BLAZE Detailed Synopsis
At age twelve, BLAISE DAVIS causes an accident that reduces his twin brother, WIMPY, from borderline genius to lovable simpleton. Now sixteen, Blaise is the “normal” one nobody notices. He nurtures an anger problem and develops an obsession: one day he will encounter aliens. He will prove they exist. This is his destiny.
When a prank orchestrated by neighbor bully KEEMO spins out of control, Blaise gets arrested and loses his parents’ trust but wins a girl’s attention. Sneaking out of the house, he finds the girl making out with Keemo at a pool party. He gets angry, gets drunk and tosses a firecracker through an open window. The house catches fire. Wimpy is overcome by smoke and nearly dies, but Blaise and Keemo save him.
In the hospital, Blaze accuses his adoptive dad of “settling” for him and Wimpy since his dad and mom couldn’t “have kids.” Keemo reveals that he, Blaise and Wimpy are triplets, that they were separated at birth, and that they are haliens, human aliens – orphaned because of their birth father’s crimes, sent to earth and anonymously adopted. The years of bullying, Keemo says, was to harden Blaise for the adventures to come. Keemo has been in daily communication with their UNCLE REMY who leads a rebel group that intends to overthrow their birth father GOBY, an evil genius bent on brainwashing every sentient creature in the universe. The rebellion needs Blaise because his anger is no mere accident but a genetic tweak, a low-gravity superpower.
Remy beams them up to a spaceship where Wimpy is healed by halien medicine. Blaze plays a game called Moonblast that demonstrates his superpower. Remy and Keemo explain that Goby has built a domed city called The Firmament and has nearly completed the networking of an invisible swarm of brainwashing nanobots. They need Blaise to use his anger to commandeer a drone capable of neutralizing the nanobots. Just as Blaze decides to join Remy and Keemo in the rebellion, their spaceship is attacked and shot down.
On a jungle planet, Blaze and Wimpy encounter a genetically engineered bear-like creature who detains them until he learns of their commitment to the rebellion. Goby, he says, created his species, subjected the lot of them to brainwashing headbands and then killed all but him, the only one who escaped. The creature releases the brothers and teaches Blaze life lessons and battle skills, like how to swing through the jungle with a pair of battle gloves.
A rescue ship appears with Keemo, who vaporizes Blaze’s mentor. In the ship’s supply room, Blaze discovers a stash of brainwashing headbands and accuses Remy of cooperating with Goby’s brainwashing master plan. Keemo and Remy commit Blaze and Wimpy to hypersleep.
Blaze and Wimpy awake on a planetoid beside an endless wall. A recording device in Blaze’s pocket plays a plea from Keemo: “Find a way inside The Firmament, then find us.”
Wimpy befriends a guard name DUSK and tells Blaze Dusk needs to trust Blaze before he will let them in. Blaze tries but fails to be nice to Dusk. Blaze stomps off into the wasteland.
In a remote tavern, Blaze helps a young lady who turns out to be Dusk in disguise. He has passed Dusk’s test of integrity. On their way out, though, Blaze provokes a bar fight of flaming drinks and fireballs. Working together, Dusk, Blaze and Wimpy barely escape with their lives.
Inside The Firmament, a hungry Wimpy swipes an apple from a vendor. While trying to make amends for his brother, Blaze becomes nauseated from the drinks he downed at the bar. He barfs all over the vendor’s display. Blaze and Wimpy are thrown in jail, where they meet a girl named INTELLE who has been locked up for refusing to Goby with her power of building. She and Blaze fall in love. She shows him her necklace, whose tiny block pendants she can build with. She builds mini-mechs. Blaze helps her remotely activate some large blocks at her home, transforming them into giant mechs that break through their jail cell walls.
Though one mech is damaged, Blaze and Intelle hop into the other mech and escape the jail. Through the streets they are pursued by a massive mech and captured by its pilot, Goby.
Goby brings Blaze and Intelle into his home, where Wimpy and Dusk, already captured, are waiting, and he serves them a lavish feast. Dusk is dismissed and Goby shows them three augmented animals and reveals that he is a cyborg. He seeks perfection, which is why his plan, he says, is not brainwashing but “Brain Cleansing,” a process that dispatches nanobots to perform microsurgery to repair small tears in a person’s brain. Wimpy, for example, would be made smart again. Remy, Goby claims, has been fed a lot of lies about a brainwashing scheme in order to motivate him to recruit Blaze to a “rebellion” that would bring son back to father.
Goby asks Blaze for help. Blaze realizes the world needs people like Wimpy and he can’t allow Goby to try to “fix” him or anyone else. Blaze gets an idea, and he tells Goby he will help.
Goby brings Blaze to his Starmap Room where he shows him how he’ll use an attack drone to chase and shoot a command bot, activating the network of billions of invisible swarming nanobots. Blaze gets Intelle alone and tells her his plan: to shoot around the command bot and herd it into a trap that she will construct with her mini-blocks. They will also need a getaway vehicle to take them to Earth. Intelle says she thinks she can do both.
In a control room, Blaze begins to pilot the attack drone. In the Starmap Room, Goby, Remy and Keemo keep tabs on his progress. Blaze guides the drone throughout the dome in pursuit of the command bot. He succeeds in corralling it into Intelle’s trap. Goby witnesses this. We learn that he is dying of brain cancer. His plan would have healed him. But now time he will die. He calls for his mech and says he wants Intelle dead and Blaze alive to watch Earth burn.
Blaze recalls Remy said Goby locked up his birthmom. He and Intelle vow to rescue her and Wimpy and hurry to her house where she will build a rocket by which to escape.
During a leaping chase by a guard through the dome’s catwalks, Blaze realizes he might be able to find the battle gloves in the police ship. Intelle tells him where the ships are kept. They find the ship, the battle gloves, a shield and a staff. Blaze kills the guard with the staff.
Blaze and Intelle sneak back into Goby’s residence. They fight guards and rescue Blaze’s birthmom. It is a tender reunion until they are Remy and Keemo appear and immobilize them with a binding gun. Keemo mocks Blaze and disrespects their birthmom. Dusk arrives and accidentally decapitates Keemo with his hovercarpet. Remy passes out. Dusk binds Remy to a post. A colossal mech tears through the house. It’s Goby. Wimpy is his hostage. Dusk hides. Goby, declaring failure unacceptable, obliterates Remy with a laser cannon blast. Dusk sacrifices himself to squeeze off a shot from the binding gun. As he is annihilated, the bindings immobilize the mech’s legs, causing it to fall. Blaze frees Wimpy from the back of the mech. They run.
A battle chase through the sewers finds Blaze rupturing a water main that short circuits Goby’s mech. Blaze, Wimpy and their birthmom lift off in Intelle’s rocket, Goby in pursuit on a motorcycle. In deep space, Goby still pursues, now on a rocket bike. Intelle tells Blaze to use his anger to kill Goby and the soon-to-arrive reinforcements. Blaze refuses. Instead they contact the Intergalactic Police and create an explosion to blind Goby so he can’t flee. The police arrive and take Goby into custody, and Intelle, Blaze, Wimpy and their birthmom return to Earth.
Due to relativity, 34 years have passed on Earth. They all move into the Davis house. Blaze champions Wimpy and apologizes to their parents. The teens agree never to tell of their adventures. After summer, it’s back to school with Intelle, who decides to be called Elle. The new principal is Blaze’s best friend and the new English teacher is the girl who made out with Keemo. School still stinks, but Intelle loves Blaze, and he has let go of his anger.
When a prank orchestrated by neighbor bully KEEMO spins out of control, Blaise gets arrested and loses his parents’ trust but wins a girl’s attention. Sneaking out of the house, he finds the girl making out with Keemo at a pool party. He gets angry, gets drunk and tosses a firecracker through an open window. The house catches fire. Wimpy is overcome by smoke and nearly dies, but Blaise and Keemo save him.
In the hospital, Blaze accuses his adoptive dad of “settling” for him and Wimpy since his dad and mom couldn’t “have kids.” Keemo reveals that he, Blaise and Wimpy are triplets, that they were separated at birth, and that they are haliens, human aliens – orphaned because of their birth father’s crimes, sent to earth and anonymously adopted. The years of bullying, Keemo says, was to harden Blaise for the adventures to come. Keemo has been in daily communication with their UNCLE REMY who leads a rebel group that intends to overthrow their birth father GOBY, an evil genius bent on brainwashing every sentient creature in the universe. The rebellion needs Blaise because his anger is no mere accident but a genetic tweak, a low-gravity superpower.
Remy beams them up to a spaceship where Wimpy is healed by halien medicine. Blaze plays a game called Moonblast that demonstrates his superpower. Remy and Keemo explain that Goby has built a domed city called The Firmament and has nearly completed the networking of an invisible swarm of brainwashing nanobots. They need Blaise to use his anger to commandeer a drone capable of neutralizing the nanobots. Just as Blaze decides to join Remy and Keemo in the rebellion, their spaceship is attacked and shot down.
On a jungle planet, Blaze and Wimpy encounter a genetically engineered bear-like creature who detains them until he learns of their commitment to the rebellion. Goby, he says, created his species, subjected the lot of them to brainwashing headbands and then killed all but him, the only one who escaped. The creature releases the brothers and teaches Blaze life lessons and battle skills, like how to swing through the jungle with a pair of battle gloves.
A rescue ship appears with Keemo, who vaporizes Blaze’s mentor. In the ship’s supply room, Blaze discovers a stash of brainwashing headbands and accuses Remy of cooperating with Goby’s brainwashing master plan. Keemo and Remy commit Blaze and Wimpy to hypersleep.
Blaze and Wimpy awake on a planetoid beside an endless wall. A recording device in Blaze’s pocket plays a plea from Keemo: “Find a way inside The Firmament, then find us.”
