Cameron Smith is a high school slacker from Texas who thinks
is having a marijuana induced hallucination in his English class. But for sixteen year old Cameron who just
wants to through life with minimum effort is diagnosed with mad cow disease and
is told that he is going to die. While
in the hospital, he is introduced Dulcie during a hallucination-induced
vision. She tells Cameron that there is
a cure but only if he is willing to go search for it. Dulcie gives Cameron a Disney World wristband
and she tells him that he needs to take a journey with Gonzo, a death-obsessed
video-gaming dwarf. So Cameron and Gonzo
set off to find Dr. X and be able to save the world and cure himself. Along the way to Florida, they rescue a
Viking named Balder who was trapped in a garden gnome. At Disney World, Cameron meets up with Dr. X
and is told that he cannot save his life.
Then he wakes up in the hospital where the nurse is turning of the life
support and his family are saying their goodbyes. Cameron then finds himself happy with Dulcie.
In this high fantasy fiction, Bray uses Cameron’s
hallucinations to create a bizarre world for Cameron to take his journey. It is understandable why his journey is so
strange is because of the mad cow disease is eating away at his brain. So, to Cameron it was reality. According to Chance, the criteria for high
fantasy the story needs to feature a creature or character to add humor or
relieve tension or despair. In this
novel, those characters are Dulcie and Gonzo.
This novel shows the struggle that Cameron was dealing with in both his
real life and in hallucinations are the reflections of reality.
Chance, R. (2014). Young adult literature in action: A librarian's guide. 2nd ed. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.
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