Sleepers, Wake - Softcover

Grade 5-6-- Halfway through a century-long colony ship's flight to a distant star, nine-or-so-year-old Dody is awakened early from suspended animation by a computer glitch. Jacobs takes this intriguing idea and buries it in an aimless muddle of predictable plot, wooden characters, and poor science. After no less than 50 years of solitude, during which he has read every book on board, learned to pilot the ship and play the organ (but not reprogram the computer), Dody, physically an old man, mentally a child, charges off with his newly awakened "older" brother and sister to explore an unknown planet. The three find the aging remnants of an earlier expedition, plus a continent-sized--motile!--fungoid whose fruiting bodies look and sound like human children. After being sprayed with spores, the real humans make their escape, bringing along a "mushroom" named Jonathan. When the planet is inexplicably whisked away, the adults of Dody's expedition instantly set a course to Earth--and only Dody realizes that Jonathan will have to be disposed of before they arrive. None of the characters, human or alien, behave in believable ways, the details of computer and other technology seem primitive even by current standards, and there's little suspense or danger in the story. Readers are likely to find this pretty pallid next to Heinlein's Time for the Stars (Scribners, 1977) and like tales. --John Peters, New York Public Library
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As Dody and his family travel toward their new home on spaceship Wanderer, a computer glitch wakes the boy 50 years early. By the time the others awake, Dody has a grandfather's body and has taught himself to be a concert organist and ship's navigator; still, everyone treats him like a little kid. But Dody's skill and knowledge are invaluable on the new planet; instead of the expected colony established by a first ship, the settlers find a few fearful old men--the only adult survivors- -plus hordes of strange, identical children made by another inhabitant, a gigantic mind that has copied the earlier ship's children. The copies try to capture Dody and his family, but the latter win free, taking with them the one copy who seems to be an ally--only to find that he, too, is an enemy. Unfortunately, the clever, original idea here is dissipated into meandering and meaningless derring-do. The poignancy of a little boy turned grandfather is never developed; the few scientific ``facts'' are badly muddled--e.g., one character (who's described as the greatest scientific mind since Einstein) exhibits a complete misunderstanding of the theory of relativity by saying that since the ship's mass becomes infinite as it approaches the speed of light it might tear itself apart. Good idea, poor follow-through. (Fiction. 10+) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.