Ambassador
Junior Library Guild Selection
International Latino Book Award Finalist
Gabe Fuentes expects to spend his summer the way he usually does: helping with his toddler siblings; taking care of his pet iguana, fox, and parrot; and building model rockets with his best friend. But his plans change drastically when a purple creature known as the Envoy invites Gabe to become Earth’s Ambassador to the Galaxy. He learns about alien communication, is targeted by alien assassination attempts, and discovers that a destructive alien force is headed toward Earth. Then things get more complicated when he finds out that his undocumented parents are in danger of deportation.
“Alexander injects meaningful depth into an exciting sci-fi adventure, perceptively exploring what it means to be alien.”
– Booklist
“An interstellar embassy, alien assassins, galactic mass extinctions: These are Gabe’s small problems.”
– Kirkus, starred review
“Alexander creates in Gabe a character who remains tremendously likable while exhibiting courage, diplomacy, and invention in trying to take care of his family, himself, and his planet all at once.”
– The Horn Book
“In the short time William Alexander has had books out, I have become a huge fan of his writing. He can’t write a bad sentence and he has a way with oddball characters that he makes come alive. He has done it again, this time in a pure science fiction novel for middle grade readers that has as its main character a human boy—Gabe Fuentes–who is imaginative, sweet, and courageous in all the right ways without being a bit saccharine or off-putting, and is most likely going to save planet earth from destruction. I think we’d be in much better hands if we had a senate full of youngsters like Gabe and his smart, sassy sister Lupe as our senators and reps than the ones we have in there now. I can’t wait for Book Number 2!”
– Jane Yolen, acclaimed author of The Pit Dragon Chronicles (and hundreds of other books)
Signed and personalized copies of Ambassador are available from Bear Pond Books.
Unsigned copies can be purchased in all the usual ways from BookShop, Powell’s, and Barnes & Noble.
Nomad
When we last left Earth’s Ambassador, Gabe Fuentes, he was stranded on the moon. And when he’s rescued by Kaen, another Ambassador, things don’t get better: It turns out that the Outlast— a race of aliens that has been systematically wiping out all other creatures—are coming. And they’ve set their sights on Earth.
Enter Nadia. She was Earth’s Ambassador before Gabe, but left her post in order to stop the Outlast. Nadia has discovered that the Outlast can conquer worlds by traveling fast through lanes created by the mysterious Machinae. No one has communicated with the Machinae in centuries, but Nadia is determined to try, and Gabe and Kaen want to help her. But the three Ambassadors don’t know that the Outlast have discovered what they are doing, and have sent assassins to track them down.
As Nadia heads deeper into space to find the Machinae, Gabe and Kaen return to Earth, where Gabe is trying to find another type of alien—his father, who was deported to Mexico, and who Gabe is desperate to bring home. From a detention center in the center of the Arizona desert to the Embassy in the center of the galaxy, the three Ambassadors race against time to save their worlds in this exciting, funny, mind-bending adventure.
“The writing is wonderful, the aliens more alien than anything I have read in years… Loved this start to finish.”
–Jane Yolen, Aesop of our era.
“The superb conclusion to this two-part tale of space diplomacy restarts Gabriel’s tale at the very moment Ambassador concluded… Alexander is clearly passionate about science, space exploration, and social justice, but he never allows that passion to shortchange the crackerjack adventure.“
– Kirkus, starred review
“Filled with a Heinleinesque sense of wonder, National Book Award–winner Alexander’s depictions of life in space pave the way for unlimited possibilities in this sequel to Ambassador.”
– Publisher’s Weekly