There, Gabby is a reporter for a newspaper that covers the weird and wacky, including panda robots that help real pandas procreate, multiverse hopping unicorns, and a piano that may be carrying the soul of the world-class pianist who performed on it. Both characters, in adult incarnations, from another part of the multiverse, appear in the collection The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria.

Sal and Gabi didn’t originate as middle school characters. If you’ve yet to pick up any of those, “Phew, Baby,” as one of Hernandez’s characters would say, you’re in for a ride… Quantum Santeria You can find him in Uncanny, The Years Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, and in his multiverse bending collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria. Hernandez has written more than 30 works of fiction, poetry, and drama, not to mention game design-he served as one of the lead writers in the historical role playing game Meriwether: An American Epic.

But even if you don’t read middle grade novels, Hernandez is an author to watch. His second middle-grade novel, Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe, sequel to last year’s Sal and Gabi Break the Universe(which was one of Den of Geek’s Best Books of 2019), has just been released through the Rick Riordan Presents imprint. In Espargos in the island’s interior, location of the international airport and the capital of the island, you can find everything that is practical and important: banks, a health centre, the main post office, a hotel, some guesthouses, bars, Internet cafés and restaurants, and – of course – all types of stores.If you don’t read middle-grade fantasy, you may have missed out on reading the excellent fiction of Carlos Hernandez. So: sun, sun, sun… and kilometres of sandy beaches. The island is very flat on the whole, which is why clouds hardly have a chance to stay above it and there is almost no rain. The highest elevation on the island is Monte Grande with a height of just 403 metres. Only 10% of these are older than 40 years. Due to the international airport on Sal and ambitious tourism projects, which have also created jobs, Sal has now reached a population of 20,000 people. The strong trade wind that blows from November to June has turned the island into an Eldorado for surfers.

However, the salt is almost only for local use and for tourists by now. For many years, the island was a centre for salt mining, which is also where the name Sal (salt) comes from. But little oases, salt marches and dormant volcanoes also distinguish the appearance of the island. Above all, one thing can be found on Sal: sand. When approaching the island of Sal, it seems like you are landing on a golden pearl of sand in the middle of the turquoise-blue ocean.

Sal & gabi