Rocket Girls: The Last Planet

by Housuke Nojiri, Housuke Nojiri (Illustrator)

Overview

When the Rocket Girls accidentally splash down in the pond of Yukari Morita's old school, it looks as though their experiment is ruined. Luckily, the geeky Akane is there to save the day. Fitting the profile--she's intelligent, enthusiastic, and petite--Akane is soon recruited by the Solomon Space Association. Yukari and Akane are then given the biggest Rocket Girl mission yet: to do what NASA astronauts cannot and save a probe headed to the minor planet Pluto and the very edge of the solar system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421541112
Publisher:	VIZ Media LLC
Publication date:	03/15/2011
Series:	Rocket Girls: The Last Planet , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	780 KB

About the Author

Housuke Nojiri was born in Mie, Japan, in 1961. After working in instrumentation control, CAD programming, and game design, he published his first work, The Blind Spot of Veis, based on the video game Creguian, in 1992. He gained popularity with his subsequent works the Creguian series and the Rocket Girls series. In 2002, he published Usurper of the Sun (Haikasoru 2009), ushering in a new era of space science fiction in Japan. After first appearing as a series of short stories, Usurper won the Seiun Award for best Japanese science fiction novel of 2002. His other works include Pendulum of Pinieru and Fuwa-Fuwa no Izumi. 

Editorial Reviews

Gr 7–9—Shy, academic Akane is the latest "rocket girl" to be recruited by the Solomon Space Association, a new program that keeps the cost of space travel down by using very small orbiters. Their recruits are all petite teenaged girls who wear skintight space suits. At one point, an American astronaut wonders, "What is this, some kind of anime?" Though the cute-girls-in-space scenario is a little gratuitous, the story sticks mainly to the science of space flight and the suspense of the girls' risky trips. The facts and figures may go over the heads of many teens, but the book reads about as fast as a manga (it has been adapted for an anime) and should appeal to both manga and science-fiction fans.—Lisa Goldstein, Brooklyn Public Library, NY

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