My Trip to Alpha 1

Robot Buddy #2

by Alfred Slote

Traveling by VOYA-CODE, it takes Jack only a few seconds to get to the planet where his aunt lives, six million light years away. Jack has gone to Alpha I to help his aunt move to Earth. But Aunt Katherine is acting very strangely, not like herself at all. And Frank and Ruth Arbo, the couple who manage her fantastically wealthy mining company, seem downright sinister. What on Earth-or Alpha I -- is going on?

Genres: Science Fiction, Childrens, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Alfred Slote (born September 11, 1926) is a children's author known for his numerous sports and space novels. His writing has been described as "making space travel seem as ordinary as piling in the family wagon for a jaunt to McDonald's". Slote's 1991 novel Finding Buck McHenry was adapted into a 2000 television film. He currently resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Reviews

[Jonathan]

This was probably the first legit "sci-fi" book I ever read and it really put the zap on me. (sigh, one minute you're innocently reading Alfred Slote and the next thing you know you've got two shelves full of Dune books.... A slippery slope indeed.

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fucking wild.

In the future, the "only way to travel" is VOYACODE: think Westworld flesh and blood dummies where your "real" body is put into stasis and your consciousness is uploaded into the dummy, conveniently located on another planet so you can explore the sites and go home with no fuss, no muss, at insanely high prices.

The beginning of the story even addresses how people were morally opposed to this and then had to get over it so that technology could advance forward. Pretty scary stuff for a children's book from 1978, if you ask me.

This book follows an eleven-year-old boy who goes to visit his aunt via VOYACODE and ends up having to save her life.

[GT · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this was a good book because Jack goes to Alpha and visits aunt Katherine, then Jack sees that the Arbos are up to something, then aunt Katherine tells Jack that the Arbos had put different computer chips in her, finally Jack goes to go back to earth but Jack goes into earth sleep storage and finds aunt Katherines real body.

[Greg Frederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

i first read this series as a kid, and am really enjoying revisiting it. for a kid's book, it really tackles some big questions raised from future tech.

i recommend this book for any kid wanting to get into sci-fi. though it is the second book in a series, it has nothing to do with the first, so it can be read as a stand-alone.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty predictable, with the least subtle foreshadowing you've ever seen, but I suppose that's to be expected given the target audience. The retrofuturism is interesting. And this is not a sequel to My Robot Buddy, despite what this website says. The protagonist is Jack Stevenson, not Jack Jameson.

[Children's Literature Project · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jack's Aunt Katherine asks him to come to Alpha I to help her pack up to move back to Earth. Jack is going to travel a new way called VOYA-CODE. His body will remain on Earth while his "computer program" is downloaded into a dummy on Alpha I. When he arrives, he discovers that Aunt Katherine is acting strange. He soon realizes that something is terribly wrong.

Classroom uses:
- introduce science fiction
- classroom library


DRA: 49
GR: R
Lexile' 660L
GLE: 5.2

[Kyle H · Rating 3 out of 5]

After i read the book My Trip to Alpha I, i thought that overall it was good. Their was many ways that it could of been better. In the story there is a kid named jack and is traveling by something called voyacode. I think that this book was fake and could never of happened to anyone else. This book has some good deatails and was interesting at times. The final rate i give this story is a 3 out of 5.

[Bruce Hammond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Young adult. So, take it as is.