Midnighters I and II, by Scott Westerfeld

[rachelmanija]

There is a secret hour between midnight and one am. Time stops, raindrops freeze in mid-air, a black moon rises, and the only things stirring are the midnighters-- the very few people who were born at that exact moment-- and the darklings. You don't want to mess with the darklings. You might not want to mess with the midnighters either, as they all have special powers and some of them are interestingly screwed up as a result.

As teenage Jessica Day discovers when she moves to Bixby, Oklahoma, the secret hour can only be accessed from a very few places in the world, and Bixby is one of those few places where she can claim her power as a midnighter. She promptly gets entangled in a complex web of relationships between the town's other four midnighters: free spirit Jonathan, tortured soul Melissa, scholarly Rex, and mathematician Dess. I don't want to give too much away here, since half the fun is learning how the world works and the the secrets of the characters' lives, but I will say that Dess is my favorite. The darklings, humanity's ancient shapeshifting predators, can be fought with steel and thirteen-letter-words (it's a long story), and Dess builds and names the midnighters' weapons: hubcaps and crowbars and flashlights with names like Resplendently Scintillating Illustrations.

The ideas here are not new, but they're combined in new ways, so the effect is of rediscovering an old favorite: as if you're ten again and reading Danny Dunn, or sixteen and dashing home with the latest issue of X-Men.

This is a tremendously entertaining trilogy whose third volume I am awaiting with a "And then what happens" fervor surpassed only by the one with which I wait for George R. R. Martin's A Feast for Crows. Midnighters isn't especially deep, the images are generally better than the prose, and there are a couple of plot oddities which may or may not be ironed out in the third volume, but they have great narrative drive and provided me with the most pure sf-y fun I've had in quite some time.

Volume one is out in paperback and two in hardcover. I had already bought two before I read one, because the author was signing and it was the only one of his books that was available that I didn't already own. Normally I don't like to buy a second volume, especially in hardcover, until I know I like the first, but not since reading Dorothy Dunnett in Japan have I been so glad I had the next volume on hand. If this sounds at all like the kind of thing you might enjoy... go get 'em.

http://www.scottwesterfeld.com/

Comments

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

This looks worth investigating.

DANNY DUNN! It's been so long.

[bgliterary.livejournal.com]

Heh, I've never known a woman who read, or even recognized the name of, Danny Dunn, and here are two at the same time. Yay! I loved those books, read them right alongside Tom Swift.

[marith.livejournal.com]

Oh, I read the Danny Dunn books too. Right along with Alvin Fernald, the Three Investigators, The Mad Scientists' Club, and Secret Agents Four :)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I read the ones given my brother. (He never touched them--or any other books--if he could help it.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know other female Danny Dunn fans, and I don't just mean the ones here. Have you read any of his other books? They're all out of print, sadly, but I am very fond of The Hero From Otherwhere and People of the Ax.

Not only did I read Tom Swift, I read The Three Investigators and Encyclodpedia Brown. (Boy, has this thread turned into a blast from the past.)

[literaticat.livejournal.com]

I read the hell out of the Three Investigators and Encyclopedia Brown (reissued last year btw); I read tom swift, too, but I don't remember so much of it. Must investigate this Danny Dunn!

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

I saw Encyclopedia Brown in B&N yesterday and was *so* excited.

I *loved* The Three Investigators when I was a kid.

[bgliterary.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember reading his other books, but it's been so long, I can't say for sure. Hmm, wonder if they'd hold up today...might be worth convincing sdn to take a look at them.

I never read The Three Investigators, but I adored Encyclopedia Brown!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I think some of Williams' other books hold up very well (Danny Dunn is fun but dated, alas), and I have waved The Hero From Otherwhere at Sharyn before. I think the last time she only wanted to publish living authors.