ABANDONED. Sci Fi - Children sent to space to escape apocalypse return to mutant inhabited earth

[Jeff]

Author unknown. Title unknown. Three (?) children have returned to Earth after being sent on a round trip space voyage to escape the end of the world. Due to the speed they were traveling much more time has elapsed on Earth than the kids experienced themselves. There are mutants inhabiting the Earth now. One of them is a large and lovable character with indestructible obsidian skin and the intellect of a child. The one detail about him that stuck in my memory is his habit of setting off live grenades near his ear because it tickled and he liked the sound it made.

[Tab]

How many years ago did you read this?
Was the book for children, teens, or adults?
Anything about the cover?

[Jeff]

I read this more than 10 years ago. It was not YA but regular SF.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Jeff, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Lobstergirl wrote: "Jeff, are you still looking for this or did you find it?"

No response in 3 years. Moving to Abandoned.

[Shawn]

I was looking for/trying to remember this book as well, and stumbled on this post today. I see the post is abandoned, but will add what I vaguely remember in case it helps.

I read it from a library in the early-mid 90s (in Canada), and it looked relatively new; I might have been the first one to read our library's copy.

*Spoilers Below*

The mother of one of the kids was discussed, mentioned as being a vid addict (movies?) living in some kind of vault underground, I guess until the world ended.

The four kids were in separate space craft to increase odds of survival. They were run by some kind of AI piloting/child care software that might have been referred to as 'mother'. It piloted the ship along a pre-planned route, and educated the kid on board. (I think the story only really followed one of the kids at this point)

Eventually the kids got old enough to realize the other ships/kids were there, and they cleverly used the ship's waste disposal system? to send messages in tubes back and forth to each other.

Eventually one of the ships malfunctioned (it might have been collision with a rogue asteroid/asteroid field), and they had to make a plan to get the kid 'ejected' from the ship and onboard one of the other ships.

I vaguely remember the obsidian skinned mutant, but not much else about the book. Hope this helps, and isn't too spoiler-y.

[Kris]

Shawn, thanks for the information. Please create a new request for your book. Most people don't look at the Abandoned folder.

Here's a link to get started - https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...