Dead Water Zone

by Kenneth Oppel

Overview

For as long as he can remember, Paul has looked after his younger, weaker brother Sam. But when Sam leaves home to work as a research assistant in Watertown, he disappears into the dark folds of the city's noxious slum. When Paul goes looking for Sam in Watertown, he learns a dark secret: something in the water is changing the residents of Watertown, transforming them into something inhuman. But can Paul reach Sam before the dark waters get to him first?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061968389
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/22/2009
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	230 KB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

KENNETH OPPEL is the bestselling author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide and was adapted into an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award and the Governor General’s Literary Award; its sequel, Skybreaker, was a New York Times bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the Times (UK). Kenneth Oppel is also the author of Half Brother, This Dark Endeavor, The Boundless, The Nest, Every Hidden Thing, Inkling and the Bloom trilogy. His latest novel is Ghostlight. Ken Oppel lives with his family in Toronto.

Read an Excerpt

Dead Water Zone EPB

Chapter One

Paul dreamed machinery.

The oiled push of steel pistons, the rustle of rubber hosing, the low roar of a powerful furnace.

He walked into his brother's room. Sam sat on the edge of the bed, curling barbells in toward his chest...right arm, left arm, one, two. Impossible. Sam was too weak to be lifting them.

"I'm getting stronger," Sam said. One, two, one, two, effortless.

"But how?" Paul asked.

"Secrets are subatomic," Sam replied with an enigmatic smile.

"What does that mean?" Paul demanded. How typical of Sam to say something clever and not explain it. "What does that mean?"

"Look."

Sam lowered the barbells to the floor and began peeling off his layers of clothing, one sweatshirt, then another, then another...all the time getting skinnier and skinnier.

"You don't have to do this," Paul said anxiously. "You don't have to, Sam. Stop!"

But Sam kept stripping off his shirts, until he came to the very last one. Paul knew what was underneath.

"Don't!" he shouted. "Sam, please, I'm sorry!"

"Paul," his brother said, "watch."

There was a blinding flash of skeletal white, but something else, too, something metallic.

"No!" Paul shouted. "No, no, no!"

He clamped his eyes shut, but the scalding brightness filled his dream vision, white and intense as a camera's flash, then slowly faded to the dark color of deep water.

Dead Water Zone EPB. Copyright © by Kenneth Oppel. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

Plenty of action, a pinch of romance and such up-to-date topics as pollution and computer-hacking speed along this futuristic thriller. In search of his runaway younger brother, athletic Paul leaves his tidy suburban home to plunge into the murky slum called Watertown. Various events lead Paul to believe that his missing brother is caught in something very strange indeed, something that has to do with the potent waters surrounding the shantytown. Watertown proves a magnificently eerie setting--so much so that it tends to upstage the novel's plot and its characters, both of which seem rather thin and unoriginal in comparison. Although it does not offer readers challenges on a level with those found in, say, Peter Dickinson's Eva , this fast-paced adventure contains plenty to enjoy. Ages 12-up. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly