{"product_id":"glass-town-wars-isbn-9781782691631","title":"Glass Town Wars","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe thrilling adventure story based on the writings of the Brontë children, by the bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eWitch Child\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Tom is in a coma, his friend Milo decides that he can be a guinea pig for a new gaming device - a device that will take him to a troubled world where he meets the the warrior-like Augusta who is fighting to save her kingdom from takeover by her rival. With Tom at her side, she finds extra courage. Slowly but surely, Tom starts to leave his life in London behind as the two of them become ever more embroiled in a world of chaos and tension that encompasses the past, the present and the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut life in London won't let Tom go so easily. His friends and family gather around him to try and bring him back - as does a girl from school he barely knows, who comes each day to his bedside to read to him from her favourite book, \u003ci\u003eWuthering Heights\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this wonderful speculative fiction Celia Rees has created a meta-fictional world that will delight readers. This epic story, with Rees's trademark strong female character and romance at its heart, is a compelling action-driven adventure with delightful twists and turns that thrill and surprise right up to the last page.   • \"\u003ci\u003eGlass Town Wars \u003c\/i\u003eis a beautifully crafted, multilayered story with a gripping adventure at its heart. Wonderful, clever stuff\"--Melvin Burgess \u003cbr\u003e   • \"A thrilling roller-coaster ride with added Brontës\"--Adèle Geras \u003cbr\u003e   • \"Wildly inventive, wholly original, seriously thrilling. Celia Rees is a one-off\"--Lottie Moggach\"Glass   Town Wars\" is a beautifully crafted, multilayered story with a gripping   adventure at its heart. Wonderful, clever stuff. --Melvin Burgess\u003cbr\u003e A thrilling roller-coaster ride with added Brontës. --Adèle Geras\u003cbr\u003e Clever and captivating. --Linda Newbery\u003cbr\u003e Wildly inventive, wholly original, seriously thrilling. Celia Rees is a   one-off. --Lottie Moggach, author of 'Kiss Me First'Celia Rees lives and works in Warwickshire where she writes her wonderful books for teen readers. Her bestselling novel \u003ci\u003eWitch Child\u003c\/i\u003e is 20 years old this year and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Celia is married and has one daughter.Miles. Milo Mindbender. He’d taken the name from that\u003cbr\u003e guy in Catch-22. Tom should have known not to trust him\u003cbr\u003e but what could he do? He was lying here, as helpless as a\u003cbr\u003e monkey strapped to a table in a lab.\u003cbr\u003e He heard him from way down the corridor, boot heels\u003cbr\u003e clicking on the floor. Swish of the door. Nothing wrong\u003cbr\u003e with his hearing; it was more acute, if anything. A displacement\u003cbr\u003e of the hospital air, the tang of fags and Ralph\u003cbr\u003e Lauren aftershave added to hospital antiseptic. They say\u003cbr\u003e the other senses, the ones you’re left with, kick in, don’t\u003cbr\u003e they? He’d found that to be true.\u003cbr\u003e The girl stopped reading. She was a friend of his sister’s,\u003cbr\u003e part of a rota of people who came in to talk, read, play\u003cbr\u003e music, even sing songs to him. Anything to try and get\u003cbr\u003e through. That was the idea but Tom found most of them\u003cbr\u003e tedious, what they did pointless; he wanted them to go\u003cbr\u003e away as soon as they came through the door. She was different.\u003cbr\u003e He couldn’t remember her name—there were a lot\u003cbr\u003e of things he couldn’t remember—but he liked it when she\u003cbr\u003e was here. Just her and him and the chunk, beep and chirp\u003cbr\u003e of the machines, as regular as heartbeats and breathing,\u003cbr\u003e which was what they were there to monitor and do. He\u003cbr\u003e liked to hear her. It gave him a peaceful feeling. He was\u003cbr\u003e annoyed at the disruption that Milo would bring.\u003cbr\u003e Milo was tall and skinny, dressed in a black suit: slimfit,\u003cbr\u003e tailored with narrow trousers, narrow lapels, over a\u003cbr\u003e white shirt and narrow black tie. How did Tom know\u003cbr\u003e that? Because that was what he always wore.\u003cbr\u003e He came close, casting an eye over the machines that\u003cbr\u003e were keeping Tom alive. He was a whizz at electronics.\u003cbr\u003e Tom hoped he wouldn’t fiddle with anything, or think of\u003cbr\u003e making a few little adjustments…\u003cbr\u003e Milo walked round the bed, hands in pockets, his fingers\u003cbr\u003e turning over coins.\u003cbr\u003e He stopped. Spun around. He always moved like that.\u003cbr\u003e Still, then quick and jerky. Each movement unexpected.\u003cbr\u003e “Get us a coffee, love, would you?” The chink of coinage.\u003cbr\u003e “There’s a machine down the corridor. White. Two\u003cbr\u003e sugars. Get one for yourself while you’re at it.”\u003cbr\u003e “Why should I?” The girl’s voice was low and even,\u003cbr\u003e but not because she was the mousy quiet type. There was\u003cbr\u003e a yawn at the back of it, as if she didn’t care a whole lot.\u003cbr\u003e “Because I’m asking!” Milo didn’t like “No”, especially\u003cbr\u003e from girls. “Give us a bit of guy time. Boy talk, you know?”\u003cbr\u003e “They’re not even sure he can hear anything,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e “That right? So why are you here boring the arse off\u003cbr\u003e him with that book?”