Review: Blue Shift by Jane O'Reilly

Author: Jane O'Reilly
Series: Second Species, #1
Released: June 1st 2017
Publisher: Piatkus
Length: 304 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

The Earth is cold, dead and divided. The rich hide away from reality while the rest will do anything to survive. Humanity have only one hope: reaching a habitable planet. But getting there means travelling in large numbers through alien-held space, something that's politically nearly impossible. Yet for some, fighting their way through space is just a way of life . . .

Jinnifer Blue is a rich girl on the run. An expert pilot, she apprehends criminals on behalf of the government and keeps her illegal genetic modifications a closely guarded secret. But when a particularly dangerous job goes south, leaving her stranded on a prison ship with one of the most ruthless criminals in the galaxy, Jinn realises that the rich and the powerful are hiding more than she'd ever guessed. Now she must decide if she can trust her co-prisoner - because once they discover what the prison ship is hiding, she definitely can't trust anyone else . . . 

Blue Shift is Jane O’Reilly’s first foray into (romantic) science fiction and I’m sure it won’t be her last, even after this trilogy is completed. A seasoned author, even if it is in new adult romance, generally knows her stuff, and O’Reilly did an excellent job applying her knowledge and experience to a whole new genre. While Blue Shift has its weaknesses, it’s perfect for those of us who like their sci-fi on the lighter side and their romance on the hotter side. Jane O’Reilly delivers both with ease.

Forsaken Skies Blog Tour Guest Post

Hello, nocturnal readers! It's certainly been a while. Hopefully we'll fix that in days to come. This reawakening of sorts is happening now because I want to share a very special book with you all: Forsaken Skies by D. Nolan Clark. I read Forsaken Skies at a time when it was extremely hard for me to jump into a new story, and yet somehow it grabbed me and kept me away from all the work that was waiting.

I'm not so easily dazzled by elaborate worldbuilding anymore. Having read countless space operas and fantasies, I need things to be thought through and very detailed, nuanced and subversive or I just don't see any reason to bother. Fortunately, Forsaken Skies easily meets my high demands, and while it might be better suited for hardcore sci-fi readers, it will undoubtedly find a much wider audience.


Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you a guest post by D. Nolan Clark. Enjoy!

Jump Stations and Wormholes in Gemina by A. Kaufman and J. Kristoff

Authors: Amie Kaufman
                Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files, #2
Released: October 20th 2016
Publisher: Knopf BfYR
Length: 608 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

Moving to a space station at the edge of the galaxy was always going to be the death of Hanna’s social life. Nobody said it might actually get her killed.

The sci-fi saga that began with the breakout bestseller Illuminae continues on board the Jump Station Heimdall, where two new characters will confront the next wave of the BeiTech assault.

Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.

When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station's wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped in two before dinner. Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands.

But relax. They've totally got this. They hope.

Once again told through a compelling dossier of emails, IMs, classified files, transcripts, and schematics, Gemina raises the stakes of the Illuminae Files, hurling readers into an enthralling new story that will leave them breathless. 

Gemina, the sequel to last year’s hugely successful Illuminae, follows in the footsteps of its predecessor well enough to satisfy even the most demanding reader. Just like Illuminae, Gemina combines texts, images, various fonts and different storytelling strategies. They all come together to form a narrative unlike any other, a constant source of surprise and awe, not to mention entertainment.

Time travel and romance in The Last Beginning by Lauren James

Author: Lauren James
Series: The Next Together
Released: October 6th 2016
Publisher: Walker Books
Length: 352 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

The epic conclusion to Lauren James' debut The Next Together about love, destiny and time travel.

Sixteen years ago, after a scandal that rocked the world, teenagers Katherine and Matthew vanished without a trace. Now Clove Sutcliffe is determined to find her long lost relatives. But where do you start looking for a couple who seem to have been reincarnated at every key moment in history? Who were Kate and Matt? Why were they born again and again? And who is the mysterious Ella, who keeps appearing at every turn in Clove's investigation? 

For Clove, there is a mystery to solve in the past and a love to find in the future.

