YA SF WES Westerfeld, Scott The Secret Hour (Midnighters bk 1)

YA SF WES Westerfeld, Scott The Secret Hour (Midnighters bk 1)

Life is getting more complex and more dangerous for the five high school students who are "midnighters"-born at the stroke of midnight with the ability to inhabit a secret 25th hour. Unfortunately, some very scary creatures also inhabit it, and they're out to get the magical teens. Jessica, who has just discovered her special powers as a flame-bringer, learns that humans are stalking her during the 24 hours of the day when she thought she was safe. What is the relationship between these stalkers and the darklings that try to destroy the midnighters? Is Jessica's only "normal" friend involved? And who, or what, is causing dreams of mathematical coordinates in Dess, the polymath? Is there a connection to the new runway being built in the desert by the company that Jessica's mom works for? These and other questions are deftly answered in this latest installment in the series as the five teens must grow into their special powers to combat the growing darkling strength.

This novel continues the Midnighters series, set in Bixby, Oklahoma, where five teenagers were born exactly at midnight and are the only ones who have the ability to see dark creatures from another world who try to feed on humans. The monsters had been able to travel through the barrier between the known world and theirs only at midnight, during the secret hour when time freezes for everyone but the teens and the nasties. The situation has changed in this series entry: The blue time comes in the middle of the day, and the teens are hard-pressed by this new development.

The undead Emperor has ruled his mighty interstellar empire of eighty human worlds for sixteen hundred years. Because he can grant a form of eternal life-after-death, creating an elite known as the Risen, his power is absolute. He and his sister, the Child Empress, who is eternally a little girl, are worshipped as living gods. The Rix are machine-augmented humans who worship very different gods: AI compound minds of planetary size. Cool, relentless fanatics, their only goal is to propagate such AIs. They seek to end the Emperor’s prolonged rule, and supplant it with an eternal cybernetic dynasty. They begin by taking the Child Empress hostage. Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate Lynx is tasked with her rescue. Separated by light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist Senator Nara Oxham must both face the challenge of the Rix, and both will hold the fate of the empire in their hands.

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet. Aleksandar Ferdinand, prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is on the run. His own people have turned on him. His title is worthless. All he has is a battle-torn Stormwalker and a loyal crew of men.

Deryn Sharp is a commoner, a girl disguised as a boy in the British Air Service. She's a brilliant airman. But her secret is in constant danger of being discovered. With the Great War brewing, Alek's and Deryn's paths cross in the most unexpected way...taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure. One that will change both their lives forever.
YA SF WES Westerfeld, Scott Behemoth (Leviathan v 2)

The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers. Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory. Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead.

The bar code tattoo. Everybody's getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity. But what if you say no? What if you don't want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There's no option but to run...for her life.

Kayla has resisted getting the bar code tattoo, even though it's meant forfeiting any chance she'd had at having a normal life. Without the tattoo, she's an exile. But when someone very important sets about to bring her back in again -- WITH a tattoo -- Kayla finds herself a part of the resistence, where her unexpected allies and even more unexpected enemies include three clones of hers.

The in between part is still a little fuzzy, but Travis can tell you that, at some point or another, his head got chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado. Five years later, it was reattached to some other guy’s body, and well, here he is. Despite all logic, he’s still sixteen, but everything and everyone around him has changed. That includes his bedroom, his parents, his best friend, and his girlfriend. Or maybe she’s not his girlfriend anymore? That’s a bit fuzzy too. Looks like if the new Travis and the old Travis are ever going to find a way to exist together, there are going to be a few more scars. Oh well, you only live twice.

In the walled city of Agora, residents literally live or die based on their worth. Everything is traded, from goods and services to lives—even emotions can be bottled and sold—all bound in contracts (“Everyone makes their way by bartering something, for there is always someone who will trade”). Just shy of his 12th birthday, Mark is sold by his father to Dr. Theophilus, who is researching a widespread plague. After recovering from the shock of being sold (and from the plague), Mark becomes fast friends with Lily, servant to the powerful astrologer Count Stelli. But the children's lives diverge quickly: when the doctor is cast out of Count Stelli's tower, Mark and Lily contract with each other to switch masters. Meanwhile, the city's most powerful citizens have plans for them, and both find their beliefs and lives pitted against forces they barely understand—and against each other.

At the end of The Midnight Charter, Mark and Lily had been cast out of the city of Agora. Now, they must survive in a dense forest filled with strange villages, terrifying nightmares, and powerful witches. It’s even more frightening than the slums and secrets of Agora. In an adventure that expands with every turn of the page, David Whitley delivers a novel as thrilling and horrifying as his characters’ darkest dreams.

Something frightening is happening with time. One moment, a time tornado rages through the streets of London, and those caught up in its path vanish without a trace. The next moment a woolly mammoth is seen lumbering along the banks of the River Thames. At the center of these bizarre time warps is a house called Tanglewreck, which is home to eleven-year-old Silver, her bony and bad-tempered aunt, Mrs Rokabye, and a mysterious clock known as the Timekeeper. Silver doesn’t understand exactly what the Timekeeper does, but when two sinister figures come looking for it, she knows instinctively that she must guard it with her life.

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one. Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives bearing four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on a quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.
YA SF YOU Young, Moira Rebel Heart (Dust Lands v 2)

It seemed so simple: Defeat the Tonton, rescue her kidnapped brother, Lugh, and then order would be restored to Saba’s world. Simplicity, however, has proved to be elusive. Now, Saba and her family travel west, headed for a better life and a longed-for reunion with Jack. But the fight for Lugh’s freedom has unleashed a new power in the dust lands, and a formidable new enemy is on the rise. What is the truth about Jack? And how far will Saba go to get what she wants? In this much-anticipated follow-up to the riveting Blood Red Road, a fierce heroine finds herself at the crossroads ofdanger and destiny, betrayal and passion.

When Draycos' symbiotic host is killed in a space battle, Draycos knows that it is only a matter of hours until he too dies. Fortunately for Draycos, he is discovered by Jack and is able to form a successful bond with him. Jack isn't too thrilled about hosting Draycos at first, since Jack has his own problems. He was framed for theft and has been hiding ever since his Uncle Virge died. Guided by a computer programmed to simulate his Uncle Virge, Jack has been surviving by plundering downed ships. Shortly after meeting Draycos, the authorities show up to arrest Jack. With Draycos's help, Jack escapes and they set off to find who framed Jack and clear his name.

Draycos, a golden-scaled draconic K'da poet-warrior, was on a scout fleet ship when it was attacked, with him the lone survivor. Forced to find a new symbiotic humanoid host, he found Jack Morgan. Jack has been on his own, making his way by shipping interstellar cargo on the ship he's inherited from his Uncle Virgil, a con-man and thief who met with a fatal accident. Draycos has vowed to uncover those behind a vast conspiracy to wipe out his people, while Jack is determined to find out who framed him for a crime he didn't commit. Virgil, who survives as "Uncle Virge" in the ship's computer, is against their plan. But Draycos once saved Jack's life, so Jack feels an obligation to this strange creature who can slip onto the boy's skin, pressing against it like a living tattoo. Knowing that mercenaries were involved in the ambush that killed Draycos's fleet, Jack enlists in a mercenary outfit that practically enslaves adolescent recruits.But the soldier's life isn't exactly what Jack had bargained for, especially when a mysterious girl is recruited into his group. Strange things are happening, and people and events are not always as they seem.

This book is the third in the "Dragonback Adventure" series as it continues to follow the exploits of fourteen-year-old Jack Morgan and his dragon friend, Draycos. In this story, Jack and Draycos are on a quest to determine who was responsible for framing Jack for a crime he did not commit and for conspiring against Draycos's people. Jack and Draycos travel to the planet, Brum-a-dum, and encounter an alien race called the Brummgas. Jack poses as a slave in order to access computer files that contain the information he is looking for. With Draycos at his side, Jack and his friend are put through a harrowing experience at the hands of the Brummgas and the evil slavemaster, Gazen, before attempting a suspenseful escape.

At the age of fourteen, Jack Morgan finds his life in total chaos as mercenaries of the Malison Ring grab him and place him under lock and key. What can save him? First, Draycos, his three and sometimes two dimensional dragon, slithers off his body and tries to help Jack. Before Draycos can release Jack, an acquaintance, Alison, lifts him on her back as complete pandemonium breaks loose. By now Draycos has crawled back on Jack as a two dimensional dragon tattoo--while Jack and Alison move fast to escape. On route to drop Alison off to meet her people, they head for an isolated planet called Rho Scorvi. As they land on Rho Scorvi, Jack, Draycos, and Alison leave the ship and start to explore the planet. Suddenly, Uncle Virgil's voice shouts that the Malison ring is on his tail and that he has no where to go. An explosion and flashes of light make all three of them cringe with fear. What if Uncle Virgil and the ship have not survived? How would they make it off the planet? Would the Malison Ring catch up with them? Was Alison friend or foe?

Orphaned at the age of three, brought up by his Uncle Virgil, a con man, Jack Morgan has done things that are unusual even in the future in space. But when he rescued Draycos, a dragon-like symbiont, from certain death, his life became a series of breathtaking adventures. With the help of Draycos, who can leap onto Jack's back and become what looks like a tattoo, Jack has been doing everything he can to find out who ambushed the scout-fleet of Draycos's people, the K'da and Shontine, leaving Draycos the sole survivor. Now Jack thinks he may finally be on the trail of the information he needs. But before he can act on what he knows, he's kidnapped by aliens, who ask him to be a judge for them, as, they reveal to him, his parents had once been.

In this exciting space adventure, fourteen-year-old Jack Morgan and Draycos, a poet/warrior K'da dragon who can hide himself as a tattoo on Jack's back, have their backs to the wall. Brought together by a twist of fate, these two have been through a lot of scrapes, risking death and imprisonment on worlds far and wide, seeking justice for Jack and information that might save Draycos's people from a genocidal ambush. But now, Neverlin, the man who killed Jack's parents and destroyed the scout fleet of which Draycos was the sole survivor, is about to ambush millions of K'da refugees, and kill them with a Death weapon that kills any living being within its range. To prevent Neverlin from eradicating the K'da race, Jack and Draycos must somehow disable the Death. But for Jack and Draycos, things never seem to go the way they should. When Jack's friend Alison is captured, Jack gives himself up to keep her from being harmed. Neverlin, with Jack and Draycos as his prisoners, holds all the cards. But desperate times call for desperate measures, as time is running out, not just for our young heroes, but also for the millions of K'da who face annihilation, and resourceful Jack and his remarkable ally will fine a way . . . or die trying.

Think you know Anya Balanchine? Think again. Anya Balanchine is turning eighteen, and she’s putting everything on the line to open her new cacao nightclub. The Family has made no secret of the fact that they are against her plan. Even worse, her new business alliance with Charles Delacroix may permanently destroy her relationship with Win. When the nightclub begins to take off, Anya finds herself in the spotlight more than ever. Her new prominence brings out friends, foes, and ghosts from the past. Certain scores must be settled; certain debts must be paid. Surviving a crime-ridden New York City in the 2080s is looking harder and harder for Anya . . .

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight—at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.