Wimpy befriends a guard name DUSK and tells Blaze Dusk needs to trust Blaze before he will let them in. Blaze tries but fails to be nice to Dusk. Blaze stomps off into the wasteland.
In a remote tavern, Blaze helps a young lady who turns out to be Dusk in disguise. He has passed Dusk’s test of integrity. On their way out, though, Blaze provokes a bar fight of flaming drinks and fireballs. Working together, Dusk, Blaze and Wimpy barely escape with their lives.
Inside The Firmament, a hungry Wimpy swipes an apple from a vendor. While trying to make amends for his brother, Blaze becomes nauseated from the drinks he downed at the bar. He barfs all over the vendor’s display. Blaze and Wimpy are thrown in jail, where they meet a girl named INTELLE who has been locked up for refusing to Goby with her power of building. She and Blaze fall in love. She shows him her necklace, whose tiny block pendants she can build with. She builds mini-mechs. Blaze helps her remotely activate some large blocks at her home, transforming them into giant mechs that break through their jail cell walls.
Though one mech is damaged, Blaze and Intelle hop into the other mech and escape the jail. Through the streets they are pursued by a massive mech and captured by its pilot, Goby.
Goby brings Blaze and Intelle into his home, where Wimpy and Dusk, already captured, are waiting, and he serves them a lavish feast. Dusk is dismissed and Goby shows them three augmented animals and reveals that he is a cyborg. He seeks perfection, which is why his plan, he says, is not brainwashing but “Brain Cleansing,” a process that dispatches nanobots to perform microsurgery to repair small tears in a person’s brain. Wimpy, for example, would be made smart again. Remy, Goby claims, has been fed a lot of lies about a brainwashing scheme in order to motivate him to recruit Blaze to a “rebellion” that would bring son back to father.
Goby asks Blaze for help. Blaze realizes the world needs people like Wimpy and he can’t allow Goby to try to “fix” him or anyone else. Blaze gets an idea, and he tells Goby he will help.
Goby brings Blaze to his Starmap Room where he shows him how he’ll use an attack drone to chase and shoot a command bot, activating the network of billions of invisible swarming nanobots. Blaze gets Intelle alone and tells her his plan: to shoot around the command bot and herd it into a trap that she will construct with her mini-blocks. They will also need a getaway vehicle to take them to Earth. Intelle says she thinks she can do both.
In a control room, Blaze begins to pilot the attack drone. In the Starmap Room, Goby, Remy and Keemo keep tabs on his progress. Blaze guides the drone throughout the dome in pursuit of the command bot. He succeeds in corralling it into Intelle’s trap. Goby witnesses this. We learn that he is dying of brain cancer. His plan would have healed him. But now time he will die. He calls for his mech and says he wants Intelle dead and Blaze alive to watch Earth burn.
Blaze recalls Remy said Goby locked up his birthmom. He and Intelle vow to rescue her and Wimpy and hurry to her house where she will build a rocket by which to escape.
During a leaping chase by a guard through the dome’s catwalks, Blaze realizes he might be able to find the battle gloves in the police ship. Intelle tells him where the ships are kept. They find the ship, the battle gloves, a shield and a staff. Blaze kills the guard with the staff.
Blaze and Intelle sneak back into Goby’s residence. They fight guards and rescue Blaze’s birthmom. It is a tender reunion until they are Remy and Keemo appear and immobilize them with a binding gun. Keemo mocks Blaze and disrespects their birthmom. Dusk arrives and accidentally decapitates Keemo with his hovercarpet. Remy passes out. Dusk binds Remy to a post. A colossal mech tears through the house. It’s Goby. Wimpy is his hostage. Dusk hides. Goby, declaring failure unacceptable, obliterates Remy with a laser cannon blast. Dusk sacrifices himself to squeeze off a shot from the binding gun. As he is annihilated, the bindings immobilize the mech’s legs, causing it to fall. Blaze frees Wimpy from the back of the mech. They run.
A battle chase through the sewers finds Blaze rupturing a water main that short circuits Goby’s mech. Blaze, Wimpy and their birthmom lift off in Intelle’s rocket, Goby in pursuit on a motorcycle. In deep space, Goby still pursues, now on a rocket bike. Intelle tells Blaze to use his anger to kill Goby and the soon-to-arrive reinforcements. Blaze refuses. Instead they contact the Intergalactic Police and create an explosion to blind Goby so he can’t flee. The police arrive and take Goby into custody, and Intelle, Blaze, Wimpy and their birthmom return to Earth.
Due to relativity, 34 years have passed on Earth. They all move into the Davis house. Blaze champions Wimpy and apologizes to their parents. The teens agree never to tell of their adventures. After summer, it’s back to school with Intelle, who decides to be called Elle. The new principal is Blaze’s best friend and the new English teacher is the girl who made out with Keemo. School still stinks, but Intelle loves Blaze, and he has let go of his anger.
Blaze is a 51,000-word YA science fiction novel.