For me, The Next Together by Lauren James was one of those gorgeous, magical reading experiences that you just don’t see coming. As a debut, it was a dream come true, a story of one romance in four different places and four different timescapes, often centuries apart. The Last Beginning follows in its predecessor’s amazing footsteps, perhaps with a tiny bit less romance and magic, but with so much heart that it doesn’t really matter by the end.

Heroines We Adore: Review of Behind the Throne by K. B. Wagers

Author: K.B. Wagers

Series: Indranan War, #1

Released: August 2nd 2016

Publisher: Orbit

Length: 405 pages

Source: Publisher for review

Buy: The Book Depository

Meet Hail: Captain. Gunrunner. Fugitive.

Quick, sarcastic, and lethal, Hailimi Bristol doesn't suffer fools gladly. She has made a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except what she was born to do: rule the Indranan Empire. That is, until two Trackers drag her back to her home planet to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir.

But trading her ship for a palace has more dangers than Hail could have anticipated. Caught in a web of plots and assassination attempts, Hail can't do the one thing she did twenty years ago: run away. She'll have to figure out who murdered her sisters if she wants to survive.

A gun smuggler inherits the throne in this Star Wars-style science fiction adventure from debut author K. B. Wagers. Full of action-packed space opera exploits and courtly conspiracy - not to mention an all-out galactic war - Behind the Throne will please fans of James S. A Corey, Becky Chambers and Lois McMaster Bujold, or anyone who wonders what would happen if a rogue like Han Solo were handed the keys to an empire . . .

Behind the Throne, K. B. Wagers’ sci-fi debut, fell into my hands after much praise from some of my most trusted peers. To describe my experience with it as love at first chapter would not be an exaggeration at all. Discovering books like it and pushing them at unsuspecting readers is why I took up blogging in the first place. It gives me great pleasure to share my delight over this title with all of you.

Review: Vicarious

Author: Paula Stokes

Series: Vicarious, #1

Relased: August 16th 2016

Publisher: Tor Teen

Length: 334 pages

Source: Publisher for review

Buy: Amazon

Winter Kim and her sister, Rose, have always been inseparable. Together, the two of them survived growing up in a Korean orphanage and being trafficked into the United States. 

Now they work as digital stunt girls for Rose’s ex-boyfriend, Gideon, engaging in dangerous and enticing activities while recording their neural impulses for his Vicarious Sensory Experiences, or ViSEs. Whether it’s bungee jumping, shark diving, or grinding up against celebrities at the city’s hottest dance clubs, Gideon can make it happen for you, for a price.

When Rose disappears and a ViSE recording of her murder is delivered to Gideon, Winter won’t rest until she finds her sister’s killer. But when the clues she uncovers conflict with the neural recordings her sister made, Winter isn’t sure what to believe. To find out what happened to Rose, she’ll have to untangle what’s real from what only seems real, risking her life in the process.

There really aren’t that many YA books that embrace the harsh realities of the world we live in. Even when writing a sci-fi thriller, Paula Stokes is courageous enough to do so. She doesn’t embellish, she refuses to sugarcoat, and she throws the ugliest bits right in our faces. While I wouldn’t debate its appropriateness for younger teens (I still struggle with determining the lines for my kiddo), I applaud Stokes for taking us where so few YA authors have gone before.

Review: Starflight

Author: Melissa Landers
Series: Starflight, #1
Released: February 2nd 2016
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Length: 369 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

Life in the outer realm is a lawless, dirty, hard existence, and Solara Brooks is hungry for it. Just out of the orphanage, she needs a fresh start in a place where nobody cares about the engine grease beneath her fingernails or the felony tattoos across her knuckles. She's so desperate to reach the realm that she's willing to indenture herself to Doran Spaulding, the rich and popular quarterback who made her life miserable all through high school, in exchange for passage aboard the spaceliner Zenith.

