I loved this retro feeling science fiction adventure, set in the 1950s. It's a lighthearted take on an alien invasion and abduction, with a country hick whiz kid and a plucky girl scientist saving the day.

A big problem is the audience. Most kids aren't going to get the references or the retro feel, and most adults won't read it. That leaves adults that like goofy science fiction and also like reading children's books as an audience. That's me and two or three other people. And I read a library copy, so no help with royalties there. ( )

Jack Creedle, and the town of Vern Hollow, have been invaded by aliens. Well, not invaded per se, more like under the watchful eyes of creepy, giant spider aliens who are after Uncle Bud’s invention—a refrigerator-looking machine that actually can create holes in space and time. But, when Jack, Uncle Bud, Isadora Shumway and her highly-respected scientist mother are kidnapped by the spider aliens, things really get crazy.

What I liked: GREAT characters! All the main characters are different with their own individual quirks and attitudes. The plot is solid and interesting enough (who doesn’t love a group of hapless earthlings who have to save the Earth from alien invaders?).

What I didn’t like: Teague writes the story from many points of view, and each time we shift from one to another, there’s a scene break. Sometimes there’s two scene breaks on one page. It got tiresome by chapter five. I appreciate trying to write the story from multiple points of view, but there are better ways to accomplish that. It was also unnecessarily long. 376 pages that could easily have been told in 250.

An okay read, but nothing spectacular.

3.5 out of 5 stars ( )

I was working on an author/illustrator project for class and was excited to see that Mark Teague had a novel out for intermediate grades. The Doom Machine is modern fantasy/science fiction. I am not a fan of this genre but I tried getting through the entire book. It was rather hard for me to get interested in the book as it would go back and forth between human talk and alien talk. I found myself lost a lot in the story and had to go back to re-read.

The book, set in the 1950's is presented in three parts: Earth, Arboria and Skreepia. Jack Creedle and Isadora Shumway are on a mission to find the flying saucer that has freaked out the entire town of Vern Hollow. They, along with Isadora's mom and Jack's uncle, are captured by the alien skreeps. There's adventure galore as the kids travel through time and galaxies, fighting the aliens or trying to escape. And there's the ongoing story about the "special item" that has everyone all riled up.

There are illustrations done by Mark Teague sprinkled throughout The Doom Machine. In his usual fun style of drawings, they add character to the book and just enough vision for the reader's curiousity.

I'd be willing to try another Mark Teague novel. I know that I have thoroughly enjoy all of his picture books for children. I'm anxious to see reactions from my 4th - 6th grade students as they find the book on the shelf! Who knows, I might try reading it again with them. ( )

I'm not truly in to fantasy books, so this was a bit hard for me to finish. I did find some parts of this book to be humorous and could see the story catching younger students attention. Lengthy novel but overall it was an okay book ( )

Threw in the towel today on this one. I wanted to like it, since it is compared to the wonderful "The True Meaning of Smekday". But it was not in me. The plot meandered too much and was not interested in the characters. Perhaps it needed better editing. ( )