Exile

Photon #5

by David Peters, Peter David

On Earth, Photon is a game ... and Christopher Jarvis is one of its best players - wielding his laser gun with high-scoring precision and razor-sharp skill.

But in space, Photon is for real ... and Christopher Jarvis becomes Bhodi Li - Photon Warrior - the newest recruit in the elite fighting corp. Their mission: to stop the dark Warlord of Arr in his savage conquest of the universe.

Exile
Tivia has a lot to learn. For one thing, she hasn't learned that 99% of al men (even Chris Jarvis), are creeps. And the remaining 1% have definite creep tendencies. Now, exiled from Nivia by the Queen Mother, she wants to see just how bad men can be ... firsthand. And what better way to learn than to disguise herself as one? But no sooner does Tivia slip on her costume, than she falls in with a crew of space pirates intent on destroying Bhodi Li and the Photon Guardians once and for all ...

Genres: Science Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

A pseudonym of Peter David

Reviews

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "exile" of the title is the Photon Guardian named Tivia. She was the princess of the planet Nivia, a world of women warriors who shun men as weak and evil, but she has been rejected recently by her mother, the queen, for daring to have mixed feelings about a male teammate.

She goes off on her own to do some soul searching and also some field research on the nature of men, but before long she finds herself pulled into an adventure that will affect all the Photon Guardians.

It's a bit cheesy and a lot silly at times, but I still found myself having a good time. And I was tickled that author Peter David (writing as David Peters) drops in some easter eggs paying tribute to his Marvel co-workers Bill Sienkiewicz, Todd McFarlane, Walt and Louise Simonson, and Fabian Nicieza.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A walk down memory lane! In 5th&6th grade (yep, over 20 years ago!), I, a non-reading young boy, fell in love with this series based on a dorky toy-based TV show. I read all four of the previous books voraciously, which dealt with surprisingly heavy issues like the Holocaust, Mutually Assured Destruction, torture...the author was clearly trying to stretch the genre for all it was worth. I desperately waited for book five, this one, to come out, but it never did. After weeks of begging at the bookstores, I gave up. Just last month, two decades later, I found it, and dove into a guilty pleasure. The writing actually isn't all that bad for a YA novel, I fell right back in with characters who seemed like old friends, and as a bonus, I could really see places where the author was metafictively poking fun at many of the conventions of the genre...this was clearly a very smart guy given a hack assignment who wanted to leave Easter Eggs, and now I'm old enough to appreciate them without losing any of my love for the tales of space-warriors fighting for justice. Great literature it ain't, but it was a great pleasure to read.

[Richard Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had the toy guns as a kid, but never saw the series. Looking it up on youtube now and I see how ropy it actually was. The book on the otherhand, freed from budget contraints was a pretty good read (not seeing the series meant the characters were far more vivid in my mind)

Worth a go if you like old fashioned young adult books.