When a twist of fate lands them instead on the Banshee, a vessel of dubious repute, Doran learns he's been framed on Earth for conspiracy. As he pursues a set of mysterious coordinates rumored to hold the key to clearing his name, he and Solara must get past their enmity to work together and evade those out for their arrest. Life on the Banshee may be tumultuous, but as Solara and Doran are forced to question everything they once believed about their world—and each other—the ship becomes home, and the eccentric crew family. But what Solara and Doran discover on the mysterious Planet X has the power to not only alter their lives, but the existence of everyone in the universe...

Melissa Landers’s Starflight has been receiving some pretty enthusiastic reviews lately, full of praise for the cleverness of its plot, excellent dialogues and the author’s wicked sense of humor. If you’re familiar with Landers’ debut, Aliented, I’m sure you know that humor is her strongest selling point, but even in that Starflight is far superior. I was surprised by this book’s spirit and charm, not to mention the loud bursts of laughter it surprised out of me. The words ‘pirates in space’ should be enough to sell you on the idea of this book.

Review: Illuminae

Author Amie Kaufman, 
              Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files, #1
Released: October 20th 2015
Publisher: Knopf BfYR
Length: 599 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it's clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

We’ve all heard about Illuminae, a wonderfully original new book co-authored by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. After all, the hype has been almost incredible – rarely do we see such a strong and intense publicity campaign. For months before its release, Illuminae was practically everywhere. For those of us who keep track of all things bookish, it was a must read we coveted for far too long.

Review: Inherit the Stars

Author: Tony Peak
Series: Standalone
Released: November 3rd 2015
Publisher: Roc
Length: 464 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

An epic debut set on the edges of space, where one botched job could mean death—or so much worse…

Wanderlust runs in Kivita Vondir’s blood. She dreamed of salvaging like her father when she was young, and now it’s her addiction, getting her through pit stops filled with cheap alcohol and cheaper companionship and distracting her from her broken heart.

Her latest contract to hunt down a fabled gemstone is exactly the kind of adventure she craves. But this job is more than meets the eye. For one thing, her duplicitous employer has hired rebel Sar Redryll—Kivita’s former lover—to stop her at any cost. For another, Kivita’s recovery of the relic unleashes in her powerful new abilities. Abilities that everyone in the Cetturo Arm—human, alien, and in-between—desperately wishes to control…

As she avoids a massive galactic manhunt, Kivita teams up with two unlikely allies: Sar and his enigmatic new partner. Only, as the gem’s mysteries are revealed and danger draws near, Kivita begins to wonder if her ex has truly changed, or if he’s just waiting for the right moment to betray her once again… 

In his first full length novel, Inherit the Stars, Tony Park offered us a wonderful space adventure with excellent worldbuilding, interesting societal structure, gray characters and a very memorable romance.

Tony Peak is a tremendously imaginative writer. Kivita Vondir’s world is complex, very socially layered and incredibly thought-through. I loved the descriptions of technology and of Kivita’s society, but I also loved that they never overtook the narrative and became more important than the story itself. Finding balance is the single most important thing in books that rely so heavily on worldbuilding, and it is my opinion that Tony Peak succeeded splendidly.

Review: The Girl in the Road

Author: Monica Byrne
Series: Standalone
Released: September 2015
Publisher: Blackfriars
Length: 319 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

Stunningly original and wildly inventive, The Girl in the Road melds the influences of Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, and Erin Morgenstern for a dazzling debut.

Meena, a young woman living in a futuristic Mumbai, wakes up with five snake bites on her chest. She doesn't know how or why, but she must flee India and return to Ethiopia, the place of her birth. Having long heard about The Trail -- an energy-harvesting bridge that spans the Arabian Sea -- she embarks on foot on this forbidden bridge, with its own subculture and rules. What awaits her in Ethiopia is unclear; she's hoping the journey will illuminate it for her.

Mariama, a girl from a different time, is on a quest of her own. After witnessing her mother's rape, she joins up with a caravan of strangers heading across Saharan Africa. She meets Yemaya, a beautiful and enigmatic woman who becomes her protector and confidante. Yemaya tells Mariama of Ethiopia, where revolution is brewing and life will be better. Mariama hopes against hope that it offers much more than Yemaya ever promised.

