Reviewed by Allison Fraclose for TeensReadToo.com
After winning grand prize in a video game contest, Earthling Baxter Moon found himself entering (with full scholarship) the Galactic Academy of Scouts, training to be a pilot. Now in his second year, he and his crew--a slow but strong-as-an-ox girl, her super-smart but klutzy twin brother, and a genetically improved simian, or GiS for short--have been given the overwhelming task of trying to avert a war between two planets!
Trade negotiations between the people of Earth and the blue-skinned folk of planet Aqua had been going promisingly until both planets lost contact with their ships. Both sides of ambassadors are now missing, and each planet is quick to blame the other. With the situation so tense, Earth Force is reluctant to send their soldiers into questionable territory.
The commander of the Galactic Academy has chosen Baxter's team and a rival squad for the mission of retrieving the missing council members. If they succeed, they'll have stopped an intergalactic war. Could it be the TVtrons, TV shaped bots who scour the universe in search of people to watch their programs? The computer systems and robots of the Station have been acting awfully strange lately...
I was not surprised to find that the author of this book has written material for Nickelodeon cable network. This book reads like a one-hour TV program for children, with a shallow main character who, of course, is good at everything except for following orders. Baxter Moon may not be the most sympathetic, three-dimensional hero ever, but his exploits do lead to a humorous story, which will draw in the reluctant preteen who doesn't want to invest too much time or effort into reading.
After winning grand prize in a video game contest, Earthling Baxter Moon found himself entering (with full scholarship) the Galactic Academy of Scouts, training to be a pilot. Now in his second year, he and his crew--a slow but strong-as-an-ox girl, her super-smart but klutzy twin brother, and a genetically improved simian, or GiS for short--have been given the overwhelming task of trying to avert a war between two planets!
Trade negotiations between the people of Earth and the blue-skinned folk of planet Aqua had been going promisingly until both planets lost contact with their ships. Both sides of ambassadors are now missing, and each planet is quick to blame the other. With the situation so tense, Earth Force is reluctant to send their soldiers into questionable territory.
The commander of the Galactic Academy has chosen Baxter's team and a rival squad for the mission of retrieving the missing council members. If they succeed, they'll have stopped an intergalactic war. Could it be the TVtrons, TV shaped bots who scour the universe in search of people to watch their programs? The computer systems and robots of the Station have been acting awfully strange lately...
I was not surprised to find that the author of this book has written material for Nickelodeon cable network. This book reads like a one-hour TV program for children, with a shallow main character who, of course, is good at everything except for following orders. Baxter Moon may not be the most sympathetic, three-dimensional hero ever, but his exploits do lead to a humorous story, which will draw in the reluctant preteen who doesn't want to invest too much time or effort into reading.
