16 June 2010 COSMIC by Frank Cottrell Boyce, HarperCollins/Walden Pond Press, January 2010, 320p., ISBN: 978-0-06-183683-1; Libr. ISBN: 978-0-06-183686-2

"Floating free as a bird

Sixty foot leaps it's so absurd

From up here you should see the view

Such a lot of space for me and you"

-- Ray Thomas

"So I turned the key in the ignition.  The car made a sound like a cat purring.  The man stepped aside and pointed to the bonnet.   'Engineering perfection.'  He smiled."It is at the moment, I thought.  But in five minutes' time it might well be a load of scrap metal.  The thing about Level Two of course is that it has new and unexpected dangers.  So you stand a much better chance of being killed. 

"I looked down at the pedals.  I knew one of them was the accelerator.  I just wasn't sure which one.  One lesson the World of Warcraft teaches you is that if you want to succeed on the next level, you need to acquire new skills.  Don't level up until you've skilled up.  Sadly this was a lesson I'd forgotten.  I was pretty sure though that the accelerator was the one in the middle.  I had my foot on it when the door on the passenger side opened and a very familiar voice said, 'You.  Out.  Now.  Come on.'" 

Dad to the rescue.

There are a number of elements that Frank Cottrell Boyce deftly combines to make COSMIC one of the funniest books I've read this year:

He takes the concept of privatized space tourism to the next level.He repeatedly employs mistaken identity to set up zany, improbable situations.  He satirizes parenting styles.  He plays on the notion that World of Warcraft (the multiplayer online role-playing game with millions of subscribers) is the place young people best learn about problem solving and the real world.

And he repeatedly sets up the punch line: "'But...well, you should have more sense, a big lad like you.'"

Twelve year-old Liam is, indeed a big lad -- and one who has now begun to shave.  But he is still a twelve year-old and, in a manner reminiscent of Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks' character in the movie Big), we repeatedly experience Liam's being thrust into the role of an adult who frequently has more of a child-like spirit than any of the "normal" kids around him.

"To be completely honest, I'm not exactly in the Lake District.

"To be completely honest, I'm more sort of in space." 

COSMIC is the story of how Liam finds himself masquerading as an adult and a father and leading a quartet of his peers -- including his own friend/pretend daughter, Florida Kirby -- into space on a privately organized (and secret) mission.  The whole thing might sound more than a little improbable, but this flight is being taken on a spaceship called the Infinite Possibility owned by a theme park magnate, and Liam has seriously leveled up for what is to come by studying his father's copy of TALK TO YOUR TEEN:

"The worst thing you can do with teens is get sucked into an argument on their terms.  They have more time than you do.  They can keep going forever."

"Here I am floating round my tin can, far above the Moon

Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do"

-- David Bowie 

Unfortunately, after launch, a simple maintenance procedure goes terribly awry, knocking their vessel out of orbit and destroying their communications links, so that Liam finds himself in charge of a quartet of his peers in a doomed spaceship. 

COSMIC is the result of his journaling the seemingly ill-fated journey.

A few aspects of COSMIC that will really stay with me are the contrasting styles of parenting that are lampooned through our getting to know about the fathers of Liam's four charges, and the degree to which the author is able to convey a sense of wonder and awe about space travel.  (I am quite curious about the process by which the fourth man to step on the moon came to make a cameo appearance in this book.)  I am also now quite interested in standing over someone's shoulder and watching him or her engage in Worlds of Warcraft. 

"When I got near to Florida she spread out her arms and grinned at me.  I couldn't figure out what she was doing but then she hissed, 'Photo.  Take photos.  With your phone.  It's what dad's do.'

"'My dad doesn't.'

"'Well, mine does.  He's like my own personal paparazzi.'

"'Paparazzo.  Paparazzi is when there's more than one.'

"'And he doesn't correct everything I say either.''

And the humor.  It is an absolute total crack-up of a story.  There is no reason younger students cannot thoroughly enjoy it, but COSMIC is a must-read for middle schoolers. 

Richie Partington, MLIS
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