6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming SF tale, August 8, 2002
This review is from: Orvis (Paperback)
There's a distinct lack of good science fiction that kids can read, aside from the "Tripod" books and the juvenile reprint of "Ender's Game." H.M. Hoover's "Orvis" helps fill that gaping vacancy -- charming, smart, without being too technically-obsessed.
Toby is the daughter of a pair of self-absorbed actors who are too busy to be with her, and lives at the Academy under the thumb of her domineering grandmother. One day she meets someone like her: A four-hundred-year-old, very sardonic, very ugly robot called ORVIS, survivor of several of his masters and now ordered to scrap himself at a local junkyard. After a few talks with Toby and her best friend, lonely rich kid Thaddeus, Orvis comes to stay with Toby.
But the teachers at the Academy don't want Orvis around: He's a very old model, capable of thinking for himself and making his own choices and decisions, and so they deem him "dangerous." They attempt to scrap him again. But Toby has had enough, having received the news that her grandmother wants her to go to school on Mars. She, Thaddeus and Orvis set off towards her great-grandmother's isolated home, but are hijacked by criminals. The three of them are left stranded in the wasteland between cities known as the Empty.
"Orvis" is an entertaining book, with a small, tight cast and a good storyline. The future world of "Orvis" is pretty similar in most ways to our world, technically advanced but in essentials very much like modern-day Earth. The biggest differences are in the layout of the future Earth, which has isolated, luxurious cities surrounded by lawless wastelands, and in the robots, most of which are intelligent but utterly docile. The book falls down in a few areas: the descriptions are a little too stark, and I felt that the insensitive decision to send Toby to Mars would have been more effective if we had SEEN her grandmother telling her.
Toby is a sympathetic character to any kid who has felt ignored by his/her parents, or a loner at a school full of cliques. Thaddeus is a little overshadowed by Toby, and never is as well-developed or inidividualized, but he's a nice sidekick as well. It's Orvis who really steals the show: He's sarcastic, grumpy, smart, blunt in his speech, and naive about such things as killing birds. He's a sort of melding of the two droids in "Star Wars," and readers will love him.
"Orvis" has a few places where it lags, but overall it's an entertaining and fast-paced little SF adventure. Definitely one to read.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Story of a Girl, a Boy and a Robot., January 31, 2003
I picked this book because H.M. Hoover was the author who had written one of my favourite children's books (This Time of Darkness). Although this book did not reach the same heights as This Time of Darkness, it was a very enjoyable read. It's unusually optimistic look at the far future of the planet earth and its occupants was refreshing, as many books (including children's books) throw humans in to a post-nuclear-apocalypse, captalist, highly-controlled culture. The book neatly linked several stories surrounding the main character, a girl called, Toby, and the age-old Robot she meets one day on an old highway. A simple but throughly enjoyable book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Orvis, August 20, 2011
This review is from: Orvis (Paperback)
"Orvis" is an adventure with 2 friends and a robot. Toby finds the robot Orvis while ditching school. Orvis is walking along to the local dump because he was ordered to discard himself as he was old and unattractive. Toby and her friend Thaddeous follow him and start asking him questions as to who owned him and what he's doing. Orvis thinks they're pests but quickly grows bored with sitting around the dump (his battery won't run out for another 50,000 years) and follows them back to their private school. The teachers and staff are horrified by him because he's "a robot that looks and acts like a robot" instead of like the humanized, non-threatening androids they're used to. He's also capable of independent thought, which to their minds, is extremely dangerous. They demand that Orvis be turned in for scrapping. The kids come up with a plan to save their robot buddy from the crusher and wind up lost in The Empty with only Orvis for protection.
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