Aged 14, the twins, tech wizards and inventors who have been home-schooled by their environmentalist Ugandan mother Eunata, are sought out by RanaTech to join its secret new mission. 

RanaTech has done nothing to endear itself to Eunata since destroying local homes and businesses by imposing its shiny new building on the city of Mbale and she is deeply mistrustful of its motives.

For Kira, leaving Uganda for the company’s base in London, home city of their father, represents a golden opportunity to work with other like-minded young geniuses. 

Jacob’s motivation for agreeing to participate in trials for RanaTech’s Transcendent project is a little different.

More introverted than his sister, his most treasured possession is the plastic action figure nicknamed ‘Captain Cosmic’, bought for five-year-old Jacob by his father, shortly before his father’s death. 

As a teenager, Jacob has developed from sending Captain Cosmic “soaring through space to fight imaginary alien beasts” to an obsession with an online conspiracy theorist.

When this shadowy figure, Double M, warns his followers “the Others are coming and RanaTech knows”, Jacob’s worst nightmares about an alien invasion appear to be spilling into reality. 

If joining Transcendent offers the chance to prevent the Others taking over the world, he reasons, this is a chance to play his own part in a story of heroism.

Exactly what Transcendent does involve, however, is not immediately clear, and before they can be accepted into the project, the teenage candidates must undergo three mind-blowing trials and face their greatest fears.

If successful, they will be launched into space on a high-stakes mission to counter the greatest threat the world has ever seen, but is the existential threat to the human race from without, or within?

While Jacob’s perception is of a world threatened by menacing Other beings straight out of the scariest science fiction, debut author Patrick
Gallagher raises the prospect of the biggest danger to humanity being its own disregard for the planet.

“Saving the world is not about jumping off rooftops, big car chases or space invasions,” Eunata reminds her son. 

“Saving the world does not just happen in books. In reality, everyone has the chance to save the world every single day.”

Bringing together the greatest young minds of a generation and equipping them with the best technology may be a noble attempt to save the world from climate change, though the true motives of tech billionaire Amira Rana and her multinational company remain a mystery throughout this first instalment of an adrenaline-fuelled action series for readers aged nine-plus.

A London primary school teacher with roots in Donegal and Goa, Gallagher, who studied in Maynooth, names the wise woman of his novel after his own grandmother Eunata and as a mixed-race writer, offers a fresh look at the concept of ‘Otherness’ from a sci-fi perspective.

Amid the battle for minds that is central to the ever-twisting plot of Transcendent, the idea that rather than accepting responsibility we bury our heads in fantasy and blame our problems on unknown ‘Others’ resonates loudest. 

Evil Duck and the Feather of Fortune by Chris Judge (Gill, €10.99)

Apparently though, the most potent threat in the solar system is not aliens but the Feather of Fortune, which when used as a quill can instantly turn whatever the holder writes into reality.

When Evil Duck got his webbed … er, hands on the feather many, many years ago, his first thought was not how he could use it to end
global hunger or bring about world peace. 

No indeed, like so many who gain power, Evil Duck decides to use it for personal aggrandisement, with no regard for the wider consequences of his actions.

His first instruction written with the Feather of Fortune demands a new weapon for his spaceship — one powerful enough to destroy the moon.

“If I destroy the moon, the oceans will cover every major city and I will be king!” he declares, ignoring the fact that his own evil lair would also be flooded by such an act.

“We’ll just build a new lair on Mars,” is his retort.

Anyone fearing this is a children’s graphic novel thinly disguised as political commentary may take comfort from the fact that the weapon of mass destruction turns out to be a gigantic pizza cutter (the moon being made of cheese — duh!), backed up by a defence mechanism comprising an enormous non-stick frying pan.

Just when it seems no one can stop Evil Duck in his dastardly tracks, his nemesis Fearless Frank Duck enters the fray and cosmic combat ensues.

When Evil Duck is zapped by a freeze ray and turned to ice it appears he’s rightly goosed, and so he remains, entombed in a frozen prison in Fearless Frank’s attic for 50 years, until… What happens next has much to do with Fearless Frank’s twin grandchildren Flo and Eddie.

Especially Eddie, who is one of those bothersome youths who just can’t help pressing buttons, particularly buttons marked ‘do not touch’.

Having accidentally defrosted Evil Duck and facilitated his escape, Flo and Eddie find themselves helping their still-fearless but sometimes reckless grandfather to recapture him and prevent Evil Duck from demolishing Ducklin City and conquering the planet.

With a self-destructing chicken craft, an army of giant woodlice, wacky inventions, and cast of idiosyncratic characters, Dublin author-illustrator Chris Judge has created a quacking read for ages six-plus with the kind of crazy capers that endeared The Beano and The Dandy to generations of children.

Dúnmharú i bPáirc an Chrócaigh by Cathal Ó Sándair (An Gúm, €9)

“Dúnmharú ag an gcluiche ceannais. Iománaí cáiliúil marbh,” the headlines scream.

Seán Ó Glaimhín, the best hurler in the country, has been shot dead on the Croke Park pitch during the All-Ireland final.

Luckily, famed detective Réics Carló is at the match and is happy to assist the gardaí in solving the crime, but first comes the question of Ó Glaimhín’s true identity.

First published in 1944, this is the fourth book in the series ‘Eachtraí Réics Carló’, the fictional detective featuring in as many as 45 stories in one of the most successful Irish language series ever written, and lending his name to the Gradam Réics Carló for children’s literature as Gaeilge.

With text updated in 2024, this and ‘An Corpán sa Trunc’ are the latest releases in an ongoing project by An Gúm to reprint an adventure series whose fast-moving plots are capable of engaging a modern readership, since the quest to solve a good mystery never goes out of fashion.