Seventeen-year-old Arlo Santiago lives for the "Drone Zone"?that free, joyful, antigravity feeling. He achieves the Zone with risky motorcycle stunts on New Mexico roads, or while playing his favourite video game, Drone Pilot. His gaming skills are so off-the-charts, he's recruited by the U.S. Air Force to remotely operate real-life drones in Pakistan. How can he refuse the money when his little sister's health is at stake? This pull-no-punches novel's poetic style, focus on friends and family, philosophical life-and death musings, and vividly drawn setting of a land "at the intersection of mesa dust and tractor rust" make it soar.
