Watch out for Greg van Eekhout! His first book, Kid vs. Squid, was wonderful but so bizarre I'm not sure I could accurately describe it. Not so his sophomore effort, The Boy at the End of the World. This is about as good as science fiction for young people can get. Worthy of Isaac Asimov.
Fisher wakes up, alone, surrounded by malfunctioning computer systems. All he knows is that he must survive. So begins the adventure. What would our world be like if robots and not humans were the masters? Would computers programmed to assist us puny humans know benevolence from malevolence? I think not. Van Eekhout agrees. I've read other books by authors treading this same territory. None of them succeeded. This does. Once started, you will not want to put this down. I guarantee this one. (For ages 9 up.)
—Recommended by Jeff, City Lights Books
Fisher is the last boy on earth-and things are not looking good for the human race. Only Fisher made it out alive after the carefully crafted survival bunker where Fisher and dozens of other humans had been sleeping was destroyed.
Luckily, Fisher is not totally alone. He meets a broken robot he names Click, whose programmed purpose- to help Fisher "continue existing"- makes it act an awful lot like an overprotective parent. Together, Fisher and Click uncover evidence that there may be a second survival bunker far to the west. In prose that skips from hilarious to touching and back in a heartbeat, Greg van Eekhout brings us a thrilling story of survival that becomes a journey to a new hope-if Fisher can continue existing long enough to get there.
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