Gone

Michael Grant

HarperCollins, 2008

In Michael Grant’s slam-bang fantastic new novel Gone, fourteen suddenly means oblivion. Thirteen-year-old Sam Temple and his friend Quinn (and Astrid, passed forward a grade ahead of Sam at Perdido Beach School and, according to him, “out of his league”) learn this in the most immediate way imaginable one day at school when their teacher simply vanishes in front of the class. Asrid’s entire class – all of whom are fourteen except her – likewise vanishes, as do every single adult in town, maybe in the world.

It’s a scenario familiar to fantasy writers (Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins’ bestselling “Left Behind” series, among many other titles, is based on a variation of this old ‘huge segment of the population vanishes’ premise, although Gone’s real fictional progenitor is of course Lord of the Flies), and Grant mines it with an energy so exuberant the book is impossible to resist (I missed two bus stops because of it).

With all the adults suddenly gone, the kids have to fend for themselves, and new power-structures develop. Sam finds himself in the unlikely role of hero and leader, and there is no shortage of villains, bullies, and thugs looking to take over. Perdido Beach becomes a battlefield distortion of its former self, and Grant spares his readers no graphic details, as in a scene where some emergency surgery must be performed on one of the book’s most interesting villains:

“Listen, you stupid thug,” Diana said. “We’re cutting off the pain. As long as that burned stump is there, you’ll be like this. You’ll be screaming and crying and wetting your pants. Yeah, you’ve peed yourself, Drake.”

Somehow that fact shocked Drake into silence.

“You have one hope. Just one. That we cut off the dead part of your arm and do it without starting the bleeding again.”

“Anyone cuts me dies,” Drake said.

The good guys muddle through, the bad guys are really bad, the action is non-stop, and there are two further factors twisting up the plot: many of the kids are developing super-powers, and Sam is about to turn fourteen. Gone is absolutely destined to become a movie or TV series; do yourself a favor and read the book first.