by Claudia Gray
She’s a soldier.
Noemi Vidal is a seventeen years old and sworn to protect her planet, Genesis. She’s willing to risk anything—including her own life. To their enemies on Earth, she’s a rebel.
He’s a machine.
Abandoned in space for years, utterly alone, Abel has advanced programming that’s begun to evolve. He wants only to protect his creator, and to be free. To the people of Genesis, he’s an abomination.
Noemi and Abel are enemies in an interstellar war, forced by chance to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true.
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Can I just say that Claudia Gray did it again? I still have a hang over with her Firebird series and now she comes up with this genius of a story. I have my reservations with science fiction stories that are set in outer space, mind you. I chalk it up to having watched too much Star Trek and/or Star Wars when I was a kid, and I have come across some spacey sci-fi books recently that just had too much going on I guess. Well this books has made me a believer again.
Just a little bit of background. From what I gather, it is already the the year 2295 (or something along those numbers..hehe), and Earth has been able to colonize other planets in other galaxies to support the growing population and decreasing resources of our dying planet. Inter galaxy travel is done using wormhole gates that connect the planets - Genesis, Kismet, Stronghold, and Cray to Earth and each other called the Loop.
Noemi is one of the soldiers who has volunteered to go on The Masada Run- a suicide mission intended to buy Genesis more time from Earth's attacks. While doing a scouting mission for the Masada Run, they are attacked by Mechs - AI robots created by Earth, and Noemi's adoptive sister Esther, is injured. The two find an abandoned Earth Spacecraft where they tried to use the medical facilities but found something else instead.
There are 25 known models of Mech, named from the letters of the alphabet from B-Z. The Queen and Charlie models are the soldiers, Tare models are for healthcare, and so on. There has been rumors about an A model mech created to be more than all the others combined, but nobody has ever seen one. On the abandoned Earth Spacecraft, Noemi meets Abel - the one and only legendary A-Model mech. Noemi finds Abel to be different than the other mechs - exceptionally intelligent, special.
Together, Noemi and Abel embark on a journey through the Loop, on a quest to save Genesis. They meet Vagabonds and a Remedy rebel in Kismet, Rave teen scientists in Cray, and a Remedy Doctor in Stronghold. They also meet some hard questions - about what it means to have a soul and be human, realizing that humanity is not infallible, recognizing true love.
This is one of the best written character developments I have a read in a long time. Usually, it would be spaced in a series of books before I can read any change in the characters. Noemi and Able are so compelling characters. Noemi is headstrong, fearless, and fiercely loyal. Despite that, Noemi struggles with her feelings, her duty, and her religion. Abel did not start out like an unfeeling robot. His narrative before he was discovered by Noemi was of a sentient being. He was "thinking" of his life in the abandoned Earth Spacecraft and how to be discovered. His personality is already peeking through especially when he was thinking of getting to watch Casablanca again. His directive was to protect his immediate commander, and since his Creator was not there he decided to protect Noemi instead. And he has continually decided on so many other things, until he discovered he has fallen in love. Abel had his own struggles with his growing humanity and his programming. But he was able to choose and act on his own. It was actually kinda cute how he described his feelings like a typical boy.
"For some reason I often think about her
hair, which is unremarkable by any
objective standard but seems to suit her extraordinarily well."
I loved how action-packed this book was. All the characters and plots were woven well to make one heck of an adventure. The ending was a little bit of a cliffhanger so I'm hoping this could be a series? I am definitely recommending this to anyone who loves Sci-fi and of course Claudia Grays books.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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