Alan Alone is a Malaysian Middle-Grade/Teen novel from 2009 written by Alif Firdaus Azis.
A young boy named Alan and his robotic friend Dede are left alone in Bandar Puteri after a terrible storm hits the town and everyone evacuates while the two stayed put in a bunker, unaware that the natural disaster came earlier than expected until the following morning. They venture the abandoned town to seek help, but they find out that the storm was no natural phenomenon - and that they must find a way to fix things before matters can get any worse.
Alan Alone provides examples of:
- Alliterative Title: Alan Alone.
- Amicable Exes: Takara tells Miss Tijah at the disaster relief shelter that he plans to visit his only son in Japan, and is anxious because his flight was cancelled. That is until his ex-wife appears with the son, having flown there out of concern for the father when she heard about the storm.
- Arm Cannon: Dede can weaponise his arms to shoot out loud blasts, much to Alan's surprise. Dede shoots a shot into the air, making a loud sound which disperses the Z-Soldier fighter planes.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Alan's parents reveal to Miss Tijah that Alan's body contains technology which gives him extra durability among other things, explaining why Alan didn't notice that he stepped in hot oil, Miss Tijah concludes with that being the reason why Alan loudly stomps when he goes down the stairs each morning.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Alan's parents are looking for their son, they hear a boy calling out to his father and anticipate to see Alan, but it turns out to be Teacher Takara's son running up to his father.
- Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Frustrated with being kept up late at night by noisy neighbors and getting bullied, Alan yells his wish for everyone in town to disappear. Some days later, everyone evacuates from a storm while Alan is left behind in his bunker.
- Moments before he discovers the storm's aftermath, Alan grumbles that he wished he could skip school. The storm made this true while giving him a lot more to worry about.
- Blah, Blah, Blah: Alan attempts to chat with Dede as they walk through the empty town by asking Dede to talk about himself. The robot replies with a descriptive account of his manufacturing and special features which phase in and out of turning into "blablabla"s to Alan.
- Broken Record: Dede sometimes repeats his sentences such as "Do not tickle Dede, do not tickle Dede," when Alan tickles him, or "Alan is not dreaming, Alan is not dreaming," when they emerge from the bunker and see the aftermath of the storm.
- The Bully: Bob, a pudgy and larger student, often picks on Alan despite Teacher Takara's warnings, from stealing his water bottle to knocking him over and also getting others to laugh at him.
- Cerebus Callback: Downplayed. Alan faces a number of accidents throughout the story, but when Bai reveals to him that Alan contains technology that makes him more durable, those events are called back to in a more serious light. The most apparent of them, however, is when Miss Tijah spills her cooking oil from Alan playing a prank on her and punishes him for it, only to recall when relaying the incident to his parents much later that Alan didn't notice that he stepped in the hot oil, much to her shock earlier.
- Chekhov's Skill: Dede's ability to accurately mimic people's voices is introduced when Alan wants to get back at Miss Tijah for punishing him by having Dede sound like Alan's father on the phone to fire her. It comes in handy in the climax, where Dede tricks the Z-Soldiers to jump from their planes by sounding like their boss, Alex Luthor.
- Commonality Connection:
- Miss Tijah, Alan's housemaid, encounters Teacher Takara, Alan's teacher, at the storm shelter, and they only both realise they both know Alan when Miss Tijah shows him a picture of the boy she's searching for. The true commonality connection comes from Teacher Takara relaying to her that he understands the feeling of losing someone of that familiarity, since his flight to Japan to see his only son got cancelled, and he states that he'd help Miss Tijah find Alan.
- Downplayed between Alan and Dede when the former finds out he's a cyborg. Alan ecstatically tells Dede how they're of similar strengths among other things, while Dede replies that Alan is a robot with a heart who can eat.
- Company Cross References: In the illustrated prologue, Alan says that if he ever found the titular magic ghost from Hantu Silap Mata, he would ask it to steal Mr. Nurie's mouth, to which Mr. Faisal replies that it's a fictional character and not a godlike creature anyway. The next panel advertises the book Hantu Silap Mata, also written by Alif Firdaus Azis.
- Cyber Cyclops: Downplayed with Dede; although he's featured on cover art to have one eye which makes up most of his head, and Alan feared his robot buddy's destructive capabilities, Dede remains as friendly as ever.
