Rating: 4
Description: In Bixby, Oklahoma, there is a small group of teenaged outsiders who are able to access a "secret hour" that occurs at midnight. At midnight the whole world freezes and only these select few, born at exactly midnight, can walk around in the secret hour. But there are supernatural creatures (dubbed "slithers" by the teens) that also inhabit the secret hour, and they are trying to find their way out of their hour and into the other twenty-four. It is up to the "Midnighters" to use their individual unique supernatural powers to stop them from overrunning the "real world". Jessica Day is new in town, and she knows nothing about the secret hour and creatures that inhabit it, so when a nighttime rain shower ceases all of a sudden, raindrops suspended in air, Jessica believes it's a dream. But, as she soon discovers, it isn't a dream, and Jessica, for some unfathomable reason, is on the slither hit list. She'll have to learn fast in order to take her place as the one Midnighter who can save them all.
Review: It's hard to find a new science fiction concept these days, but Scott Westerfeld succeeds admirably in "The Secret Hour." The book is a little hard to get into, as the character that the book opens with is perhaps the hardest to relate to, but once Jessica and the other Midnighters take their turns as the focus, the book takes a definite upswing. The "powers" that each Midnighter possesses are interesting and unique. I particularly like that one of the powers is numbers, which you wouldn't normally think of as supernatural. I love that "uncontaminated" objects (things that haven't been touched by slithers) infused with the power of thirteen-letter words are the only weapons that can defeat the slithers. The plot is interesting, and the ending will leave the reader hungering for the next installment. "The Secret Hour" is a great read for the science fiction fan looking for something different.