Street Freaks tell the story of teen Ash Collins, who gets a cryptic message from his father telling him to run moments before their apartment is raided by the authorities. Fearing for his life, Ash does as his father’s message says and flees to the Red Zone, a lawless part of the city, in search of a group called Street Freaks. As it turns out, Street Freaks is a group of unusual, misfit teens who build custom street racers.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really live up to Brooks’ standards. Or at least my standards for Brooks. Who may not have any award winning novels, but at least writes things that are entertaining, interesting, and thoughtful. Street Freaks, on the other hand, has a collection of flat characters with interchangeable personalities, smart and capable well beyond their years, who follow their mysterious benefactor without question.

Oh, and a sex robot. Because no sci-fi novel is complete without a sex robot, am I right? Ash falls in love with her on sight and spends the rest of the novel convincing her to date him despite her protests. It’s not creepy in the slightest.

Why are you writing about teenagers having sex, Terry? You’re 75. Please don’t. ( )

Veteran science fiction author Brooks seems to be embarking on a new series based on the ending here. The main character (Ash) is warned by his father who is working on a secret project to flee his house because his life is in danger. He ends up being taken in by a group of young renegades known as Street Freaks. They make some of their income designing and building souped up racing cars.The mystery to be unraveled is why his dad is eventually murdered and who is responsible. Brooks fans will enjoy this one. ( )

An unprepared teenage boy must escape in an dystopian future LA, his only direction to seek out Street Freaks in the lawless Red Zone. What follows is in form much what would be expected from the beginning, an immersion in an alternate culture with a group of 'tweeked teen auto reconstructionist street racers. Terry Brooks has told the fantasy version of this story several times, and now brings it 200 years or so into the future with cyborgs and drugs instead of elves and magic. The pacing is not quite up to the story, and the falling in love with the 'he sees her as a real person' sex synth falls off the creepy edge. ( )

Street Freaks is not your typical Terry Brooks novel. He is best known for his fantasy novels. I remember reading his Sword of Shannara series when I was younger and loved his story telling, characters and brilliant world building. I have never doubted his writing ability; however, I was surprised to realize this is a YA Sci-Fi book. Regardless, of the genre, Terry Brooks is a great writer and Street Freaks just goes to show how great his skills are.

The story is set in the future where technology has advanced to the point that machine and man can and have been seamlessly integrated to overcome debilitating illnesses and injuries. At the beginning we meet Ashton (Ash) Collins. He is your typical teenager who lives at home with his Dad and 3 robots until one day he gets an urgent call from his Father to run as fast as he can to the Red Zone and go to Street Freaks. Ash has lived a sheltered life thus far and he is not prepared for what he finds in the Red Zone or at Street Freaks.

Fortunately for Ash, the kids (actually young adults) at Street Freaks, a place where street cars are built and raced, take him in and make him part of their community of misunderstood rejects of experiments. That’s right, in this dystopian future, companies have experimented on kids and then disposed of them. They help him to discover what happened to his father. Together this band of unlikely allies sets out to take down the person and company who is responsible for Ash’s father’s disappearance and in the process hopefully expose the terrible things that have happened to kids.

Even though this was not the typical Terry Brooks story I am accustomed to, I liked it. Mr. Brooks has developed characters that you can empathize with and I was routing for them throughout the story. The future he has envisioned in this story was well thought-out and worked nicely with the plot. There is a lot of attention to detail and the story and characters are better for it.

The plot was paced nicely and I appreciated that Mr. Brooks did not just do a data dump to the reader in the beginning. All the facts and information important to the story were doled out only as needed. There were several twists in the story and a couple of real surprises that keep me interested and yet I did not get a feeling of the plot being overworked.

As I said, the story is well told and I think it will appeal to Sci-Fi and Fantasy readers alike. Though a note of caution, it is a YA book but some of the topics are not suited for the younger reader. Therefore, I recommend only for ages 16+.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. For more of my reviews, and author interviews, see my blog at www.thespineview.com. ( )