High-school student and video gamer Jake Rogers is enjoying a hike, guided by his mildly controlling but loving father. Then, during a heated conversation about Jake’s future, a mysterious portal sucks him out of the Grand Tetons and deposits him on an alien planet. Jake must learn all he can about the unfamiliar world and make his way using only the items that fell through the portal with him.

Fortunately, Jake befriends a horned rabbit-like creature, who can’t speak but listens well to Jake’s humorous thoughts about faith and survival. That’s the start of Jake’s gradual transformation into a person his father could never imagine.

During his travels, Jake (already a strong Christian) also speaks aloud to God, and occasionally the Almighty audibly responds. This detail might waylay a book of another genre. But two-way conversations with God fit the themes of Phillip Wilder’s debut Jake Rogers’ Planet, a rare message-driven survival story sure to entertain and enrich young male readers.

Sci-fi fans will also appreciate the enemies of this new world, including pterodactyl-like creatures and other hostile aliens as well as unique planetary physics. Wilder adds an after-story note further encouraging readers to embrace adventure and explore God’s creation. By then the story itself, however, has already proven lively and vividly inventive—a blend of Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain set on an alien world and starring a Christian hero. The audiobook version is narrated by the expressive Adam Skousen, who provides extra power into this already brisk tale.

Best for: Young adult readers, especially young men, who like survival and sci-fi stories.

Discern: A few scenes of very mild violence.