Ladybird Books, £0.60, ISBN 0-7214-0726-9
Sci-fi, 1982

The Frozen Planet of Azuron follows The Energy Pirates, and these two are part of a series revolving around the many adventures of Professor Gamma, his daughter Kiryl, and the brat Will. Will is the protagonist in both books so far, the normie that stumbles into all kinds of weird sci-fi hijinks, and this one leaves him super cold, heh. 

As usual, Martin Aitchison’s illustrations are awesome. Just look at this spread that greets me when I open this book.

In this one, it’s the coldest winter that the folks in the neighborhood have experienced in a long time. William, bored, is inspired by the book that he has just read to go out in the blinding cold to try his hand at being an expert tracker of wildlife. Hey, that’s exactly what a boy in search of a plot will do, so be nice and hope for good things to happen to him.

It’s not long before he is chased by an unusual but certainly hostile dog-like creature all the way to Professor Gamma’s house. The old man is not home, but Kiryl is there. Alas, the power of the feisty girlboss doesn’t exist in 1982, so eventually a villain—the owner of the dog-like creature—comes into the house and stuffs Kiryl into a bag before leaving. Yes, he stuffs her into a bag.

When Professor Gamma returns, William learns that it’s all part of a plot. The villain, Absolute Zero (you can call him Abe Zero) is an enemy of Professor Gamma, because the old coot and his friends banished Abe into the Black-hole Space after thwarting Abe’s plan to unleash a choking soot-like infestation called entropy onto the world. Abe has freed himself from the Black-hole Space, and now he has stuffed Kiryl into it (so that’s what the bag is) as a trap for the old coot.

Furthermore, Professor Gamma informs William that Abe’s plan is to sap all energy from the planets on his hit list, using the energy to power his nefarious plans while leaving those affected planets completely frozen. Hence, to stop Abe and rescue his daughter, Professor Gamma will…

Awesome.

So, they all end up on the titular planet. What will happen next?

The whole thing is just so much fun.

For a kiddie story, this one can be quite scary, as we have people being forcefully stuffed into bags like Baby’s First Body Horror, and the illustrations of the dog-thing and Abe Zero can be quite terrifying. At the same time, there is plenty of tension, action, and Will getting plucky and lucky to save the day. He’s on the cowardly and useless side for the most part, but he pulls himself together at the pinnacle moment, making him the perfect normie main character for kids to root for. 

Of course, there is a happy ending.

Seriously, the art in this book is so, so good, it is worth buying this book just for the illustrations alone.

At any rate, this is another great entry into a kiddie series that, at the same time, doesn’t talk down to kids. It introduces fascinating concepts such as cryogenics, absolute zero, and the effects of sunlight and chemicals on ice, while presenting a sanitized but still danger-filled and even violent scenes to keep things going.

So far, this book and this series have been so much fun!