Real rating: 3.5 stars
Very, very, VERY creative concept. Emily Diamand’s vision of the future is very interesting...and startlingly plausible. Loved it. That’s probably what I liked best about this book. Everything else was pretty good. Meow. :3

Sometimes you just want to read a book that starts off with a bang and then proceeds to run its legs off. A book that's able to work realistic emotions and characters into a narrative, while also advertising high-concept plotting. And if that same book just happens to contain preternaturally intelligent felines, snarky computers, futuristic barbarians, and a world underwater, all the better! Debut novelist Emily Diamand comes out swinging with such a book as that. Raiders' Ransom is a post-apocalyptic tale of a future Britain, but it eschews moralizing in favor of a slam-bang setting. Better make sure the edge of your seat is nicely padded. You and your kids are going to find yourselves perched there for the majority of this tale.

Thirteen-year-old Lilly's day was normal to begin with. She took her seacat (Cat) out for some fishing just as she always did. But on returning to her village, Lilly finds her Granny dead, the boats of her village destroyed, and the prime minister's daughter kidnapped. The culprits? Raiders. The year is 2216. Much of England is underwater with Greater Scotland laying claim to all but the last ten counties of England to the south. Like futuristic Vikings, Raiders haunt the coasts, and one of them is Zeph, son of the Angel Isling chief, heir to his power. When Lilly and Cat set off to find the prime minister's daughter and rescue her, they run into Zeph and the two strike up an unlikely friendship. To trade for the daughter, Lilly has taken a "jewel", a rare artificial intelligence system from the days before the world changed. Now everyone is fighting to get their hands on it, and Lilly and Zeph must outwit their enemies and survive their trials, if they want to get what they want. The real question is, do they even know what they want anymore?

The other day I was at a talk about children's literature and the speaker mentioned that what kids remember from book isn't metaphors or even (half the time) the author's name. It's usually characters and plots. It got me to thinking about this book. Diamand splits her point of view between two very different characters. There's Lilly on the one hand, under the distinct impression that she has a quest to fulfill, and there's Zeph on the other, just as certain that his future is as his father's heir. Lilly starts off a pretty upright citizen, but Zeph takes some reforming. He has a heart and a soul, but it's buried under a lot of cruelty taught to him by his pa. To become a man he has to be turned away by his father, and that's painful. You find yourself rooting for both characters, even when they're at odds with one another, because you honestly believe that they'll make the correct choices in the end. Add in one particularly snarky machine (who I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of in future books in the series) and then there are three "people" worth following.

The book avoids a lot of the mistakes post-apocalyptic novels usually make. For this story to work, the plot needs to take place not just in our future but also in our future's future. We have to believe that in the future there will come a time when gaming devices with artificial intelligences can create fantastic interactive games in three-dimensions. After that, the world collapses, the sea levels rise, and humanity is thrown into a new dark ages. Now what I particularly dislike is when an author establishes all this and then sets the book a measly 30 years in the future. What good does that do anyone? I suppose the idea is that if you do it only slightly in the future, kids can gasp and go, "Oh no! We better change our ways!" But Raiders' Ransom isn't some preachy tome. It's a swashbuckling adventure narrative and as such it makes sense to set it in 2216.

The future we see here has some similarities to the one in [b:The Ear the Eye and the Arm|633270|The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm|Nancy Farmer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1176521013s/633270.jpg|3266059] by Nancy Farmer. Both books involve clever children using a knowledge of the past to defeat a terrible present. Both involve scenes where old-time goods are recovered and reused. This is tastefully done, with the possible exception of a funny moment where a Mr. Saravanan says, "Be careful! . . . Those are Harry Potters. I have half a dozen historians fighting to get their hands on them." Ditto the mentions of Metallica and Manchester United.

And, of course, I like the cat. Cat is just one of a fine series of felines published in 2009 that act like their real-life counterparts. It would not be entirely insane to pair Raiders' Ransom with [b:The Cats of Roxville Station|6203055|The Cats of Roxville Station|Jean Craighead George|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255806879s/6203055.jpg|6383602] by Jean Craighead George. In the George book, feral cats act and respond according to their instincts. In the Diamand book, Cat acts like a cat but has a certain intelligence that sets him apart. That intelligence will do you little good if you don't know how to interpret what he does. Example: Apparently when he's twitchy or nervous, that's bad. Best that you do what he indicates. At the same time, you can't read this book thinking that Cat's abilities are all in Lilly's head. At one point she is captured and Cat uses his talents to outwit the guard on duty in a truly inspired manner. It's a good book for cat lovers, really.

