Dystopian

Rebirth: An Eden Prequel by Keary Taylor

October 29, 2012 By Tim Leave a Comment

Rebirth is a prequel to Eden, Keary Taylor’s hit dystopian-scifi novel.

As soon as I finished Eden, I knew there had to be more. The story just begs to be a series. (Personally, I’d love to see it become a graphic novel or comic series.) So, I was really excited when Keary announced that she had written a prequel story.

Random side note, as I write this review last week’s The Walking Dead episode, where they’re in the prison, is on and that’s right where Rebirth starts – in a prison. It was an unexpected, but fun, place to start the story. Perhaps the best thing about Rebirth is that it’s written from a different character’s point-of-view. This helps add depth to the overall story, similar to the way the multiple view-points bolster George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire (HBO’s Game of Thrones is based on this series).

One week ago I thought I knew exactly how I was going to spend the rest of my life: looking at the gray walls of a prison cell. Figuring out how to survive the apocalypse wasn’t something I’d planned for.

Yet here I was, getting a second chance at the end of the world. [More from Goodreads]

We get a first hand look at America right after the Fall and the Rise of the Fallen (That’d be a badass title, right? Free to use.) Sometimes we read, or watch on TV, how hard it can be for a prisoner to adjust to free life. Not that I’m sympathetic to criminals, but imagine what it’d be like after an apocalypse of this magnitude! Wrapping your head around a whole new set of dangers. Keary adds that sense of the unknown to Rebirth and it pulled me back into the setting real quick.

Despite coming into the story from the viewpoint of a criminal locked up in isolation, he actually has a fairly neutral moral compass as the story progresses. Curiously though, the character we get to know in Rebirth is one that I don’t remember from Eden. I’ll have to go back and skim through so I can get my bearings. But it’s a fun little story that helps to expand the world of Eden.

I don’t want to give too much away but the book starts in a bad place and ends in a familiar setting. If you’ve read Eden, you’ll like how the stories tie together. I blazed through this bad boy in one sitting. For being so short, it packs a lot of action. Enjoy!

Buy Rebirth on Amazon

Thanks for reading Quest for Books!

Filed Under: Dystopian, Science Fiction Tagged With: dystopian, eden, fallen, keary taylor, prequel, rebirth, the fall

Bumped by Megan McCafferty

October 15, 2012 By Tim Leave a Comment

Bumped by Megan McCafferty. Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian. Published by Balzer + Bray 2011.

I’m happy to welcome a new reviewer for today’s post. This review of Bumped is a guest post by author and Geeks Unleashed reviewer Allie Burke.

When a virus makes everyone over the age of eighteen infertile, would-be parents pay teen girls to conceive and give birth to their children, making teens the most prized members of society. Girls sport fake baby bumps and the school cafeteria stocks folic-acid-infused food.

Sixteen-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony were separated at birth and have never met until the day Harmony shows up on Melodys doorstep. Up to now, the twins have followed completely opposite paths. Melody has scored an enviable conception contract with a couple called the Jaydens. While they are searching for the perfect partner for Melody to bump with, she is fighting her attraction to her best friend, Zen, who is way too short for the job.

Harmony has spent her whole life in Goodside, a religious community, preparing to be a wife and mother. She believes her calling is to convince Melody that pregging for profit is a sin. But Harmony has secrets of her own that she is running from.

When Melody is finally matched with the world-famous, genetically flawless Jondoe, both girls lives are changed forever. A case of mistaken identity takes them on a journey neither could have ever imagined, one that makes Melody and Harmony realize they have so much more than just DNA in common. [More from Goodreads]

From New York Times bestselling author Megan McCafferty comes a strikingly original look at friendship, love, and sisterhoodin a future that is eerily believable.

I thought I had formed an opinion about Bumped within its first ten pages. That’s the thing about literature. If you don’t keep an open mind, by the end of a novel, you find yourself regretting not having done so.

At times, Melody made me cringe. Her constant use of “for serious” and “Gah” reminded me of the readers’ gripe of word usage in NY Times Bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey. Her personality as a whole made for one of the most immature novels I have ever read.