- Cyborg: A man contains machinery to shoot lasers out of his hands to fight off swarms of small flying robots. Nicknamed Bai, he later introduces himself to Alan by stating that they are both cyborgs, humans mixed with machine, but it's less severe in Alan's case, who was given technological implants to help him through a life-threatening disease.
- Dead All Along: The dead body that Alan and Dede find in the storm's aftermath is revealed several chapters later to be Alex Luthor, who authorities were on high alert for as he had escaped prison with a pistol and was thought to be hiding in Bandar Puteri. It was presumed that the masked man helping Alan and Dede was him, but he turns out to be Mr. Nurie, who found Alex's pistol on the road.
- Déjà Vu: When Bai leads the group to a secret room inside the Stylol lab building, Alan realises the place is familiar and says that they aren't quite at the place yet, much to Bai's surprise, and leads them like he suddenly knows more than Bai. Stylol is Alan's father's company, but Alan can't place the familiarity to any specific memory, saying that he has been here before, but not in this world.
- Disney Death: A minor one when Alan rattles Dede in a panic and the latter collapses and fails to respond. Alan worriedly urges Dede to get up before drifting off to sleep, only to be scared out of his wits by Dede waking him up. Dede says that he got a shock from being shaken earlier and got over it, but some of his functions were damaged as a result.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Mr. Faisal, Alan's father, is known as an ingenious man capable of making all kinds of fancy gadgets, including but not limited to Alan's Robot Buddy Dede. He's even entrusted with testing out technology of fallen Z-Soldiers for the sake of good.
- Gilligan Cut: Miss Tijah voices her worry for Alan, who was left behind in Bandar Puteri, concerned if he was eating well or not. The next scene cuts to Alan and Dede in the meanwhile at an abandoned grocery store, the former satisfying his hunger on the bread available there.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: Invoked. The video games that Alan receives from his father were meant to prepare him for his plan to defeat the Z-Soldiers, even up to finding the secret area in his building to get the upgrade that combines Alan and Dede to fight the planes.
- Imagine Spot: When Dede mimics Alan's father's voice to entertain Alan by singing songs with it, enough time passes for Alan to start seeing his father. Dede's words snap him out of it.Dede: Alan, I am not your father, I am only copying your father's voice.
- Location Theme Naming: Inverted, the towns ("bandar" means town) are named after roles associated with power, such as Bandar Putera ("putera" means prince), Bandar Puteri ("puteri" means princess), Bandar Laksamana ("laksamana" means admiral) and Bandar Panglima ("panglima" means general).
- Made of Iron: Alan doesn't sustain that much damage from some injuries, such as his leg getting bit by a dog and running through a glass wall while escaping a pursuing stranger. Once Bai points back to these events, even stating the glass to be thicker than Alan thought, the trope is subverted; the reason Alan doesn't get injured easily is because his body has technology that makes him more durable.
- Murderous Malfunctioning Machine: Right before they reach the Stylol building's secret area, the room begins to rumble, and Dede starts acting erratically and tries to attack Alan and Bai. They survive, and the robot's freakout was temporary; the room was equipped with electromagnets as a security measure against Z-Soldier drones, which also explains Bai's headache at the time too, as he has metal in his head while Alan doesn't.
- Powered Armor: Mr. Faisal's plan to stop the Z-Soldiers is to combine Alan with Dede, a project which the Z-Soldiers identify as their boss' "Alone" project. The appearance is the robot's different parts around the corresponding human parts, granting flight and more.
- Red Herring: The masked man following Alan is staged to be Alex Luthor. He shoots the dog attacking Alan with a pistol and is agitated by military presence, and the military discuss that the former convict fled from prison with a pistol and was likely hiding in Bandar Puteri. However, Alex Luthor turns out to be Dead All Along, and the masked man is Alan's neighbour, Mr. Nurie, who found the pistol on the roadside.
- Red Herring Shirt: Alan and Dede escape a ravine made by the hurricane that hit Bandar Puteri and find the body of a man who didn't make it. Said dead man turns out to be Alex Luthor, leader of the Z-Soldiers terrorist group and a recently escaped convict, who the military was on high alert for as he was suspected to be hiding in Bandar Puteri.
- The Reveal: Besides the Robotic Reveal, there is the revelation behind the identity of the armed masked man that Alan and Dede met in town. Set up to be the escaped convict Alex Luthor, he is instead unmasked to be Alan's neighbour, Mr. Nurie.