As one heads east and the other west, Meena and Mariama's fates will entwine in ways that are profoundly moving and shocking to the core. Vividly imagined and artfully told, written with stunning clarity and deep emotion, The Girl in the Road is a true tour de force. 

The Girl in the Road follows bravely in the footsteps of some of the most famous science fiction authors. It is a very ambitious debut project, but Monica Byrne is more than up to the task. In it, she offers an elaborate vision of our future, focusing mostly on new energy sources. Byrne takes her time in explaining the new sources of energy and the advancements in existing ones. Her imagination is largely based on possibilities and probabilities, which gives her world an almost tangible quality. In addition, with a story set partly in India and partly in Africa, she gives us a clear view of different cultures with a very modern twist.

Tracer Blog Tour: Q&A with Rob Boffard

Hello, hello, my favorite nocturnal readers! 

The heat wave has been getting the best of me for days now! If you don't hear from me, it's likely that my head overheated and exploded all over the place. And now that I've put that amazing picture into your heads, I can safely introduce my guest today. 

According to both Orbit Books and yours truly, Tracer is the most exciting thriller set in space you'll ever read, and it's only Rob Boffard's debut novel. He set the bar sky high with this one, my friends! I was so excited about this chat with Rob that it took me a week to come up with somewhat coherrent questions. I wanted to know everything there is to know about him and his amazing novel.

Review: Delete

Author: Kim Curran
Series: Shift, #3
Released: March 31st 2015
Publisher: Xist Publishing
Length: 352 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

The country is at war. Beset by enemies within and without. And all because of the decisions changed by one boy, Scott Tyler. In this ravaged alternative world, Scott hardly recognizes himself. He's a war hero, a leader of a unit of Shifters and maybe the only one who can prevent the country's frail defenses from crumbling.

But all Scott wants to do is find a way back to the reality he knew, without losing the girl he loves. With every Shift he makes, Scott edges closer towards oblivion. With no one to trust - not even himself - how much is he willing to risk to get home? 

Once upon a time, there was a lovely imprint called Strange Chemistry. It was small, but reliable, and it always published the very best titles. But these days, quality often isn’t enough, and overnight, Strange Chemistry simply stopped existing. Everything about this was a tragedy, but no one suffered as much damage as Kim Curran and several other authors whose books were set for release. Delete was meant to be out ages ago, but with the disappearance of its publisher, this wonderful conclusion to Curran’s Shift trilogy was pushed back until Kim decided what to do with it. Now it’s finally out and we can say goodbye to Scott and Aubrey.

Review: Crash

Author: Eve Silver
Series: The Game, #3
Released: June 9th 2015
Publisher: Katherine Tegen 
Length: 368 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

A thrilling action/suspense novel for fans of The Fifth Wave about contemporary teens pulled in and out of an alternate reality where battling aliens is more than a game—it's life and death.

Miki’s life is falling apart around her. Her dad and best friend are lying in the hospital. The Game is glitching, making missions more frequent and more deadly. And someone close to her is waiting for the right moment to betray her. 

Miki feels like she’s hanging on by a thread and the only thing keeping her tethered is Jackson’s hand in hers. Yet telling him how much she needs him, how much she loves him, feels like the biggest challenge of all. And if Miki really wants the missions to end for everyone, she’ll have to let go and be ready to fight when the walls between the Game and reality come crashing down. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that she’s got a whole lot left to lose.

Crash is the pulse-pounding conclusion to the Game trilogy fans won’t want to miss. 

I’ve been oddly fond of this trilogy from the very start. It was one of those strange situations when you can see the flaws in something quite clearly, and yet they do nothing to diminish your enjoyment or affection. Something about Silver’s story just clicked with me, and while I admit that it’s time, it saddens me to say goodbye.

Review: The Here and Now

Author: Ann Brashares
Series: Standalone
Released: January 1st 2015
Publisher: Hodder Children's
Length: 303 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

Thrilling, exhilarating, haunting and heartbreaking, The Here and Now is a twenty-first-century take of an impossible romance. 

