Monday 3 June 2019

The outline for my Young Adult novel, NICOLAI'S PLANET



                                                                  NICOLAI’S
    PLANET

                                   by Andrew Hawcroft

                                                               Outline

At a secret location, deep within the freezing forestland of Eastern Siberia, Valentin and Mischa Valenko, two of Russia’s most brilliant scientists in the field of electro-magnetism, prepare to demonstrate their life’s work before a gathering of the Russian government’s most high-ranking officials.

The Q-Drive will entirely replace the internal combustion engine, that clunky, filthy relic of the twentieth century.   Today, deep inside their highly-classified research centre, this loving couple will attempt to finally change the face of the planet for the better, with the pressing of a single button.

Instead, a jealous colleague, ousted from their team weeks earlier, decides to sabotage the demonstration.  It all goes to hell in a hand basket, as the prototype Q-Drive detonates, and the attending dignitaries, along with Valentin and his pregnant wife, barely escape with their lives.  The base, flooded with electro-magnetic radiation, is closed forever.

Barely escaping jail, Valentin and Mischa are blacklisted by the Russian scientific community, and banned for applying for a patent for the Q-Drive under threat of imprisonment.   With no choice, the Valenkos decide to head to the West, settling in London, England

Thirteen years later, and life is very different.  Living in a leaky house in a low-end suburban neighbourhood,  Valentin works in a huge toy store, selling over-priced toys to spoilt brats, and Mischa works long hours in a fruit factory.  Their only joy is each other and their beloved son, Nicolai.

Mischa’s pregnancy was not unaffected by the accident, it seems.  Nicolai Valenko was born only with only his left eye intact, the other is simply missing.  It never developed.  To keep staring to a minimum, he wears an eye-patch to school, where he excels at softball and Art.  Remarkably sanguine and at ease with himself considering his disfigurement, Nicolai has become a popular and cheery young fellow.  Despite his parents’ difficult lifestyle, their love for each other carries the family through.

And then one day, his mother collapses.

The doctor’s face is grim when he announces it is a form of accumulative radiation poisoning, her body finally succumbing to the effect of millions of electro-magnetic particles embedded in it after the explosion.   She has only weeks to live.

What makes this tragedy somehow worse is that there is a cure.  Colobium, the infamous ‘anti-metal’, and the most precious substance on earth. (Only seven pounds of it exist on the planet, shared amongst various governments’ scientific bodies and held under the tightest security.)  It’s strange polarity would absorb and eliminate the radiation in her body.

But a disgraced former Russian scientist in exile holds no sway, and no amount of pleading to various governing bodies will see him provided with the barest milligrams he needs to save the life of his beloved wife.

With no hope, the devastated family try to make their peace with Mischa’s forthcoming demise.

Except....

Except that one day, a friend in the Russian equivalent of NASA, informs Valentin that a small planetoid is drifting close to the Earth within the coming month.   This planetoid, jokingly labelled Eden’s Folly, has aroused great interest in the scientific community due to the strange and fascinating information their sensors and telescopes are providing them with.   There is evidence of vegetation, bodies of unidentified liquid, of mountain ranges containing unrecognised chemical elements, strange weather patterns, strange thermal sources and unidentified radiations....and in one localised area, large traces of Colobium.

Valentin, a man who loves his wife more than his own life, embarks on an insane plan. He will somehow cobble together the components and materials to build a spaceship, complete with a Q-Drive, in their front room, blast off to Eden’s Folly, collect samples of Colobium, return to Earth, and treat his wife before the radiation poisoning takes her from him.

Maxing out every credit card, selling every conceivable item that anyone would buy, Valentin and Nicolai quit their jobs and school, and embark on building the Ship in their front room, (cutting through the ceiling for additional height) trying to avoid the sneering, peering gaze of their troublesome neighbour, cobbling together a spacesuit out of a customised wetsuit and aqualung.
With a desperately short time window, all obstacles are overcome, and Valentin races home to blast off at the optimal launch-time.....only to be arrested seconds from reaching his home.

With his disabled son being only too aware that the Ship is about to be discovered, and that the launch window is fast disappearing, he does the only thing a loyal and courageous son would do.  Nicolai shrugs on the far-too-big ‘spacesuit’, closes the hatch, and blasts off.....

Seeing the Ship smash through the roof of their suburban home, Valentin knows immediately (and to his horror) what has happened.  The Police agree to let him speak to his son through the radio transmitter that Nicolai was supposed to man back on Earth, doing his best to keep his son alive, and guide him to the best possible landing site on Eden’s Folly.

With wretched technical problems even on its brief fiery flight, Nicolai manages to somehow crash-land on Eden’s Folly, but far from the mountain range where the Colobium lies.   To get there, he must trek on foot, over nine miles of the surface of this strange and terrifying place.

For Eden’s Folly is a deadly treasure-trove of dangers that Nicolai’s child-mind gives names to; Starfish, Thornballs, Blue Mist and Porridge Pits to name but a few.

Young Nicolai Valenko, twelve years-old, running out of air in a hastily-built, homemade spacesuit, is weary, frightened, and a long way from his damaged spaceship. 

Still, he continues to survive terror after terror, to finally arrive at the dark, hulking, metallic blue mountain range, only to make the most shocking discovery of all.... 

Another Ship. 











The outline for my Young Adult novel, "I FLY"


                          
                                                                                                                               
                                                   “ I FLY ”

                               A Young Adult novel by Andrew Hawcroft

                       
                                                          Outline


Jamie Cramer is thirteen years-old, and lives on the thirteenth floor of Maycliff Towers in the dying English industrial town of Jaston.  Jaston is a decaying, filthy, hopeless place, founded upon a metal industry that saw its best years a long time ago.  The people are despondent, violence and crime is everywhere, and Jamie’s alcoholic mother, Shauna, has resented her son from birth.   They barely survive on her welfare allowance, and his future is unsure. No, his future is bleak.

Then one night, under a particularly bright moon, Jamie can’t sleep and walks into the kitchen.  A moment later, he discovers he is floating a few inches off the filthy linoleum.

As his astonishing ability progresses, his life seems to correspondingly degenerate, his relationship with his mother deteriorating until things reach a crisis point.  

Only then does hope of a kind appear in the form of two warm-hearted people who wish to adopt him.   Things finally seem to be turning a corner, and his future, once hopeless, now begins to look dangerously positive.

The one thing he must not do, is let anybody find out he can fly.
 
For in these hysterical times, the consequences would surely be disastrous…