Twenty year old Ellie Quin thought that escaping her mundane rural life for the exotic domed city of New Haven would be the height of adventure, only to be topped by traveling off-planet at the earliest possible opportunity. Reality set in quickly as Ellie discovered that the city owed her nothing, and her dreams for leaving Harper’s Reach behind were quickly set aside for the necessity of focusing her efforts on simply surviving.

Help came first in the form of an older pilot named Aaron and then from a fearless city girl named Jez. With the support of these two unlikely friends, Ellie Quin had piled adventure on top of adventure, blissfully unaware that she was more than a simple farm girl and that the man sent to find and kill her was coming ever closer to discovering her whereabouts.

For Ellie Quin holds within her the key to humanity’s survival, or their undoing, and her adventures to date are about to pale in comparison to the sobering reality of coming face-to-face with death.

Continue reading Ellie Quin vol. 3: Beneath the Neon Sky by Alex Scarrow →

In a future dominated by overpopulation, starvation and ecological disaster, the devastating impact of an alien ship crash landing on Earth could have tolled the death knell of the human race. Instead the haan brought with them the advanced technology needed to bring humanity back from the brink of extinction. Since that time the haan and humans have shared an uneasy coexistence. The haan ship remains behind a protective barrier, dolling out tech to the people of Earth in exchange for the bulk of humanity’s food production, necessary to keep the haan race alive. Meanwhile, various nations of Earth continue to fight starvation, and animosity towards the haan is growing.

Sam Shao is part of the haan surrogate program, bonding with and caring for a haan infant during their early development. Returning home after a routine day of work, Sam feeds the infant and is just settling in to rest when her guardian, Dragan Shao, bursts through the door demanding that she grab her things and get prepared to leave Hangfei immediately. Her confusion soon turns to terror as armed soldiers enter their home to take custody of Dragan Shao, branding him a traitor. In the process Sam finds herself being tossed through the plate glass window of their apartment.

As she plummets towards certain death, Sam Shao is unaware that things are about to go from bad, to worse.

Continue reading The Burn Zone by James K. Decker →

Theo Waitley would appear to be an average fourteen year old girl. She is a bit awkward, she bristles at the strictures of some societal rules, and when her mother decides to leave the comforts of the home of her onagrata, Theo’s Father, to better pursue her career of scholarship in the city, Theo’s anger at the upheaval of her routine is just barely contained…just.

Pretty normal, really.

The trouble is that Theo Waitley lives on the planet Delgado, a “Safe World”. Rules and expectations are clearly laid out to provide the maximum opportunity for citizens and visitors to lead safe, productive lives. Theo Waitley’s adolescent behavior and well-documented clumsiness put her on a path that could mark her a danger to society.

When Kamele Waitley, Theo’s mother, seizes the opportunity for an off-world visit to examine some original source documentation, a reluctant Theo Waitley finds herself leaving behind even more of her familiar routine. This unexpected and unwelcome change may be just what Theo needs to avoid Delgado’s solution to her unsafe behavior as she approaches the date of her transition to adulthood.

That is, if she survives the trip.

Fledgling, the twelfth novel of the Liaden Universe, may sound like a typical coming-of-age,  young adult science fiction novel.  The beauty of it is that while it has some of the hallmarks that make reading young adult fiction pleasurable, this multi-viewpoint novel is a sophisticated and intricately plotted science fiction story for adults that just so happens to hold an appeal for teen readers as well.

Fans of character-driven science fiction, of layered young adult fiction, and those who have been exposed to Robert A. Heinlein’s interesting young protagonists in The Menace From Earth and Podkayne of Mars or rule-driven societies like those in the movies Gattaca or Equilibrium are sure to find something of interest here.  But while your reading may remind you of those stories and others, Fledgling remains its own singular pleasure.  It is a novel that will stir your passions and you will find yourself engaged in a full range of emotions as you learn about the characters and the society in which they live.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Continue reading Fledgling ~Sharon Lee and Steve Miller →