Jimmy Crikey is the alien orphan who decided to make his home on Earth. Among his friends are four witch guardians of Earth and Lord Oron, The Weatherman. Alien omnivorous wormz invade Earth. The organisms are immune to the magic of the witches. Jimmy seeks the help of his technically advanced friends on Attalia, his home planet. Jade, the apprentice witch, stows away on the starship, but they are attacked in another dimension by more wormz. Recovered to the safety of Attalia, President Alpha calls upon his scientists to devise a solution. They arrive at a plan, and it is Jimmy’s task to deliver salvation. The Wormz hinder their efforts because they can bore into parallel worlds and their chasers. Jade becomes infected and needs the assistance of the Attalian scientists to save her life. Will Jade recover in time to apply her unique skills to help Jimmy rid the world of Wormz?
BOOK BUB READER REVIEWS
Susie O’Hara recommended Jimmy Crikey’s Adventures in Parallel Worlds
rated this book 5 stars
Owen Matthews recommended Jimmy Crikey’s Adventures in Parallel Worlds.
rated this book 5 stars
A fantastic book for tweens. I offered this series to my 12 y.o. and she was hooked. She loved reading them till late at night (which is the downside, haha). I recommend it.
Rey Maynard recommended Jimmy Crikey’s Adventures in Parallel Worlds.
rated this book 5 stars
Fay Christensen recommended Jimmy Crikey’s Adventures in Parallel Worlds. rated this book 5 stars an incredible fantasy worth your time and money. I enjoyed the plot and the characters are great.
Rowan Greene recommended Jimmy Crikey’s Adventures in the Sky Islands: (and beyond) (The Adventures of Jimmy Crikey).
rated this book 5 stars
Fantasy books are what make this world a bit magical. I loved reading them and I have high expectations. This novel covered my expectations of magic, well thought out plot, and nice characters.
Targeted Age Group:: 6 to 13/14
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I haven’t always written children's children's stories; I started out as a chemist then became a salesman for scientific instruments.
One family seaside holiday in the mid-seventies in Great Yarmouth (East Anglia), my
son (five or six yrs old) was playing in the sand with four friends he’d just met. And then the heavens opened and it poured down. The kids sheltered in our beach tent.
Me and wife Pat , reading a novel, in deck chairs with five kids squashed together playing noisily in sand
Pat: "for goodness sake keep the noise down. Read them a story or something."
"I haven’t got a story book."
“Well, make one up”
So, I did.
I knew I needed something magical to capture their attention,
I knew I needed an exciting adventure story to keep 5 kids quiet for a little while
I had noticed that one of the children in the group was always being picked on. He just happened to have bright ginger coloured hair.
I wanted to show them that it doesn’t matter what you look like – if you are determined you can overcome and succeed – at anything you put your mind to.
The story needed a bit of old fashioned magic and I provided that by including witches.
And so the story of Jimmy Crikey was born– the bullied, red haired boy who looked different overcame the bullies and won through. During the following few showery afternoon the story grew to meet the demands of the youngsters.
It was many years later that I converted the stories into the written word and began the many, many attempts to persuade a book published to print my story.
I lost count of how many times I was turned down – rejected – the story went back into a drawer for a few months or even a year or so – rewriten several times – repeat submitting to publishers.
And after almost 50 years after telling the stories for the first time – my book was published – my dream came true.
Book Sample
The purple Wormz were a species of invertebrate unknown even to the advanced civilisation of Attalia. One thing was certain, they were aggressive and either refused or could not communicate. Somehow, they appeared able to travel between space regions by creating apertures between adjacent universes whenever they wish. Somehow, they seemed able to transmute between single cells and enormous collections of millions of tiny Wormz. Then the Wormz acted as a single organism. They have a voracious appetite for protein or carbohydrates in any form. After the Wormz had passed through an area, it is left devoid of plant or animal life, including invertebrates.
The Wormz left nothing in their wake.
“We’ll have to defend ourselves,” Jimmy said. “They show no sign of deviating. They’re heading straight for us and they are now visibly close. They are going to be on top of us before you can get here, Zaru.”
XRU entered the exchange. “The force field is active, Commander, and the lasers are ready to fire if we need them.”
Zaru complimented XRU on ‘his’ forethought. “Just try to keep them at bay, Jimmy. We’ll be with you in just over fifteen minutes.”
Jimmy tried again to contact the aliens. “Please state your intentions,” he broadcast. “We are not a hostile craft, but we will defend ourselves.”
Jimmy did not expect a reply, and none came. The Wormz became many, and they encircled SR2 and closed in. When the first worm crashed into the force field shield, the void became dotted with bursts of light, and more and more of the Wormz threw themselves towards SR2.
“They cannot break through the force field, Commander,” XRU reported.
“We’re not safe yet. The small wormz are joining up to form a single creature.”
The giant Wormz grew longer and longer and began to wrap itself around SR’s defensive shield without actually touching it.
