Spy High: Mission One -- A. J. Butcher
Set in the year 2060, this is the story of the Bond Team, six recruits in their first year at Deveraux Academy -- otherwise known as Spy High. Basically, Spy High: Mission One
It has the stereotypical (almost to the point of being offensive) characters:
Ben T. Stanton, Jr.: The blond team leader is a privileged rich-boy jerk who doesn't have the team's welfare at heart due to his dreams of personal glory.
Lori Angel: Yes, that's her real name. Brilliant and beautiful (and yes, blonde), she wants to be appreciated for her brains. Of course, that doesn't stop her from almost immediately hooking up with Ben and cooing over him every few pages. It's heinous.
Jake Daley: The dark-haired farm boy with the chip on his shoulder. He's the one with the real leadership capabilities.
Jennifer Chen: The one Asian on the team. Yep, you guessed it. She's a martial arts expert.
Eddie Nelligan: The red-headed Irish comic relief. Also an excellent SkyBiker.
Cally Cross: The only black member of the team, she was delinquent and homeless before being offered a place at Spy High due to her amazing computer capabilities.
It has the requisite amazingly bad dialogue:
"And you know what's the strangest thing? When I saw you fighting, I could see only you, not the holograms. You were the only one who could see them. To me, you weren't battling anyone -- only thin air, only yourself. I know you feel bad, Ben, but you've got to let someone in, someone real. Let me help you."
That piece of sparkling wit belongs to Lori Angel -- you remember, the brilliant one?
The book also has a couple of megalomaniac bad guys (one holographic, one real), gadgets, the aforementioned SkyBikes, the Tutor that Believes in His Team -- no matter how crappily they work together, and a descendant of V. Frankenstein who owes at least some credit to Dr. Moreau. If someone ever decided to make a graphic novel version of MST3K, this would be the perfect book to adapt and mock.
Most of the time, it just felt like a really, really bad James Bond rip-off. Occasionally -- very, very occasionally -- I had glimpses of the super-fun spoof it could have been. But those oh-so-brief moments weren't enough to make me want to even bother reading the teaser for the second book in the series. But hey -- once again, what do I know? There are 6 books in the first series (and it has spawned an entire second series), so someone is obviously reading them.