud.

The Buhana Jungle looked almost as Evie had imagined it, with densely packed trees, mud, tangled roots, and a grand canopy of leaves high overhead. Wrecked chainsaw trucks and demolition vehicles were upturned everywhere. Discarded power cables hung like snakes from the trees, and billowing plastic bags suffocated many branches.

In the distance, a kapok tree emerged from the heaps of scrap metal, empty food containers, and bulging trash bags. This must have been where Condo Corp’s deforestation crews dumped their waste when they weren’t chopping down hundred-year-old trees to make room for one of the company’s signature properties. A massive billboard hanging from a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Razorbill
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1595147543
• ISBN 13: 9781595147547
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Razorbill; https://www.hersheyland.mx/bubbleyum; ; Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY, 14-1; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar