The second in Sara Creasy's debut series (after Song of Scarabaeus) plunges the reader into danger from the first page. Edie Sha'nim is dying, dependent on injections of rare neuroxin, poisonous to most humans, to keep functioning. Her particular cybertech skill set of working intimately with living building blocks as worlds are transformed makes her most valuable to the crushing might of the Crib, the government ruling over most of the central planets. She and her bodyguard and potential lover Finn are determined to use her skills to free those worlds on the Fringe who are falling one-by-one under the control of the central government, and losing their freedom.

A chance discovery changes Edie's goals when she realizes she is no longer the only cybertech from her homeworld, in fact Crib has sunk to even lower depths, taking children from her home planet and raising them as cybertechs, without any recourse to any other life. How can she leave them trapped in the life she once escaped and live with herself? No matter the cost to the Fringe, she must try to free them.

CHILDREN OF SCARABAEUS picks up where Song of Scarabaeus left off, and ties the second book back into the fate of the planet Scarabaeus as well as broadening the impact on the rest of Sara Creasy's universe. The first book in her series, Creasy's debut novel, was nominated for an Aurealis Award for Best SF Novel. I was pleased to discover a tightly-plotted science fiction series with emphasis on cyber skills as they meld with biological forms. The speculative threads of science projected onto a future universe ring true without obscuring the human story driven by the main characters but the storyline, despite scenes of emotional power, never veers too far from the core framework of speculative fiction. Creasy is a terrific addition to the ranks of authors such as Heinlein, Asimov and Bujold.