Sara Creasy transports us to space and visions of a
bleak future in her debut novel SONG OF SCARABAEUS, an
action packed sci-fi adventure with a bit of romance thrown
in for good measure.
Edie, an orphan raised by the Crib, a secretive,
interstellar, meddling government, is kidnapped by rebels
who need her special skills to escape Crib domination. Once
caught, Edie is taken aboard the ship The Hoi Polloi and
made an offer she can't refuse. And if truth be told...she
really doesn't want to. Psychically linked or leashed to
her bodyguard, Finn, Edie sets out to fulfill her part of
the coerced contract. Although the rebels know a lot about
Edie's past and her teck skills, there are things they
don't know yet -- an episode in Edie's past she can't afford
to let the crew or Finn find out about. Scarabaeus, a
planet where terraforming went terribly wrong, as well as
Edie's involuntary part in the disaster, was not
insignificant.
Riveting and believable science fiction, SONG OF SCARABAEUS
plays on our fears about the government meddling in our
lives and big business caring more about the bottom line
than human life. Much like JURASSIC PARK, the future
science is presented in believable arguments and it all
makes sense. The parts where the Crib creates a peasant
class and then ruthlessly exploits it really ring true.
There are some surprisingly scary parts on the planet's
surface, the alien world is really alien and not just a
sideways Earth. An enjoyable read, although the technical
jargon tripped me up a bit.
Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed
technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, Edie's mission
is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the
outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries
kidnap Edie, she's not entirely sure it's a bad thing . . .
until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn — a former freedom
fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie
strays from Finn's side, he dies. If she doesn't cooperate,
the pirates will kill them both.
But Edie's
abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now,
with Finn as her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in,
she'll have to prove it or die on the site of her only
failure . . . a world called Scarabaeus.
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