The Warriors of Brin-Hask

The Warriors of Brin-Hask
by Cerberus Jones
Recommended Ages: 10+

Amelia's family is trying to operate a hotel on a headland overlooking the sea, in what locals regard as a haunted house. But now Amelia and her best friend Charlie, whose mum is the hotel's housekeeper, know that there's a gateway under it where aliens from across the universe arrive via wormhole. Only the adults are supposed to know about this, but already the business is off to a rocky start with their first alien guest lodging a complaint against them with the gateway control authority, an army of cyborg rats attacking from beneath the floorboards and, for their second group of guests, a band of fierce, fuzzy and deceptively cute warriors in retreat from a demoralizing defeat.

Also, there's a strange character the kids call the Leaf Man jumping about, a mysterious lady guest whom no one has ever seen and a disbelieving teen (Amelia's older brother, James) spreading discontent with every sneering remark. With the future of their whole enterprise on the line, Amelia, Charlie and their parents must somehow prove they can keep the gateway safe and secret before Control comes to shut them down. Luckily, the warriors of Brin-Hask prove to be the right guests at the right time.

Attractively designed and whimsically illustrated, this book sells big concepts, vibrant characters, laughs and chills and a heady sense of adventure with such a transparent, economical writing style that you'd never suspect it was written by committee. This is the second of (so far) eight books in "The Gateway" series by an author who is actually two or three people, and I'm reading them out of order as used copies come in from Thriftbooks.

I'm a bit shocked to see Amazon (at the time I created the link above) offering a copy for $31.18 when I paid between $4.69 and $5.79 each for six books in the series, including this one at $4.79. The suggested retail marked on the cover is $5.99. Also, Fantastic Fiction doesn't seem to know that this series exists. I suppose that's because it comes from Down Under. And yet somehow, I stumbled across a copy of Book 4 in a local bookshop. Short of keeping your eyes peeled for it in stores, my best suggestion is to troll used book websites for it. I would definitely balk at paying $30 for it – not because it's not a fun book but really, we're talking about a 136-page chapter book here. Anyway, see this for the titles of the other installments and some bibliographical notes on the authors.