The Child Who Walked on the Sky by Pierre Pelot: book review

The Child Who Walked on the Sky by Pierre Pelot (1972, English edition 2012) is the French author’s first book translated into English. Known for writing over 200 novels across many genres, from westerns to young adult fiction to crime thrillers, this story is science fiction.

The story is set in the fictional world of Zod. It begins in school, in the class of Maladjusted. Eight-year-old Horan is no longer called Horan – he is now a number: number 47. But he doesn’t want to be a number – he wants his name back. His name means ‘rebel.’

Horan can no longer use words such as love and tenderness. They don’t exist in Zod because they are from the language of the Ancients. Horan does not like the laws of Zod, not at all.

He plans his escape from Zod, with his friend, number 23: ‘We’re going to leave Zod and escape into the sky.’ But first, they have to ‘slip into the ventilation duct’ to go through the Machine that inhales and exhales air.

Horan is the first person ever to escape. This is the story of what happens next, when he walked on the sky. ‘The sky of Zod had thunderous fury’ and ‘terrible mysteries that brought fear into the eyes of men.’

This novel is about truth, trust, and confidence. It’s about danger, disaster, daring, determination, and discovery (and also domination, DNA, and some robots). Take a leap of faith with Horan, the rebel child …

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MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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