There are rules.

Never reveal where you’re from.Never be intimate with anyone outside the community.And never interfere with history. 

Seventeen-year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn't come from a different country, she came from a different time - a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. 

Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules. Prenna does as she's told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth and take the lives of her younger brothers. But everything changes when she falls for Ethan. 

She might be able to save the world ... if she lets go of the one thing she's found to hold on to. 

Having read several negative reviews back when The Here and Now was first released, I nevertheless decided to give it a fair chance hoping I would feel differently, as I sometimes do. The opening part seemed very promising, which allowed me to think my stubbornness would be rewarded, but it quickly became clear that my opinion would align with those of several trusted friends. The Here and Now is not a bad book as such, but I found it lacking in characterization, scientific background and sometimes, unfortunately, even common sense.

Review: Naked in Death

Author: J.D. Robb
Series: In Death, #1
Released: October 10th 2010
Publisher: Piatkus
Length: 360 pages
Buy: Amazon

It is the year 2058, and technology now completely rules the world. But New York City Detective Eve Dallas knows that the irresistible impulses of the human heart are still ruled by just one thing-passion. 

When a senator's daughter is killed, the secret life of prostitution she'd been leading is revealed. The high-profile case takes Lieutenant Eve Dallas into the rarefied circles of Washing-ton politics and society. 

Further complicating matters is Eve's growing attraction to Roarke, who is one of the wealthiest and most influential men on the planet, devilishly handsome... and the leading suspect in the investigation. 

I’ve done with this series something I’ve never done before, jumped right in with the latest installment and skipped everything that came before. I soon realized my mistake, though. While each book can easily function as a standalone, missing even a word of this enchanting series is a crime. So here I am, going back to the beginning, meeting Eve and Roarke in their early days and sharing their journey from the start.

Review: Symbiont

Author: Mira Grant
Series: Parasitology, #2
Released: November 25th 2014
Publisher: Orbit
Length: 518 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

THE SECOND BOOK IN MIRA GRANT'S TERRIFYING PARASITOLOGY SERIES.

THE ENEMY IS INSIDE US.

The SymboGen designed tapeworms were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world's population began attacking their hosts turning them into a ravenous horde.

Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the tapeworms are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is, and how they can be stopped.

Usually when a duology becomes a trilogy or a trilogy becomes a more lengthy series overnight, I grumble and complain and become instantly resentful of both the author and the publisher. But when I discovered that this duology somehow grew to become a trilogy, I felt nothing but satisfaction and joy. More books from Mira Grant are always good news to me. In fact, if Parasitology suddenly became a 180 books long medical thriller/soap opera hybrid, I’d still be a happy camper. That’s how much I admire this author and trust in her ability to always, always deliver.

Mini Review: Descent

Author: Ken MacLeod
Series: Standalone
Released: November 18th 2014
Publisher: Orbit
Length: 403 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

HOW FAR WOULD YOU GO FOR THE TRUTH? Ball lightning. Weather balloons. Secret military aircraft. Ryan knows all the justifications for UFO sightings. But when something falls out of the sky on the hills near his small Scottish town, he finds his cynicism can't identify or explain the phenomenon. And in a future where nothing is a secret, where everything is recorded on CCTV or reported online, why can he find no evidence of the UFO, nor anything to shed light on what occurred? Is it the political revolutionaries, is it the government or is it aliens themselves who are creating the cover-up? Or does the very idea of a cover-up hide the biggest secret of all?

Can you imagine a wonderful, light science-fiction novel set in Scotland, with delightful Scottish accents, spaceships (possibly) landing in the moor, and unruly Scottish boys with very wild imaginations? Well guess what, as lovely as it sounds, you don’t have to imagine it, Ken MacLeod already did it for us.

Review: The Body Electric

Author: Beth Revis
Series: Standalone
Released: October 6th 2014
Publisher: Scripturient Books
Length: 482 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Body Electric

The future world is at peace.

Ella Shepherd has dedicated her life to using her unique gift—the ability to enter people’s dreams and memories using technology developed by her mother—to help others relive their happy memories.

