Matt Ryan hits the ground running with his debut novel Rise of the Six, first book in The Preston Six series.
Joey Foust and his five friends always knew there was something their parents aren’t telling them. How were all six of them born on the exact same day? What happened in the unexplained fire that killed many of their parents (only Joey still has both his mother and his father)? And who is the accidentally mentioned “Harris” who for some reason would want the six of them to be trained to protect themselves?
An ill-advised foray into the nearby Watchers Woods triggers an attack by the force that’s been searching for the six friends since the day they were born. They’re saved at the last second by the appearance of Harris, who drags them into a desperate and random jump to another dimension. Now five of the Preston Six (minus one who was left behind) have to cross alternate Earths and zombie-filled civilizations, training to use their dormant talents and trying to stay one step ahead of the sadistic Simon and his boss, the evil genius Marcus, all the while trying to find out why their parents kept so much of their history a secret.
He hated lying to his parents, and didn’t want to add another layer of sediment to their history of lies.
It’s the perfect set-up for a young-adult novel: six teenage friends, hidden origins, and dimensional travel. Ryan has obviously spent a lot of time putting together the book’s setting, with all of the alternate Earths and how each of them have been affected by the schemes of Marcus and his quest for immortal life through genetic tampering. There are lot of neat details, like the simulation training rooms, and the versatile Panavices (think Sonic Screwdriver in i-Pad form), and a children’s toy set that’s a miniature farm settlement, complete with robot goats and tiny robot people hanging laundry.
Some of the plot points can be a tad simplistic. The six friends are quickly assigned the roles of marksman, archer, bruiser, knife-thrower, computer expert and…whatever Samantha ends up being. They’re led around by Harris, who knows everything about their origins, but only doles out the information when it’s convenient to the story. Oh, and when traveling to different dimensions through the Alius Stones, the “random” setting really needs to be labeled “The Absolute LAST Place In the Universe That You Want To Go”. But it all gets the story moving quickly, and the author never makes the reader wait long before the bullets start flying. Or for the monsters to start creeping out of hiding.
Joey gave the bloodstains a wide berth and tried not to think about how they got there. He half expected a creepy kid on a big wheel to come by and say “Redrum.”
The writing is…a little rough in places. This is Matt Ryan’s first book, so some of the dialog can be a bit stilted and unrealistic. Some of this will most likely improve as the series goes on and the author learns to not use the word “sneer” and “smirk” in every other conversation. Some of it requires an editor who’s paying a little more attention. “He pulled out a small white jar, bit the lid with his mouth, and untwisted the cap.” Really? He bit the cap with his mouth? I thought he would have bitten it with his knee. Passages like that dragged me out of the story more than once.
If there’s one big problem, it’s the ages of the characters. The story begins on the eighteenth birthday of The Preston Six, and most of the time they’re not acting nearly that old. This is a story of self-discovery, learning one’s own worth, and, on a couple of occasions, first love. There’s a scene with all of the friends clowning around in an abandoned mall in the middle of a world where the entire human population is now zombies. And lets not forget that the main characters’ parents managed to convince them to not explore the woods right next to their homes for eighteen years. It would have fit better to have the children (that’s how they’re referred to in the entire book, as children, not legal adults) be closer to fifteen, maybe younger.
It’s still an intriguing story, filled with lots of action scenes and futuristic tech, heroic sacrifices, and lifelong friendship. Plenty of the scenes show how resourceful the Preston Six can be, and it will be interesting to see where the series goes next, especially since the book ends on one hell of a cliffhanger.