Many years before the start of this story, the Earth had become unable to continue to support much life living on it’s surface. It’s resources had been almost completely depleted. If human life were to continue, it would need to find somewhere else to live. The populace built a new home orbiting the planet out of every space-faring craft they could find. Over time, the earth began to heal and people were once again able to begin living on the surface. More years passed and what had once been one society, developed into two: Unity (run by the Unity People’s Guard up on the space station) and the Earthers (those who lived on the planet’s surface.
Hart James is a prisoner being held in a prison camp on Planet Earth. He had been born and lived on Unity, but life up there is strictly controlled and regulated by the UPG. He became a member of a rebel group known as the Freestanders and with them he had fought for more freedoms for the people on Unity. Life on Unity is also much more dependent on technology than life on Earth, which is much more nature based. While the two societies had started as one long ago, they are now extremely different from each other. Even their languages have diverged significantly from each other, making it quite difficult for those on Earth to communicate with those who were born and raised on Unity.
Freestander rebels who are caught are sent to live and work on Earth, where life is much more difficult. Earthers grow the food that is then sent to Unity to feed the population on the space station. As they do not have the technology available on Unity, life is harsher, and those sent to the prison camp are not likely to ever be able to return to their family & friends living on the space station. Of course that does not stop them from trying to escape anyway.
I liked this book. Ms. Landry has written a very interesting sci-fi tale that has a bit of romance thrown in as well. Watching the interaction between the Unity prisoners and the Earther farmers and the difficulties they had when it came to communication because of language issues made the story all the more intriguing. At first I had a slight bit of difficulty reading the book because of what I thought were spelling errors/typos, but I quickly came to realize were meant to show the change in the language as words had evolved and changed over time. Once I realized that, reading the story became much simpler and more enjoyable for me. I would recommend this book to my friends and am very interested in reading book 2 in this series once it is available.
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