But not all is at it seems.

Ella starts seeing impossible things—images of her dead father, warnings of who she cannot trust. Her government recruits her to spy on a rebel group, using her ability to experience—and influence—the memories of traitors. But the leader of the rebels claims they used to be in love—even though Ella’s never met him before in her life. Which can only mean one thing…

Someone’s altered her memory.

Ella’s gift is enough to overthrow a corrupt government or crush a growing rebel group. She is the key to stopping a war she didn’t even know was happening. But if someone else has been inside Ella’s head, she cannot trust her own memories, thoughts, or feelings.

So who can she trust?

For a while after I finished The Body Electric, I struggled to gather my thoughts and figure out how to appropriately express my feelings. My experience with this book felt, for those few shocked minutes, far too important to be put into my unskilled English sentences. But I had to try, I had to do what I can to help this book get the attention it absolutely deserves.

Review and Giveaway: The Bodies We Wear

Author: Jeyn Roberts
Series: Bodies We Wear, #1
Released: September 23 2014
Publisher: Knopf BfYR
Lenght: 368 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Amazon

A streetwise girl trains to take on a gang of drug dealers and avenge her best friend’s death in this thriller for fans of Scott Westerfeld and Robin Wasserman. 

People say when you take Heam, your body momentarily dies and you catch a glimpse of heaven. Faye was only eleven when dealers forced Heam on her and her best friend, Christian. But Faye didn’t glimpse heaven—she saw hell. And Christian died. 

Now Faye spends her days hiding her secret from the kids at school, and her nights training to take revenge on the men who destroyed her life and murdered her best friend. But life never goes the way we think it will. When a mysterious young man named Chael appears, Faye's plan suddenly gets a lot more complicated. Chael seems to know everything about her, including her past. But too many secrets start tearing her world apart: trouble at school, with the police, and with the people she thought might be her friends. Even Gazer, her guardian, fears she's become too obsessed with vengeance. Love and death. Will Faye overcome her desires, or will her quest for revenge consume her?

The Bodies We Wear is my first book by Jeyn Roberts (although I own several) and I’m thrilled to have discovered an author with such a wonderful, strong voice. The story is in many ways deeply philosophical – it gives us plenty to think about as we put ourselves in Faye’s shoes and try to imagine what it would take for us to survive in her world.

Short and Exciting: Expiration Day and Whisper the Dead

Author: William Campbell Powell
Series: Standalone
Released: April 22nd 2014
Publisher: Tor Teen
Length: 336 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: Expiration Day

What happens when you turn eighteen and there are no more tomorrows?

It is the year 2049, and humanity is on the brink of extinction….

Tania Deeley has always been told that she’s a rarity: a human child in a world where most children are sophisticated androids manufactured by Oxted Corporation. When a decline in global fertility ensued, it was the creation of these near-perfect human copies called teknoids that helped to prevent the utter collapse of society.

Though she has always been aware of the existence of teknoids, it is not until her first day at The Lady Maud High School for Girls that Tania realizes that her best friend, Siân, may be one. Returning home from the summer holiday, she is shocked by how much Siân has changed. Is it possible that these changes were engineered by Oxted? And if Siân could be a teknoid, how many others in Tania’s life are not real?

Driven by the need to understand what sets teknoids apart from their human counterparts, Tania begins to seek answers. But time is running out. For everyone knows that on their eighteenth “birthdays,” teknoids must be returned to Oxted—never to be heard from again.

At first glance, Expiration Day may seem more appropriate for a middle grade audience, and perhaps it is. The protagonist is young and her voice is very immature, almost childish at times. But at the same time, William Powell’s thought-provoking book raises some very important existential and philosophical questions, things we all need to think about, regardless of our age. The bones of this story are certainly nothing new in the world of literature: a society that rarely produces children chooses to fill the void with teknoids, robot children that live a normal childhood until their eighteenth birthday. The teknoids are crafted exceptionally well; most of them don’t even know they’re not human until Oxted, the company that manufactured them, comes to collect them when they become of age.