Zaru’s voice carried over the comms channel. ”SR should be in view now, Jimmy, but we can’t see you on our screens.”
“We are wrapped up inside a worm’s coils. The force field is keeping it off SR2, but I don’t know what it’s up to now.”
“Hold tight, Jimmy. We’re only minutes away, and we’ll try to blast it off SR.”
“Just as long as you don’t blast through the worm and hit SR2.”
“Would I do that, Jimmy? Milo is getting ready to fire laser beams to glance off the Wormz.”
“The worm is wrapping us up in a mucous coating. Zaru. The mucous is oozing out from between its body segments. It is creating something like a spider’s web all around us.
”XRU, will our lasers break up the mucous netting?”
“Firing now, Commander.”
Twin laser beams surged from the tip of SR3’s nose cone. XRU had tuned the lasers to a wavelength that let the laser beam pass through the force shield without compromising their protection. Jade could do nothing except watch the unfolding drama.
The lasers from SR3 struck the Wormz and punched two holes straight through it. But within seconds, the holes filled with even more self-regenerating Wormz. If anything, the Wormz grew fatter.
Jimmy reported what he had witnessed to Zaru and Milo in the now visible XR rescue ship. “We can see what happened,” Milo said. “We are considering what our next move should be. It’s no good firing our lasers at it because it looks like the Wormz thing is just absorbing the energy and turning it into more wormz.”
Zaru added his thoughts. “It’s a living organism of some sort. There must be something we can attack it with to drive it away.”
“If it was an insect, we could blitz it with insecticide,” Milo said.
“That’s not something we have on board, anyway,” Jimmy added. “Nothing seems to affect them except that they were not keen to cross the forcefield.”
“Can you make the forcefield bigger and stronger?” Jade asked Jimmy. Jimmy, in turn, asked XRU, who responded. ”It is possible to increase the radius of the force field, but the bigger the area it protects, the weaker is the charge in the field. A less powerful charge may not hold back the Wormz.”
Zaru’s voice sounded over the comms channel. “We are now stationary, approximately half a kilometre from you, so we can now watch their every move. Milo and I have thought about what we can do, and we suggest you expand the forcefield gradually to see how far we move the worm away from SR.”
“Will do, Commanded Zaru,” XRU replied. “The field power will be increased in steps of ten per cent with a two-minute pause between every step.”
Jimmy added his cautionary option. “If there is any sign of the Wormz overcoming the field, XRU, be prepared to reduce power back to the previous level.”
“Understood.”
The whine of the generator indicated that XRU had increased the force field power by ten per cent. Visibly, nothing changed, and after two minutes, the generator whirred again. The field increased in size again, and there was a slight movement of the worm’s coils away from SR2. “It’s working, Zaru. The worm moved back.”
“Keep going, Jimmy. Let’s see if you can escape from its coils.”
The generators whined again, and the field grew in size. But it didn’t increase as much as it had at the last power surge.
“The field cannot grow any further,” XRU confirmed. “The Wormz is constraining it.”
“It’s not the actual Wormz,” Jimmy observed. “It looks like the mucous from the worm has hardened into a hard shell. Now we are trapped inside a strong casing, Zaru. SR2 cannot move.”
“Are we truly trapped, Jimmy?”
“For the moment, Jade, we are firmly stuck.”
“Can you help us? Is there anything you can do, Zaru?”
“Jimmy, I am completely out of my depth. I have never come up against Wormz like this, ever before. Nor has Milo. We have no answer for you.”
“Our situation appears to be stable. Zaru. Perhaps you should return to Attalia and call a top-level meeting to see if anyone can think of a way to attack and destroy a nematode.”
“There’s no communications with them,” Jimmy said. “We have no idea what they want other than to consume anything and everything. We must find a way to curb their destructive ways. Jade and I can survive safely inside the force field until you return, Zaru. Please try to find an answer to the threat.”
And XR powered up and headed back to Attalia. The question uppermost in Zaru’s mind was: would Jimmy and Jade be safe until he returned?
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Author Bio:
Wallace Briggs (1943 – present). Happily married to Pat in 1964, who I first met at the age of eleven.
My early years were experienced in and around Durham, never living more than 5ml distance from the Cathedral. Married in 1964, Pat and I spent many happy years in the North East of England before employment almost took us off to emigrate to South Africa. But plans were changed in the final weeks and the company moved the family Sussex.
After more than twenty years in Sussex, then Hampshire, employment was again responsible for the move, back North, to beautiful rural Lancashire, where we still reside. I am now retired from a long career in sales and marketing of technical products in the UK and international markets.
We had two sons but the eldest was taken from us prematurely in 2013. Our youngest won a Masters degree in Psychology at Southhampton and went on to do a PhD until ill health curtailed his studies.
I look forward to sharing the adventures of Jimmy Crikey with a wider audience in the hope that they will bring a sense of wonder and enjoyment to another generation.
