Sony Acquires YA Space Thriller About Teenagers Settling Europa

The story imagines a present-day world under a first-of-its-kind coalition between the United Nations and the international space agencies, with a plot to send a team of six intrepid teenagers to create the first human settlement on Jupiter's moon, Europa. The book will carry themes of environmentalism, global unity and leadership.

Sony has just acquired the rights to a YA science fiction novel, The Final Six, written by successful fantasy author Alexandra Monir. The book centers on a government plot to send six teenagers to start a space colony on Europa, which sounds like just about the worst government plot I've ever heard.Here's a synopsis of the novel, per Variety This sounds interesting, but at the same time there are so many problems with this. Most obvious: why on Earth would teenagers be picked for this mission? I suppose they're physically fit, but so are 25-year-olds, and the latter have fully-formed frontal lobes. Teenagers would also have the most child-bearing years to work with, but if they're only sending six people, that would be like, the shortest/most inbred colony ever. There's obviously more to the story, but for now, I don't really get it.But even crazier might be the fact that the movie deal with Sony is "pre-emptive," meaning that they picked up the movie rights before the book even had a publishing deal, based only on a proposal and a few chapters. Monir's first novel, the supernatural romance Timeless, and its sequel, Timekeeper, are bestsellers, but still, this is jumping the gun a little. I guess "teenagers," "space," and "YA" are the only things they need to know at this point.