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Other Worlds (Guys Read)

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Other Worlds (Guys Read)
edited by Jon Scieszka
Walden Pond Press, 2013.  331 pgs. Fiction

     Fourth in Jon Scieszka's Guys Read series, Other Worlds is the finest of the four, with fantasy and sci-fi stories from Rick Riordan, Neal Shusterman, Shannon Hale, Tom Angleberger, and the master himself, Ray Bradbury, among others. Tom Angleberger, as one might expect, weighs in with a very funny story about the revolt of automated footwear (alas, the RoboFlipFlops were exterminated in the skirmish that followed). In Eric Nylund's "The Warlord's of Recess," two basketball-challenged nerds battle invaders from outer space, and Rick Riordan takes Percy and Grover to New York to retrieve one of Apollo's backup singers. Other Worlds has its serious, and even frightening side, as well with Kenneth Oppel's chilling "The Klack Bros. Museum," about a ghost whose keeper wants him to have company, or Neal Shusterman's tale of a resettlement expedition to another planet which is intended to do something very different from what the settlers expect. Guys Read is an initiative to create short fiction boys will love to read--this book does that in spades, and not just for boys.
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