Stranger

A teen boy deals with PTSD and a damaged hand in this richly populated western/post-apocalyptic YA novel.

Stranger

Many generations ago, a mysterious cataclysm struck the world. Governments collapsed and people scattered, to rebuild where they could. A mutation, “the Change,” arose, granting some people unique powers. Though the area once called Los Angeles retains its cultural diversity, its technological marvels have faded into legend. “Las Anclas” now resembles a Wild West frontier town… where the Sheriff possesses superhuman strength, the doctor can warp time to heal his patients, and the distant ruins of an ancient city bristle with deadly crystalline trees that take their jewel-like colors from the clothes of the people they killed.

Teenage prospector Ross Juarez’s best find ever – an ancient book he doesn’t know how to read – nearly costs him his life when a bounty hunter is set on him to kill him and steal the book. Ross barely makes it to Las Anclas, bringing with him a precious artifact, a power no one has ever had before, and a whole lot of trouble.

Practical information

Authors: Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith
Publisher: Penguin Random House (Viking)
Publication year: 2014
ISBN: 9780670014804
Age category: young adult
Disabilities portrayed: chronic pain, damaged hand, mental illness, PTSD
Genre: science fiction

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audiobook available

Authors

Rachel Manija Brown is the author of Stranger, a post-apocalyptic YA novel co-written with Sherwood Smith, the collection A Cup of Smoke, and the memoir All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India. She wrote the graphic novels The Nine-Lives and Spy Goddess for Tokyopop. She has also written television, short stories, plays, video games, and poetry. In her other identity, she is a trauma/PTSD therapist.

We tried to be very realistic in terms of the economy, the politics, the weapons, and so forth. But since the mutant plants, animals, and powers are not really scientifically based anyway, we went with the “rule of cool” and just tried to come up with fun ideas. Though once we came up with them, we then tried to make sure they felt consistent and plausible.

(Great Imaginations, December 2014)

Sherwood Smith was a teacher for twenty years, teaching history, literature, drama, and dance. Before that she worked in the film industry for several years. She writes science fiction and fantasy for adults and young readers; she has been working on the Sartorias-deles fantasy series all her life, beginning with the CJ Notebooks, then continuing on as her main protagonists began to grow up and become active in the world. Though known primarily as a fantasy writer, Sherwood along with author Dave Trowbridge collaborated on Exordium, a five-volume space opera, with Rachel Manija Brown on the young adult “hopeful dystopia” series called The Change, and with Andre Norton on four books listed elsewhere.

I did not want to write coming out stories. That was not my experience, or my story to tell. I wanted to write stories in which everyday acceptance was understood: I wrote about the world I wanted to live in.

(YA Pride, December 2014)

Practical information

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Authors

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