The Sleeping Planet
Paul F. McDonald
eBook
(, July 2, 2020)
Sixteen-year-old Byron James has been forced to move around a lot since his father’s death. But as his father was a literature professor, the one constant in his life remains books and libraries. When his nomadic mother drags him to yet another New England town, he doesn’t hesitate to apply to be a volunteer at the local public library. As he’s shelving one summer afternoon, Byron discovers a strange, out-of-place book. Moments later, he discovers a strange, out-of-place girl who wants the book. According to her, the book is not only a little misplaced, but is actually tens of thousands of light years so. Not only is it in the wrong library system, it’s on the wrong side of the Milky Way galaxy altogether. Alive for the first time in years, Byron is immediately entranced by the mysterious girl. He soon learns her name is Celestia Freyy and, like the book, she isn’t from Earth either. The wondrous world she is from is home to the biggest, grandest library in the entire galaxy, the cultural heart of a string of planets and moons.The youngest librarian of her order, Celestia is part of a special division of materials management known simply as Book Chasers. Their daring and prestigious order is responsible for the discovery, retrieval, and protection of all the lost books scattered across the stars. Celestia tracked one such book all the way to Byron’s library on Earth. No simple text, it is inexplicably linked to the rebirth of an entire planet.Crafted of simultaneously ancient but hopelessly advanced technology, the exotic book accidentally grafts onto Byron. With no choice, Celestia has to take him with her when she blasts out of the solar system on a StarWinder. Caught up in a sweeping interstellar adventure, Byron eventually discovers all of this is bound to a much larger and more personal quest than he ever could have imagined … Author’s Note: This is the first volume in a young adult series, one that aspires to hover somewhere between John Green, Star Wars, and The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu.