I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I love Scifi and I love adventure and sometimes I get pissed that I can't just go off and train to fly away in a space ship to different planets and meet all kinds of different people. This book made me long for that.
Ten large ships race toward Earth, broadcasting in every language: "Brothers and sisters, we come in peace and in need. We have found our way home." The fear of a coming invasion begins the worldwide riots of 3062.
Yet, not all Earthlings fear attack. The newcomers, long lost descendants of Earth, speak of a paradise ninety-four light years away. Kipos is a land of plenty where there has never been hunger, murder, or war. However, they need more healthy young immigrants for the colony to thrive.
Many accept their offer to be tested. After assessment, Abby Boyd Lei is among the chosen. She leaves the protection of her family with dreams of higher education, a good job, and a kind-hearted spouse.
Will Kipos be everything she imagined? Abby is about to discover the cost of utopia.
Click to view the book on Amazon: Other Systems
Now, I was really excited for this book because something about Scifi makes me itch with impatience (Why haven't we achieved any of this stuff yet??). For the most part it was a fulfilling adventure about a girl who grows as she is thrust is circumstances beyond her control. She has to deal with leaving her planet and knowing that everyone she knew and loved on earth would die before she ever reached the new planet. Then once at the new planet she had to deal with being separated from her only family and basically made a slave. When she finds her way to freedom with a flight crew of hybrid humans she has to deal with the time space continuum and how she will stay the same while everyone she knows planet side could age decades while she is gone.
While there was romance in to book, it wasn't what I craved from the book, from the way it was set up I was expecting something different than what ended up happening. But thinking back on it and looking at it from a mature angle instead of a sex crazed one, I realize that the way things are is probably how they should be, Abby needs time to recover and grow into who she truly is.
The book was well written, though at times I felt myself drifting because sometimes it just seemed dense with the description of the space things. Or I would want to see the relationships develop between characters and instead I would end up with Abby on a new planet describing plant life. So I hope there is a second one because I want to see where these characters end up. I think that I would give this book a 3 out of 5 stars, because sometimes I just couldn't focus on it, it would lose me.
Read the book, then come back and read this part! Spoilers Ahead!
With all the focus on Mark and Abby it seemed like the author was setting them up to be together. I understand why they didn't get together... She was traumatized from her rape and he was getting over his relationship with Pat. But that was one of the things that pissed me off. This whole weird love triangle thing. They were so good together, but then Pat shows up and Mark takes him back after Pat had ditched him for a woman. I mean if he wanted to be a dad they could have adopted, there were so many humans that needed homes. But I mean thinking like a mature adult, I get it, though I wish that they were together I get it.
Then for a crazy moment I was thinking that she was going to get with Harden, but then he took the role of her dad, which I really liked. But ho emotionally unstable is Harden, I mean Abby cries and he thinks she is going to go commit suicide, I know that happened to his wife but how fragile is his mind that he thinks everyone is going to do that. I also was a bit confused about the breeding laws and why so many pregnancies were terminated. If the planet was having a population problem (and they were, they were going to die out) then why were they terminating so many pregnancies and sterilizing people? I mean that is just dumb.
Then finally there is the whole individual time line thing. Like, in space time passes differently so when you return planet side everyone you have known is either super old or dead. That is just hard to think about. Not because it is hard to grasp, but because that is such a painful thing to have to face. Like, when she contacts the planet to talk to her sister and Orchid is in her 30s and has kids and has grown up and has her own life, and Abby is still a teenager.
It was a very cool story, and I will definitely keep looking for new books by Elizabeth Guizzetti.
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