Black Gate

In Want (published by Simon Pulse on June 13, 2017), Cindy Pon transports readers to an unsettlingly believable but dystopian futuristic Taipei, where air pollution writhes in the sky and class unrest seethes on the ground. Society is divided into “haves,” the yous (pronounced “yos”), and “have nots,” the meis (pronounced “mays”). Encased in air-conditioned suits that protect the yous from smog, the wealthy lead long lives. Unable to afford these suits, the meis cough and wheeze until they die at the age of 40.

Enter our narrator, bad boy Jason Zhou. An orphaned mei who flips knives in one hand as a nervous habit, he’s already used up half his expected lifespan. Trouble begins for him and his friends when their mother figure, Dr. Nataraj, reports two attempts on her life in the past week. An environmental activist who advocates for legislation to combat global warming, she suspects that big corporations are behind these attacks. After all, these polluters bribe politicians to ignore her pleas all the time.

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The action starts right away in New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray’s latest novel, Defy the Stars. Teenage fighter pilot Noemi Vidal only has twenty days to live, since she has volunteered for a suicide mission to protect her world. But time runs out when evil mechs – robot warriors from Earth – burst through the intergalactic Gate and start shooting at Noemi’s squadron while they’re still training.

One of the deadly machines attacks her best friend, Esther, who was never supposed to see combat. Noemi rushes to defend her and successfully beats off the mech. Still, Esther will die if Noemi doesn’t get her medical care fast. The only prospect of first aid is an enemy starship drifting nearby, abandoned during a previous assault.

What Noemi doesn’t know is that Earth’s most advanced mech, Abel, has been trapped in that mothballed hulk, all alone, for thirty years. Docking her fighter in the ship from Earth, Noemi reactivates its systems and frees Abel, whose first priority is to kill her.

A Young Adult novel, Defy the Stars will please both young and old science fiction fans with an original, engaging, and unpredictable interstellar romp. In the universe Gray has created, Earth has degenerated into a dystopian, post-apocalyptic husk, and its citizens are desperate to immigrate to Noemi’s lush colony world, Genesis. Fearing that humanity will only repeat its past mistakes and ruin Genesis’s environment just like Earth’s, the authorities on Genesis have long sent warriors like Noemi to prevent such an influx. Accordingly, when Noemi learns it’s possible to destroy the Gate between the two star systems, she seizes the chance to do so. Acquiring the necessary tools, however, requires her not just to partner with Abel, but also to become the first Genesis citizen in generations to pass through the Gate and visit other star systems, where she witnesses the plight of others.

In addition to Noemi’s mission to destroy the Genesis Gate, her relationship with Abel drives the book forward. Love stories often take two people who are supposed to hate each other, throw them together, and turn the screws until love blooms. Gray’s version goes beyond this, taking two sworn enemies in an interstellar war and adding an even more unlikely twist: What if the protagonist’s love interest isn’t recognized as a person? What if he’s only supposed to be a machine?

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