Spinning Starlight

August 15, 2015
Lewis follows up Stitching Snow (2014) with another entry into the burgeoning genre of fairy-tale adaptations, riffing romantic space opera off Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans." While hardly the spoiled party girl portrayed by the ubiquitous electronic paparazzi, 16-year-old Jantzen heiress Liddi isn't a technological genius like her dead parents or eight overprotective elder brothers, either-and she feels it keenly. When her brothers disappear and Liddi herself barely escapes a botched kidnapping attempt, she uncovers a plot that threatens not only her family, but all seven inhabited worlds. Now she's stranded on the supposedly mythical eighth planet, without her connections, her tools, her identity, even her voice...or a clue as to how to save them. Liddi is a terrific heroine, equal parts insecure, clever, and determined. If the handsome young official who becomes her love interest seems a bit too perfect, their sweet romance rather rushed, and the rest of the characters barely sketched, most readers won't care. Like the best mid-20th-century science fiction, this entertaining adventure delivers the thrilling plot, effortless worldbuilding, compulsive readability, and indefinable "sense of wonder" of grand masters like Heinlein and Asimov (but with decidedly updated sensibilities). The storyline isn't as strictly tethered to the details of the source as Lewis' earlier work was, but the essential elements-silence, sacrifice, and, above all, sibling devotion-shine through. Ideal escapist fare. (Science fiction. 12-18)

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January 1, 2016

Gr 7 Up-Sixteen-year-old Liddi has grown up in the media spotlight as heir to Jantzen Technology Innovations, the corporation that invented most of the high-tech advancements in use on her planet and six others connected by transportation conduits. But an evil company employee traps her eight older brothers-inventors working for JTI-in the conduits and implants a device in Liddi's throat that will kill them if she speaks. She escapes to an uncharted planet where she must convince the inhabitants that she does not mean them harm, while trying to rescue her brothers. A young man named Tiav is willing to help, but communication is a problem. Liddi comes from a world where voice-activated machines are the norm, so she does not know how to read or write. Much of the book's action involves her frustrating attempts to communicate by picking out syllables on a com-pad. Eventually, with the help of some friendly aliens, she learns what she has to do. Lewis's update of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Wild Swans" is populated with intriguing planets and characters. Liddi is a likable and determined young woman, and her budding romance with Tiav comes as no surprise. But it is hard to believe that, coming from a technologically advanced society, Liddi (and everyone else on the planet) would have grown up illiterate. It seems like a contrived plot device and slows down what could have been a thrilling science-fiction adventure. VERDICT A promising premise that misses the mark.-Martha Simpson, Stratford Library Association, CT

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