DON’T WORRY. INFINICORP IS TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING.
Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos has grown up believing he’s safe. After all, his grandfather founded InfiniCorp, the corporation that runs the world’s domed cities. Life inside the dome is orderly, climate-controlled, and carefully managed. But lately, the artificial sky above Eli’s city has been malfunctioning—flickering, shorting out, displaying images that don’t belong. The heat keeps rising. But the official explanations don’t quite add up.
When Eli begins asking questions, he discovers that others have been watching him closely. Drawn into secret communications with the feared Foggers—outsiders long understood to be dangerous and uncivilized—Eli is offered answers InfiniCorp insists don’t exist. With the help of his telepathic pet mongoose, Marilyn, and Tabitha, a former top-ranked intern now discarded by the system she once served, Eli is pulled beyond the dome and into a world far more complicated than the one he was raised to trust.
A Crack in the Sky is a high-concept eco-thriller about comfort, control, and what happens when the systems designed to protect us begin to fail.
Critical Response
“Hughes gives us a peek into a future that is both fascinating and frightening. It’s a tight mystery where friends could be enemies, reality isn’t what it appears to be, and the threat of cataclysm grows with the turning of each page. But at its core is the story of a young guy who must grow up a lot quicker than he’d like.”
— D.J. MacHale, author of the Pendragon series
“Thought-provoking… Hughes takes on digital realities, corporate conspiracies, and climate change in this action-packed adventure.”
— Booklist
“This sci-fi dystopian mystery pulls you in and makes you want to discover the truth along with Eli and his pet mongoose.”
— The Calgary Herald
“[Hughes] respects the intelligence of his readers and challenges them to think.”
— Chris Rose, Andover Bookstore
“A gem!… I’ve recommended it to most of my friends already… [The story] scared me when I thought of how close we are to this coming true.”
— National Geographic Kids
A Crack In The Sky: Book Trailer
Science Behind the Story
A Crack in the Sky is a work of fiction. That said, elements of its imagined future world were inspired by real science and scientific research related to climate change. In some cases, these ideas were intentionally taken to extremes for dramatic purposes. Here is a list of selected sources that helped inspire the novel.