Harmony’s immaturity, contrastingly, was not her fault. Her upbringing in the Church shielded her from lessons to be learned in the “real world”, so to speak, and she was immature because that was who she was, not who she chose to be. In between “Melody” chapters, Harmony made the first half of the novel bearable. She was a kind soul with the best of intentions. (I read that readers had a hard time remembering who was who due to the similar names. The twins were so different, though, I never encountered this problem.)

The novel seemed to start out in the middle of the sentence. I went into this futuristic jumble of words not knowing what the heck was going on. It took me several chapters to get my bearings, and yet, was still confused. It took longer than necessary, in my opinion, to get to explanations of the terms used more than often, terms that were central to the story and understanding the world of the novel.

So you had this book that you really wanted to like, but halfway through just ended up being this strewn together piece of words that could hardly be considered dystopian. If it weren’t for the main plot line, it would just be this mediocre teen fiction novel that didn’t necessarily have anything special about it.

And then, something happened. Melody was still irritating me with her “for serious” every two seconds, but strangely, I began to turn the pages more quickly. Suspense bled the end of one chapter into the beginning of the next. Melody and Harmony began to realize their place in this world, learn from their mistakes, and through those mistakes, find each other as sisters. Love stories developed. The writing style matured and deep emotion suddenly seeped onto the page. This behavior built until the end left me breathless, and I already have the sequel Thumped on my Nook.

I’m so glad I stuck with Bumped against my better judgment throughout the first part of the novel, because it ended up a very intriguing YA dystopian novel that offered up an original story that I’m looking forward to continuing with the sequel. If only it would have started out that way, but at least it picked up eventually.

About Allie Burke

An American novelist, Allie Burke writes books she can’t find in the bookstore. Having been recognized as writing a “kickass book that defies the genre it’s in”, Allie writes with a prose that has been labeled poetic and ethereal. Her life is a beautiful disaster, flowered with the harrowing existence of inherited eccentricity, a murderous family history, a faithful literature addiction, and the intricate darkness of true love. These are the enchanting experiences that inspire Allie’s fairytales. Violet Midnight is her first novel. You can follow Allie on Twitter here.

Filed Under: Dystopian, Young Adult Tagged With: bumped, dystopian, megan mccafferty, young adult

Fry me in the hotzone! Fireseed One by Catherine Stine

June 7, 2012 By Tim 1 Comment

Fireseed One by Catherine Stine. Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Dystopian. Published by Konjur Road Press (2011).

Fireseed One, a YA futuristic thriller, is set on earth in 2089 where people ride tricked-out amphibious vehicles over toxic waters, dance in ice-themed clubs and eat fish that grow up on vines in floating warehouses. Varik Teitur inherits a vast sea farm after the mysterious drowning of his marine biologist father.

When Marisa Baron, a beautiful and shrewd terrorist, who knows way, way too much about Varik’s father’s work, tries to steal seed disks from the world’s food bank, Varik is forced to put his dreams of becoming a doctor on hold and venture with her, into a hot zone teeming with treacherous nomads and a Fireseed cult who worships his dead father, in order to search for a magical hybrid plant that may not even exist. (From Goodreads)

Note: This was a review copy provided by the author.

Earth has changed. The luckiest people live in Ocean Dominion while the unlucky live behind a massive wall, in a deadly land called the hotzone. Everyone is reliant on a crop called agar which is used for food and construction. That is until things go horribly wrong following a break-in at Varik’s house.

Fireseed One, a secret project, may hold the key to the planet’s survival and hope for equity between the zones.

Sweet Ice

Varik lives in Ocean Dominion and runs his recently deceased father’s agar farm. Varik’s house is a floating island made out of the agar his family farm grows which is pretty neat. Agar is a fast growing plant material that can be eaten and used to build things. Oddly, Varik’s farm has a near monopoly on the industry and he is the main supplier to the world. It’s odd because if it’s so vital why is there only one supplier? Minor issue. Anyway, I like the setting for the farm, it made me think of a more realistic version of Waterworld.

The unique imagining of future Earth as separate regions broken up by their geography – Land Dominion, Ocean Dominion, etc. – set up curious challenges and culture differences that backed up the storyline really well. One of the main threads in this story is conflict generated by an extreme case of haves and have nots. That issue fuels a lot of the conflict and lands Varik right in the middle of it.

