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When I was Zack Goodspeed's age, I met Captain Kirk and his merry band of crew members on the good ship Enterprise. All science fiction/spaceship/boldly go where no man has gone before type tales always bring me back to the Enterprise. It's a character flaw, or perhaps an endearing quirk. Who knows.

In this story, we have young Goodspeed, and his pals boldly going to the moon aboard Grandfather Goodspeed's amazing ship, powered by his even more amazing energy source, the Onyx Sun (a nice oxymoron to call this jet black cube sun. It pleased me.) At first, I found myself a little distracted by things such as calculating Grandfather's approximate age (Hey! He and I were probably litter-mates! I wonder if he was really the brainiac in my 6th grade class who won the science fair?) But I settled in, fastened my seat belt and sent on a onyx sun charged ride.

The basic story is entertaining, and fun, if a tad predictable. (I mean, come on-- if you meet a character named Dr Machvel, how can anyone who has ever been exposed to The Prince not suspect he might be a bad guy. But, since most of the readership probably won't have read that particular book yet, it's probably okay.) I won't go into a plot summary, because that can be read elsewhere. I did get a little eye-glazy with some of the descriptions of how things worked or looked. It made me realize that probably a lot of authors, myself included, may write more towards how things would look in building a set or on camera than in a person's head. Or maybe you need to be a 10 year old boy to picture it in your mind. My view of the ship kept looking like the Enerprise But again, I digress.

Grandfather's version of mad-scientist is charming -- I tended to see him as a cross between Mark Twain and Columbo, but with a peculiar hairdo, described early on in the book. Zach is a basic boy, with a bit of extraordinary skills that become more apparent as he moves through the story. One of his more endearing characteristics for me is that he gets motion sick pretty easily. It's his Achilles heel, or the kid version of Indiana Jones and snakes. Nice touch, from a reader who pukes on roller coasters. Made him more real. There's lot's of room for his character to expand and fill out in sequels, for yes, I would bet there are sequels in store. Angelina is a great character -- a bit of a wildcard and daredevil. I enjoyed her somewhat callous, yet vulnerable view on the world. Sanjay rounds out the kid trio with down to earth geekiness.

I longed to get my hands on some of those learning files, and enjoyed the learning process the kids went through about the ship. As a neurological nurse, I worried about all the head injury/trauma Zach particularly seemed to suffer with all the blackouts. And there were a few other parts where my practical adult/parent mode kicked in, until I reminded myself to go back to a kid-reading-this mode. I also want to explore the website and wish I had access to some of the interactive stuff alluded to on the final page of the book.

I recently read another book by another author geared at the same target audience, but found myself turned off by the author trying to appeal to all reading audiences with his cleverness and allusions. Christopher Mahoney didn't forget his target audience, which is good. He stays true to them, but allows the rest of us to come along for the ride. I think kids will enjoy this, especially because it's other kids not so much as outsmarting adults, but in leading adults. It's not an us-against-them situation, as much as teamwork, where the generations work together. Again, nice touch.

I have a suspicion my nephew might enjoy this book, so will probably pass along one of my copies to him to read. Think of him as Zach, but with Sanjay's skill set. He'll probably have no trouble picturing how the ship looks, and will tell me all the ways my mental image is wrong. Beam me up, Scottie!

(This is an Advanced Reader copy sent to me by the author.)