\u003cbr\u003e The book snapped shut; the chair scraped on the floor.\u003cbr\u003e “I’ve got money, thank you,” she said.\u003cbr\u003e Milo pocketed his change.\u003cbr\u003e The door opened. Closed.\u003cbr\u003e There was just him and Milo.\u003cbr\u003e “How ya doin’, Big Man? Not so good, from what I\u003cbr\u003e hear. Natalie’s doing a great job on social media—thought\u003cbr\u003e you’d like to know. You’ve got a ton of followers. I mean,\u003cbr\u003e Hashtag heroinacoma is going even better. She’s even raising\u003cbr\u003e funds. Not sure what they’re for. I’ve tried to get her\u003cbr\u003e to invest in MiloMindbender but so far, no dice. Here’s\u003cbr\u003e the thing…” he said, coming closer. Tom could smell the\u003cbr\u003e smoke on his clothes, the mint on his breath. There was\u003cbr\u003e a rustle as he took something out of his pocket. “You’re\u003cbr\u003e lying here not doing anything and I’ve got a little something\u003cbr\u003e that might fill those empty hours. It’s real small.\u003cbr\u003e Practically invisible. It’s called Echeneis, named after some\u003cbr\u003e kind of magic fish. Made from this wonder substance. Even\u003cbr\u003e I don’t understand the science. All you need to know is that\u003cbr\u003e it works like so…” He was very near. Tom felt something\u003cbr\u003e go into his ear. “At least, we think it does.” Tom heard\u003cbr\u003e the shrug in his voice. “We don’t really know.”\u003cbr\u003e What is it? Tom wanted to yell at him. What do you\u003cbr\u003e mean, you don’t know how it works? What have you done?\u003cbr\u003e But he couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink, and it was in\u003cbr\u003e there now.\u003cbr\u003e Tom felt Milo step back, watching, as if he was waiting\u003cbr\u003e for something to happen.\u003cbr\u003e “The potential is huge,” Milo went on when nothing\u003cbr\u003e did. “It will take gaming to a whole new level.” He carried\u003cbr\u003e on talking, filling the time, waiting to see what the\u003cbr\u003e result might be. “I mean, we’ve been gaming since we\u003cbr\u003e were little kids, right?” He laughed. “Xbox and all that.\u003cbr\u003e I always won.”\u003cbr\u003e Of course he did. He was a genuine genius. He passed\u003cbr\u003e A level Maths and Computing when he was twelve. He\u003cbr\u003e didn’t play games any more—he wrote them. He was a\u003cbr\u003e bitcoin millionaire well on his way to becoming a real\u003cbr\u003e one. He ran his own software company from his garage,\u003cbr\u003e MiloMindbender and Associates. There were no Associates.\u003cbr\u003e He made a ton of money hosting sites where people buy\u003cbr\u003e and sell things, although he never said what exactly: “Oh,\u003cbr\u003e you know, this and that.”\u003cbr\u003e “Well, here’s the thing. What you’ve got in your ear,\u003cbr\u003e it’s gonna make the gaming we’ve got right now look like\u003cbr\u003e old-style Atari ping-pong. You’re always on the outside,\u003cbr\u003e right? Looking at your console, your computer, your\u003cbr\u003e tablet, or phone, or whatever. But what if you could be\u003cbr\u003e actually inside the game?” His voice went dreamy. “What\u003cbr\u003e if you could be living it? Not just hear and see but feel,\u003cbr\u003e smell, taste it—just like in the real world. What if it can\u003cbr\u003e become your real world? VR headsets? Nowhere near this…\u003cbr\u003e It will take you places, bro. Give you experiences…”\u003cbr\u003e This thing in his ear, it was something to do with games\u003cbr\u003e and gaming. Milo’s new project.\u003cbr\u003e “You know? I’m almost jealous…” Milo was saying.\u003cbr\u003e Almost. Not quite.\u003cbr\u003e “It’s, hmm, experimental. A prototype,” he was saying.\u003cbr\u003e “Yeah. Not one hundred per cent certain what the effect\u003cbr\u003e might be but I figured you might as well do something\u003cbr\u003e useful while you’re lying here.” His voice lost its easy,\u003cbr\u003e bantering tone, and dropped to a menacing purr. “Let’s\u003cbr\u003e face it, you’ve got nothing to lose, have you? Hey!” Tom\u003cbr\u003e heard the rustle of the shirt inside his sleeve as Milo reached\u003cbr\u003e across him. “I wonder what this does?”\u003cbr\u003e Just then, the door opened.\u003cbr\u003e Milo moved quickly away from the bed.\u003cbr\u003e “Gotta go,” he said. “Things to do.”\u003cbr\u003e “Your coffee?”\u003cbr\u003e “Another time, maybe.”\u003cbr\u003e Tom started fitting.\u003cbr\u003e The coffee hit the deck.\u003cbr\u003e Alarms went off.\u003cbr\u003e “That’s very cool.” There was a laugh from Milo as\u003cbr\u003e the girl ran out to get help. “I like to know how things\u003cbr\u003e work. See you, bro.”\u003cbr\u003e “You’ll have to leave now,” a female voice said—one\u003cbr\u003e of the nurses.\u003cbr\u003e “No problem, darling. I’m off.”\u003cbr\u003e A doctor came in. Adjustments were made to this,\u003cbr\u003e to that, but Tom wasn’t there any more. He was somewhere\u003cbr\u003e else entirely. Somewhere he’d never been, never\u003cbr\u003e seen, never known. It was something to do with Milo,\u003cbr\u003e he did know that. What had he done to him? And now\u003cbr\u003e Tom was here—wherever “here” was—how was he going\u003cbr\u003e to get back?","brand":"Pushkin Children's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301630431461,"sku":"NP9781782691631","price":12.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782691631_cd8abd5e-38df-4f31-aca0-70c542010d28.jpg?v=1742924661","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/glass-town-wars-isbn-9781782691631","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}