Everyone receives news via the stream which is transmitted to implants in people’s head. The news is always sponsored by a company which has a short pitch at the end of the stories, it’s a funny touch because of how awkward and ironic they are. They’re almost like those ads in the movie Starship Troopers (Would you like to know more?).

Fry Me

The story started a little slow for me and it took awhile to get my bearings in this new world. It picks up after about 30 pages, after some world building and background info.

I really enjoyed the action and the conflicts in the story. There are lessons learned along the way – friendship, trust, misunderstandings – by Varik and Marissa. Both of whom develop nicely throughout the story. This is a science fiction/fantasy story but the characters are fairly normal people who get into extraordinary situations. They’re not super powered or magical which is a nice change of pace.

I’m a fan of great villains and that’s something Fireseed One didn’t really have. There is no single, serious villain. There are a few minor ones that Varik is up against including Marissa (who turns to Varik’s side), possibly Marissa’s dad, the ZWC leader, and the Fireseed cult. In fact, the biggest villain just might be the climate because that’s the only one that truly put lives in danger. Perhaps that’s the point.

In any case, I had a great time reading Fireseed One. It’s an imaginative, and enjoyable, book for young adults.

Filed Under: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: agar, catherine stine, dystopian, fireseed, hotzone, young adult

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER – STARTERS

April 17, 2012 By Mandie 2 Comments

Starters by Lissa Price. Genres: YA SF/Dystopian. Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers March 13th 2012.

Ever see the movie Surrogates with Bruce Willis? If not, here’s the general idea: “Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others’ surrogates.” Interesting, right? Well, if you liked it, or think you’ll like it, then you’ll love Starters by Lissa Price. She takes the idea of living through a robot and one ups it, leaving you on the edge of your seat through the entire novel.

Starters takes place in the future America. After the Spore War is over, there are only two types of people are left; Starters and Enders. The lives of everyone younger than twenty and older than sixty were saved by a vaccination. Everyone else was wiped out by a genocide spore. In the new world, Enders are the ones in charge. Of everything.

One of the most interesting things about Starters is the life span the people live. It’s not uncommon to live to 100 or 150 and still be in good health. There’s even mention of someone living to 200! But good heath doesn’t always mean good strength or shape. Wanting to prologue their youth—and make a ton of money—a man known as the Old Man started a company call Prime Destinations. Or, as the Starters call it, the Body Bank. A place where Starters go and donate their body for an Ender to use. They in turn get paid a pretty penny.

The story follows Callie—a sixteen-year-old girl near Beverly Hills, California—whose goal is to take care of herself and her sickly younger brother. Living on the streets isn’t cutting it and she’s determined to make a better life for them. To do so, she decides to try renting her body to an Ender. Only it doesn’t turn out how she expected when she wakes up in the middle of her rental period. Now she has to find out why before someone else figures out she’s really herself and not an Ender using her body. There’s also the matter of a pesky voice she keeps hearing it, and if she should trust it or not.

I loved pretty much everything about this book. The one thing I did have a problem with was the love triangle of sorts. I’m not a fan of love triangles (I’m Team Edward, Peeta and Fade and to me, those other boys don’t exist). But this isn’t the typical love triangle. You start to care for the first boy, Michael, who’s with Callie from the start. He’s sweet and carrying and helps Callie look after her sick younger brother. What more could you want? Then when she’s dropped into the world of the body bank, she meets another boy. He’s charming, but there’s something not quite right about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but once it was revealed, I was left…stunned. And a little put off. I can’t say more, but you’ll have to read it to see what I mean.

It’s no secret that I’m a SF junkie. And this book was the perfect food for my addiction. It’s fast paced, well written and very imaginative. I never had to stop and think about what was going and I never questioned if this life was possible or not. It sucked me in from page one and didn’t let go until I finished. Lissa has created an incredible world in Starters and I can’t wait to see what happens next in Enders.

Also be sure to check out Portrait of a Starter: An Unhidden Story, Starters #0.5.

