The Boy at the End of the World

He awakes in a pod of bubbling gel, a plastic umbilical cord snaking from his belly. All the other pods in his Ark have been destroyed, and when Fisher looks out upon the world he has inherited, he sees ruins, the lofty achievements of mankind reduced to rubble. His robot Click tells him, "Humans are no more, Fisher. Except for you." Click has uploaded a "very intelligent personality module" for Fisher, his name indicating his specialty—fishing. Had his Ark survived, Fisher would have been part of a community of intentionally designed humans, each imprinted with a personality that would contribute to the common good. The community would have survived the escalating ecological disasters of our world—global warming, deforestation, a world covered in plastic and concrete. Instead, Fisher sets off in search of other Arks, hoping he is not the last human in the world. With Click and a young pygmy mammoth named Protein, Fisher heads out across a landscape inhabited by piranha-crocs, giant prairie dogs, and carnivorous animals and plants involved in a "biological arms race." The adventures of Fisher and Click, like those of Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3PO, told in fast-paced prose and set in a boldly imagined future, will be exciting for young readers who will, no doubt, gloss over the didactic environmental warnings and plunge on with Fisher's brave journey in a new world. DEAN SCHNEIDER