The Tomorrow Code
by Brian Falkner
When New Zealand teens Tane and Rebecca start receiving coded messages from the future, they realize that the world is in trouble. As they begin to decipher the code, they discover that the messages come from their future selves - and contain a worrisome SOS. Tane and Rebecca, along with Tane's brother Fatboy, frantically work to decode the messages and follow the instructions before it's too late. The three teens may be the only ones who stand between the world and disaster.
The Tomorrow Code is a highly suspenseful, exciting eco-thriller reminiscent of the work of Michael Crichton, but with better writing. It's a terrifying page-turner, with interesting, believable characters. Tane and Fatboy are Maori, and although they are in most ways modern teenagers, they are also in touch with their Maori heritage, a heritage that becomes important later in the story. The glimpses of Maori culture are interesting.
Rebecca is brilliant, the daughter of scientists. She excels at math and science, but it's interesting that she isn't always the one to solve the problems. I love the importance that the author gives to multiple intelligences, as it takes the very different skills of the three of them to solve all the problems.
The Tomorrow Code is a 2009 Cybils Fantasy/Science Fiction - teen nominee.
Edited to add: There's a lot of great information about the science, technology, geography and culture from the book, including a stunning gallery of New Zealand photos that has me dying to go there, on the Tomorrow Code web site.
Disclaimers: I received a review copy from the publisher to evaluate for the Cybils award. The Amazon links above are Amazon Associate links, and I earn a very small percentage of any sales made through the links. Neither of these things influenced my review.
5 comments:
This one was a total surprise (a good one!) to me as it was one of my random library finds, but it was very different and enjoyable.
And I am glad for a. fortis' random library find, because her review made me read the book, and I liked it too!
And I'm glad for her random library find, since she nominated it for the Cybils which gave me a chance to read it. (And I confess I hadn't heard of it before!)
I started reading this but I had to give it back to the person I lent it from before I could finish. :( It was really good to where I got up to! I may just go to my library tonight and check it out to finish it.
~Cloudy (who actually has a blogger account now :P)
Ooooh. I've got to read this.
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