THE INCREDIBLE SPACE RAIDERS FROM SPACE!

Jonah Hillcrest is not exactly a Marty Stu.

In Internet fan fiction, a “Mary Sue” (Marty Stu when it’s a guy) is a character who’s impossibly kind, skillful and heroic, and is instantly beloved by everyone in the story. Jonah is not beloved. He’s kidnapped against his will to join the Space Raiders and, within a few chapters, accused of being a spy and a thief. The other kids avoid him. But by the end of the book, he’s won so many impossible victories he’s being called “the best Space Raider in history.” While Jonah's fighting skills sometimes defy belief, his wins are always satisfying, and readers may even have an urge to stand up and cheer. Here’s another term from the Internet: “infodump.” That’s a gigantic block of plot exposition. The climax of the book is one enormous infodump in the form of a lengthy tribunal. But the testimony has so many genuine surprises that it becomes sort of thrilling. And despite its flaws, the novel is full of exciting chases and clever battle strategies.

If readers wanted to describe this book in Internet terms, they would be emoticons: wide-eyed surprise, tears at a few late revelations and many smiley faces at the end.