An axolotl in a bottle and a prepubescent adolescent are the only hope to save the planet in Aaron Blabey’s fantastic and funny new book, GAME OF PETS, the first volume in a seven-book series where your pets are not what they seem.
You’ll look askance at your ants, be curious of your cats, even derogatory of your dogs after reading this first instalment of what promises to be an entertaining and intriguing series.
Heavy petting leads to an apocalypse thanks to a diabolical intergalactic game show, where each player has millions of teensy-weensy avatars down on earth known as pets.
Luckily, Griff, an 11-year-old kid with innumerable allergies, just got told by a talking axolotl named Bob that Griff is the only one who can save us.
Hallelujah! Salvation from an allergic eleven year old and a sage salamander. What? We worry?
Trouble is, Bob’s prophecy comes with a warning: ‘Watch your back, man, your PETS are not what they seem.’ Jumble the letters and pets become pest and in this tale, the tails are wagging, signifying a pestilence, petrifying and petulant.
Prepare to have your mind blown and your cats and dogs under heavy suspicion. Heavy petting takes on new meaning with a menagerie of megalomaniacs imposing cute and cuddly mind control of their humans. It’s kitty litter in extreme, moggie mind manipulation, a catastrophe, hoisted by our own pet yard.
Can Griff, Bob, Carol, the pet shop owner and former Marine, and her dog Bonehead, avert the planet’s annihilation? It’s no game and yet it is, with stakes so high you need wings to stay above them.
GAME OF PETS stampedes through the pages, a galloping romp with slick narration and sick illustrations, ending on a cliff hanger and a possible cue to a conspiracy theory of astronomical proportion.
GAME OF PETS: BOOK ONE. THE BOY WHO KNEW TOO MUCH by Aaron Blabey is published by Pan Macmillan Australia.
