Pawns: The Brat Prince

Thirteen-year-old Tom Knight, the only child of two loving parents, is dealing with typical teenage challenges such as a bully who lives across the street and balancing video game time with school time when his parents suddenly vanish from his home. Following instructions left by a shape shifting blob of Jell-O on the kitchen counter, Tom enters a nondescript doorway on the side of an antique store that miraculously transports him 26.2 light years away to the planet Chosroes. There a petulant and bored Prince holds Tom’s parents captive in a large cage, the eventual victims of an extremely slow moving, but carnivorous maggoricus—picture an elephant sized slug with big teeth—that shares the cage with them. The Prince explains to Tom that it will take a week for the beast to reach his parents and in that time, Tom must steal a vital piece of equipment, a hypertime stone, from the Prince’s enemies on the neighboring planet of Chatrang. Feeling overwhelmed, ill-equipped and terrified, Tom enlists the help of his two best friends, his math teacher and even the bully across the street to help him on his quest to steal the hypertime stone and save his parents. Pawns is a fun—and at times funny—read, but also addresses serious issues such as bullying, the impact of war on civilians and the importance of friendship. The story uses chess as its overarching theme with character and place names taken from the chess board and from historical figures who were known to be associated with the game.