Juvenile adventure fiction, with a good balance of character and action, and an enjoyable opening sequence not unlike The Hobbit’s, in that our first protagonist (there are two), is very happy and comfortable in his life, thank you very much, and does not need or want adventures. Sebastian likes school, likes his routines, loves his family, and enjoys his hobbies. Sure, we know that in short order the story is going to massively disrupt his comfortable life, but seeing him happy and comfortable is endearing. He’s a sort of like Horton the Elephant. And oh, by the way, he’s on the spectrum. He’s never described as such, but Kress herself told me at Astronomicon that she wrote this series with an on-spectrum protagonist. For some readers, this means they will understand him absolutely, with that sense of “Mon semblable! Mon frere!” That comes with recognition.

His happy, orderly routine is disrupted by a pig wearing a small hat, and the chaotic encounter leads him to discover the meetinghouse of The Explorers’ Society.

(I’m not sure if this story is meant to occupy the same continuum as The Mysterious Benedict Society, but there are similarities; if you like that series you are almost certain to like this trilogy also. I actually like these books a bit better, as there is more meta-narrative, more wordplay and playful engagement between author and reader.) 

For contrast, the other protagonist’s existence is genuinely miserable. Evie is an orphan, both her parents having been killed in an accident two years previously. Since then she has been a ward of the state, sent to a boarding school, where the other students mock and belittle her. Her one respite is a weekly dinner out at the home of a well-meaning but mind-numbingly dull couple. Their entire home is beige; even the food they serve is beige.

Much as we might wish it would be Evie’s school that experiences disruption to free her for adventure, it is, ironically, the dull dinner that is disrupted, revealing concealed depths in the seemingly dull, beige adults. Evie barely survives, and seeks refuge at The Explorers’ meetinghouse, where she is turned away, but where Sebastian finds her. And now the adventure can really begin. It turns out that Evie’s grandfather was one of the Filipendulous Five, a band of intrepid Explorers who discovered what just might have been The Water of Life in a strange region of the Mariana Trench. Only their “we invented all this cool stuff so we could access inaccessible places” equipment made the discovery possible. And now some bad guys have decided they want to replicate the discovery. They are set on stealing the equipment and reassembling the torn-in-five-pieces map to the mysterious region.

The bad guys are heinous, a trio of malevolently twisted variation of the iconic “Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Say No Evil”:  one of them has a slagged side to his head that has melted off an ear; one wears an eye patch, and one has his mouth wired shut. Actually, they are probably “Hear No Good, See No Good, Say No Good”  — they certainly DO no good.

Pursued by this troublesome trio, aided by several members of The Explorers’ Society, Sebastian and Evie try to find other members of the Filipendulous Five, to warn them of the danger the bad buys represent and to ask for their help in finding Evie’s grandfather.  There’s plenty of action, derring-do, and reversals of fortune.

Kress obviously had fun writing this book, which makes it easy for readers to have fun too. There are humorous chapter titles and terrific footnotes—the perfect antidote to the dull, tedious footnotes anyone ever had to read or write in school. There’s a cliff-hanger ending which is forgivable because it is so self-aware. As Kress warns, “This trilogy is really one story told in three parts, a lot like The Lord of the Rings.” Fortunately, the second and third books are also published, so you needn’t wait a year for what happens next. ~~  Chris Wozney

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