Trenton Colman is a creative thirteen-year-old boy with a knack for all things mechanical. But his talents are viewed with suspicion in Cove, a steam-powered city built inside a mountain. In Cove, creativity is a crime and invention is a curse word. Kallista Babbage is a repair technician and daughter of the notorious Leo Babbage, whose father died in an explosion an event the leaders of Cove point to as an example of the danger of creativity. Working together, Trenton and Kallista learn that Leo Babbage was developing a secret project before he perished. Following clues he left behind, they begin to assemble a strange machine that is unlikely anything they ve ever seen before. They soon discover that what they are building may threaten every truth their city is founded on and quite possibly their very lives. Gr 4–8—Young lovers of dystopian steampunk may be intrigued by Savage's latest offering to the genre. Mysteries take readers underground to the cryptic Cove, a subterranean, multilevel city not unlike District 13 in Suzanne Collins's "The Hunger Games" (Scholastic) books or the "community" in Lois Lowry's The Giver (HMH, 1993), with a dash of "here be dragons" flavor for good measure. Trenton Coleman, the story's middle school-age protagonist, finds his chances of becoming one of the city's mechanics jeopardized after breaking the strictest law: that no "inventions" shall be made by anyone. The creative Trenton breaks the law, making an unapproved "device." His penance leads him to a startling discovery, and with the help of the contradictory, rule-thwarting Katrina, Trenton searches for the reason the Cove has banned all invention. As his quest deepens, he unearths more than he bargains for. While Savage's premise is interesting, heavy use of mechanical jargon and feeble character development distract from an otherwise intriguing plot. Lengthy and detailed descriptions of gears, bolts, nuts, and levers will dizzy unaccustomed readers. The compelling story arc fails to compensate for the flat, inaccessible Trenton and the fuzzily defined Katrina. Their flinty relationship, meant to be mutually sharpening, is a tiresome exercise in a youthful scuffle of wills. VERDICT Only the most avid steampunk devotees will be able to overlook the flaws in this otherwise additional purchase for middle grade collections.—Chelsea Woods, New Brunswick Free Public Library ''Savage has created an ingenious steampunk world . . . Trenton will be a firm friend to any readers who long to use their talents to make their world better.'' -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) ''First in a series and includes likable characters, themes of friendship and self-discovery, and enough mechanical parts to thrill the nerdiest science readers...Readers who like their dystopias flavored with steam engines will like what they find.'' -- Booklist ''Savage does a masterful job of weaving the believable and unique society for this coming of age story. The post-apocalyptic, totalitarian society provides the perfect backdrop for Trenton's journey from child to young adult...The political commentary the story is laced with...provides a welcome added substance to the story which makes it appealing for older readers as well.'' -- Compass Book Ratings J. Scott Savage is the author of the Farworld middle grade fantasy series and the Case File 13 middle grade monster series. He has been writing and publishing books for over ten years. He has visited over 400 elementary schools, dozens of writers conferences, and taught many writing classes. He has four children and lives with his wife Jennifer and their Border Collie, Pepper, in a windy valley of the Rocky Mountains. By the time Kallista unfolded the paper, the document was nearly three feet wide and four feet tall. It looked like a schematic for some kind of machine. "Was is it?" Trenton asked. "Did you discover you father really was building a giant . . ." The words died in his mouth as he leaned closer to the light and saw what was on the paper. It was a set of plans all right. It was what her father had been working on. What they had been putting together. It was a machine. But not only a machine. It was a weapon. But not only a weapon. It was . . . Well, he didn't know exactly what it was. If the plans had been drawn up by anyone other than Leo Babbage, Trenton would have considered them a joke. But if there was one thing he had learned about Kallista's father, it was that the man did not appear to possess a very refined sense of humor. The plans were no joke. They were real. But why he would have drawn them up and what he expected his daughter to do with them was beyond understanding. Because the plans on the page-shown in surprisingly great detail-were for building a creature that looked like it had come directly from the pages of one of the storybooks in Leo Babbage's workshop. Trenton studied the powerful clawed legs, broad wings, and sharp toothed mouth. "What is it?" h