Novel: 'Peter And The Starcatchers' (Starcatchers) (2004) by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

Now this is an interesting one. 'Peter And The Starcatchers' is the first in a series of vaguely Disney-related alternative Peter Pan stories, and is simultaneously very interesting and a bit disappointing. What would the target audience of later younger readers think, though? Perhaps it would be a bit of a hit?

In this book, Peter and some other orphans are being transported (sold) overseas to a mysterious tyrant when they are involved in a massive adventure involving a mysterious trunk hidden on their rundown ship. The trunk is full of an extraterrestrial substance called 'starstuff', which name I loathe, which is normally collected and safeguarded by a covert band of people called 'Starcatchers'. The starstuff confers powers on people, including flight, and has long been coveted throughout history by malevolent groups known only as the Others. The young Peter gets entangled with Molly, a young Starcatcher, while protecting the Starstuff from the master pirate Black 'Stache, an Other on the crew of the transport, and the various forces on a mysterious island they all get shipwrecked onto. Everything is there, and yet not in quite the ways you might expect.

The authors do manage to capture the implicit tragedy of Peter never growing old, while everyone else does, which is a consequence of various events and is the soul of the original story. It would be nice if the utter benevolence of the Starcatchers wasn't take so much on faith. I'm pretty sure that I would be dubious about such a bunch, who are apparently taking all the superpowered starstuff for themselves, keeping personal stores in lockets and claiming to 'return' the bulk, but then I'm a cynic. It sounds very shady indeed. How are they paying for their golden equipment, huh? The tone is also quite strange at times, especially with Black 'Stache's secret sail technology, which turns out to be a design based on a bustier. Very funny, but almost from a different book entirely.

So, overall, this is a thoroughly readable novel for later young readers. It's a bit eccentric at times, and there are touches of implicit and explicit horror in places. Sometimes, exposition pushes through, and sometimes the tone gets a bit mixed, but the second book is a definite must at this point. Oh, and the illustrations in my copy were very good. Well done, that person.

O.