- Robot Buddy: Dede, a robot still in its testing phase, who is given to Alan by his father to be Alan's friend.
- Robotic Reveal: Downplayed, the titular character Alan is revealed to be a Cyborg, to an extent. His body was inserted with technology 5 years ago to help him live as a patient of bone cancer. Fortunately for Alan, he's pleased at this information, since he's more alike to his robotic friend Dede.
- Saw It in a Movie Once: Played with. When the dark room they're in begins to crumble, Alan, who seems to know the area from Déjà Vu, stomps the ground, much to Bai's frustration. Alan replies that he's just doing something he often does in video games. They later find themselves where they need to be, Mr. Faisal's lab. It turns out that he deliberately prepared Alan to find the lab and later fight the Z-Soldiers through the video games he gave his son.
- Sequel Hook: After Alan's victory against the Z-Soldiers, Professor Alif, a top Z-Soldier scientist presumed dead since 5 years prior to the story, overlooks the Z-Soldiers' downfall from a distance. Bored of playing around with natural disasters, and with the intel of his boss' death, Professor Alif considers himself free to pursue building a new, more glamorous "masterpiece", before leaving Bandar Puteri with some remaining drones.
- Shout-Out:
- The infamous leader of the Z-Soldiers terrorist group is named Alex Luthor, which is quite alike to the Superman villain, Lex Luthor.
- When they see a robot flying out of the Stylol building, Miss Tijah says, "Eh, what's that? Transformers?" to which Mr. Nurie replies, "Nonsense! The Transformers are characters from a science fiction film!"
- Slept Through the Apocalypse: A variant. In the while that Alan and Dede have the house to themselves, they spend their time in the basement's bunker since it has everything they need. They miss the news that the storm had changed course to Bandar Puteri, as well as the storm itself, and they only emerge in the morning to find the wrecked, abandoned town.
- Stalker without a Crush: A masked man who follows Alan and Dede is first described to take an interest in them like a cat eye-ing fried fish. He turns out to be Mr. Nurie, Alan's musical neighbor, and was particularly interested in the music they were listening to.
- Tempting Fate: Alan expresses his relief that no one else noticed the origin of Dede's Arm Cannon's blast which scared off the Z-Soldier planes, but behind them, Mr. Nurie suddenly praises Dede moments later.
- This Is Reality:
- Alan wishes that he could find the ghost from Hantu Silap Mata, another book by the same author, to have it remove Mr. Nurie's mouth because he's angry at him singing loudly late at night. His father tells him that the ghost doesn't exist, it's just a story character.
- When they're trapped in a rumbling room inside the Stylol building, Alan stomps on the crumbling floor and says that he's just doing something he always does in a video game that his father gave him. Bai angrily replies that surely Alan's father didn't teach him such nonsense. Ironically, he did intentionally teach Alan through the games to prepare him to take down the Z-Soldiers.
- Miss Tijah sees a robot flying up to the Z-Soldier planes and asks, "What's that? Transformers?" Mr. Nurie says that's impossible because those robots are from a science fiction film.
- Third-Person Person: Zigzagged with Dede, who often states his name where "I" would be used ("Dede is a smart robot, Dede can do anything.")note . However, he does occasionally refer to himself in first person, such as "I am also with Alan" when Miss Tijah reaffirms the parents that she'd be with Alan while his parents prepare to go on business trips, when bringing Alan back to reality from his Imagine Spot when he's mimicking Mr. Faisal's voice, and finally, when he declares to Alan that he'll protect him: "Relax, Alan. I will protect you!"
- Voice Changeling: Dede is capable of mimicking voices, impersonating Mr. Faisal's voice with such accuracy that Miss Tijah is convinced that she was fired over the phone, and Alan has a brief Imagine Spot of his father when Dede sings with his voice. He even convinces the Z-Soldiers to jump from their planes and into the military's custody by copying Alex Luthor's voice to command them to bail.
- We Can Rebuild Him: A variant. After being diagnosed with bone cancer, the titular character, Alan's body was given technological enhancements, allowing more than just living through the disease, such as extra durability. The parents are aware, but it comes as a Robotic Reveal to Alan himself.
- Weather Manipulation: The storm is caused by multiple Attack Drones flying in a spinning formation, explaining how the storm can drastically change direction and speed.