Filed Under: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult Tagged With: Body Bank, Callie, dystopian, enders, Lissa Price, Prime Destinations, science fiction, Starters, young adult

A Million Suns: Not Just Another Filler Book

March 27, 2012 By Mandie 6 Comments

A Million Suns by Beth Revis. Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian. Published January 2012 by Razorbill, a division of Penguin Group.

Lately the YA market has been full of trilogies. Nine times out of ten the first book rocks and you are pumped for the second book and then you get it and it was just kind of meh. That’s what I like to call a filler book. It’s only purpose is to get you from end of book one to beginning of book three. Personally, I think you could just chop it out the middle book and extend the other two instead of creating this whole other book. Now the purpose of this post? To tell you A Million Suns is NOT that book!

I read Across the Universe shortly after it was released last year. I liked, not loved, it. The world that was created was unique and their quest was interesting, but I didn’t click with the main characters, and the minor ones I did like ended up dead. But it was still good enough that I was left wanting to read the sequel. I downloaded it on my kindle (which is how I read AtU) the day it came out and started reading a few pages, though it wasn’t until that weekend that I really got into the book. And once I did, I was hooked. By the end I was blown away by how great this story had become.

Recap of Across the Universe (provided by goodreads):

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

We’re left at the end of the book with Elder coming clean about being the one to wake Amy and her forgiving him and asking him to never leave him. She doesn’t want to be alone.

Fast forward 3 months and Godspeed is in chaos. Elder is trying his best to rule without Phydus, a drug that keeps the people onboard the ship subdued. Without it, they are thinking for themselves, not wanting to work, and causing harm to themselves and others. Basically they are feeling for the first time. And not only are they feeling, but they’ve just had a bomb dropped on them that they won’t be making it to Centauri-Earth. I think I’d cause a little ruckus too.

The book starts out with Elder as he struggles in his role as “Eldest” (though he refuses to go by the name). He tries to act tough, but deep down he still struggles with the idea of using the Phydus. Elder’s problem is that he’s so wishy-washy. I hate to say, but he is one of my least favorite male MC’s or love interests in YA. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not drawn to him. In anyway. Looks, personality, nothing. But, the more I think about it, the more I wonder if that’s the point. If he were sweet and romantic and incredibly handsome (everyone on the ship basically looks like one another, except for Amy) of course Amy, and the rest of us, would be drawn to him. And if she wasn’t, we would question her sanity. But giving us a male MC/love interest that’s just an average run of the mill guy makes you think. We don’t question Amy when she doesn’t run into his open arms. Because that’s what this book is about, choice. The choice to tell the truth or keep it hidden. To make your own destiny, or go with the norm. To pick the only guy close to your age, or not. And Amy is all about choice.

Which brings me to her. We left off AtU with Amy forgiving Elder but when we get to her in AMS, she’s sitting on the floor in the cryo chamber–her parents melting beside her. She’s wondering if she can forgive Elder. If she should let her parents melt and join her on the claustrophobic ship. Yes, Amy is almost as wishy-washy as Elder. But one thing that’s different about her, one thing that I love, is she fights for what she wants, for what she believes in. If she really wanted to doom her parents, she would. But she knows their fate would become the one she’s living now, and I don’t think Amy would wish that on her worst enemy.

Now I’ll get into the best part about this book. It keeps you guessing! We know that the characters are trying to find a way to speed up this ship and get to Centauri-Earth sooner than they’ve been told. But it’s not that simple. There’s one thing after another that blocks their path to freedom and the real kicker–the one that had me gasping out loud–is what makes this book incredible. Because never in my wildest imagination did I see this plot twist coming and you can tell the characters didn’t even.

But this twist wasn’t just handed to us (or the characters for that matter). No. Orion, before he was frozen, made a treasure hunt of sorts for Amy. He knew she wouldn’t take the news about the ship and let it alone. So he fed her curiosity, one clue at a time, until her and Elder seemed to care about nothing else. And that twist. Wow. Just…wow!

Their shocking discovery and the end of this book left me wanting, no, NEEDING, to read Shades of Earth. 2013 can’t come fast enough. You better believe I’ll be downloading it the day it releases and jumping right in.

Filed Under: Dystopian, Science Fiction Tagged With: A Million Suns, Across The Universe, beth revis, dystopian, science fiction, young adult