I'm calling this a book for the 10 and up crowd, but make no mistake that there are some dark elements at work here. The trial by knife where Lilly is questioned in a violent manner never leads to anything much more than psychological terror, but for the squeamish that might be enough. The fact that the poor little prime minister's daughter spends much of the book scared is a toughie too. Still, I've found that things like that tend to upset adult readers far more than children. Kids have tough emotional hides that we sometimes forget about when it comes to literature. Some concern has come up regarding the chief's concubine. Does her presence in the book make it difficult to read this to middle grade kids? I don't think so. She is always referred to as the man's wife. No overt sexual references are made (though there are plenty to read between the lines). Kids won't get what she is, only adults. But it's worth noting. As for the language, it's fine. Apparently while I'm sure that other words have been lost to the waves of time, there is one moment when Zeph refers to a wife as a "skank". So that word, of all terms, proves its longevity. Ditto futuristic sketchy slang like "find your plums" (you can pretty much figure it out within context).

I wouldn't say that this is a book for everything as it can prove to be a hard novel. But for any kid interested in action/adventure who isn't afraid of a little sci-fi as well, this is well worth seeking out. Fun, well-written, the whole nine yards. Diamand is a woman to keep your eyes pinned on from here on in.

Ages 10 and up.

This book has a really good story but unfortunately the book is told in first person but by two different people. The book doesn't give any obvious indications of which person is telling that chapter. I find this too frustrating to finish the book sadly

This book was so hard to rate. On the one hand, the basic premise was interesting, the voice engaging, and the storytelling excellent. On the other hand--and I know suspending one's disbelief is kind of a crucial point of fiction--I just couldn't buy the idea that only two hundred years in the future, England has descended into the Dark Ages, complete with a controlling church, witch hunts, suspicion of anything "ghostly," and Viking-esque raids, while the rest of the world, as far as the reader can tell, is civilized (we at least get a sense of Scotland being a more refined, relatively advanced society). Even considering flooding from global warming (a reasonable assertion), I found the world of this novel to be a bit too much of a stretch.

That said, I did enjoy the story. It's a sci-fi that reads like a fantasy, which is pretty cool, and there was a lot there to hold my interest to the gripping end. I just wasn't into it enough to pick up the sequel.

Published as Reavers' Ransom in the UK. I wonder why the name was changed? Set in a post-apocalyptic world, this book is much lighter than other books of its type. This is a nice adventure tale for upper elementary readers.

I loved this book so much when I was a kid, and I've just discovered it has a sequel?! Definitely need to re-read and get the second book.

Cat as ship captain's first mate? OK!
England in the future? Sure.
Consequences of climate change and rising sea levels in a kids' story? Good idea!
Weird video game thing that talks via a disembodied head? .... no thanks.

I really wanted to like this book, but the "puter" part ruined it for me.

I won the second one in the series from Scholastic, so I thought I should read the first. I understand and appreciate the grammer coming from an uneducated futuristic 13-year-old, but the Mother/educator in me is cringing! I am liking the story so far, but little background is being given as to what caused the Collapse of London and as of yet nothing is said about the rest of the world.

The book ended with several unanswered questions, which were either too hard to answer, or left for the sequel. I liked how the story alternated which of the two main characters was telling the story each chapter. It was fun seeing things through each perspective and how each action was interpreted differently. An enjoyable read overall.

This is a good post-apocalypse book for younger readers. good solid characters, the plot flows well and the story is intriguing and keeps the readers attention. some of the words may be a little hard to follow at first but once you get into the story it becomes a little easier to catch on. It definitely points toward a sequel as there are a lot of unanswered questions at the end of the book.

Eh. This tale of a futuristic England, post-climate collapse started off interesting, but devolved with (for me) unbelievable elements. Diamand went to pains to create a beautifully rendered fishing village under attack, but it all went to pieces when the computer head appeared. This threw off the tone of the novel and made me a little disoriented. The melding of technology with a traditional, non-tech society didn't feel complete. I also got very confused between the two narrators' voices -- they didn't sound distinct enough and I had to pause at the beginning of each chapter to figure out who was speaking. Recommended for young fans of sea stories and swashbuckling who are willing to stick with a story.