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Across The Universe by Beth Revis
The Blurb On The Back:
Amy has left the life she loves for a world 300 years away.
Trapped in space and frozen in time, Amy is bound for a new planet. But fifty years before she’s due to arrive, she is violently woken, the victim of an attempted murder. Now Amy’s lost on board and nothing makes sense – she’s never felt so alone …
Yet someone is waiting for her. He wants to protect her – and more if she’ll let him.
But who can she trust amidst the secrets and lies? A killer is out there – and Amy has nowhere to hide …
In the near future, Earth is caught up in a perfect storm of economic crisis and dwindling resources. When a viable planet is identified in the Centauri system, the decision’s taken to send colonists there on a ship called the Godspeed. 16-year-old Amy’s parents are selected to go and Amy has to accompany them. Because the journey to Centauri will take 300 years, the colonists are put into cryo-sleep but Amy’s woken 50 years early when someone tries to kill her.
She’s rescued by 16-year-old Elder who’s been raised to be the Godspeed’s next leader by Eldest, a cantankerous old man who Elder suspects is deliberately holding him back. As she tries to adjust to her new world, Amy realises that something’s dreadfully wrong. Hitler’s regarded as a model leader and the ship’s inhabitants are weirdly emotionless and unquestioning – all except those who are kept medicated in the ship’s hospital. As she and Elder realise that someone’s set on killing the colonists, they find the answers lie in the Godspeed’s past and in still darker secrets of its present …
Beth Revis’s debut YA SF novel (the first in a trilogy) is a well-written story with solid speculative elements and a plot that moves quickly without sacrificing character development. The romance is (thankfully) underplayed with Revis more interested in the power dynamics on board the ship and how the society developed.
I liked the way Revis shows Emily grappling with her new surroundings – by turns lost, angry and confused. I believed her fears for her parents and her shock at learning that she’d be old by the time they woke up, which forms a nice counterpoint to her initial reluctance to join them in the first place. Elder was equally well drawn – naturally curious but unsure of his own abilities, his scenes with the cunning, Lear-like Eldest contain some powerhouse moments and I believed in his friendship with and jealousy of the artistic Harley.
However, the identity of the killer is easy to guess and neither Amy nor Elder makes any real attempt to work out who it is. I also found the ending too rushed and the way it tied up some ends too pat, while the allusions to Hitler a little too heavy-handed. That said, I did enjoy the book and will definitely be reading the next one in the trilogy.
The Verdict:
Beth Revis’s debut YA SF novel (the first in a trilogy) is a well-written story with solid speculative elements and a plot that moves quickly without sacrificing character development. The romance is (thankfully) underplayed with Revis more interested in the power dynamics on board the ship and how the society developed. However, the identity of the killer is easy to guess and neither Amy nor Elder makes any real attempt to work out who it is. I also found the ending too rushed and the way it tied up some ends too pat, while the allusions to Hitler a little too heavy-handed. That said, I did enjoy the book and will definitely be reading the next one in the trilogy.
Trapped in space and frozen in time, Amy is bound for a new planet. But fifty years before she’s due to arrive, she is violently woken, the victim of an attempted murder. Now Amy’s lost on board and nothing makes sense – she’s never felt so alone …
Yet someone is waiting for her. He wants to protect her – and more if she’ll let him.
But who can she trust amidst the secrets and lies? A killer is out there – and Amy has nowhere to hide …
In the near future, Earth is caught up in a perfect storm of economic crisis and dwindling resources. When a viable planet is identified in the Centauri system, the decision’s taken to send colonists there on a ship called the Godspeed. 16-year-old Amy’s parents are selected to go and Amy has to accompany them. Because the journey to Centauri will take 300 years, the colonists are put into cryo-sleep but Amy’s woken 50 years early when someone tries to kill her.
She’s rescued by 16-year-old Elder who’s been raised to be the Godspeed’s next leader by Eldest, a cantankerous old man who Elder suspects is deliberately holding him back. As she tries to adjust to her new world, Amy realises that something’s dreadfully wrong. Hitler’s regarded as a model leader and the ship’s inhabitants are weirdly emotionless and unquestioning – all except those who are kept medicated in the ship’s hospital. As she and Elder realise that someone’s set on killing the colonists, they find the answers lie in the Godspeed’s past and in still darker secrets of its present …
Beth Revis’s debut YA SF novel (the first in a trilogy) is a well-written story with solid speculative elements and a plot that moves quickly without sacrificing character development. The romance is (thankfully) underplayed with Revis more interested in the power dynamics on board the ship and how the society developed.
I liked the way Revis shows Emily grappling with her new surroundings – by turns lost, angry and confused. I believed her fears for her parents and her shock at learning that she’d be old by the time they woke up, which forms a nice counterpoint to her initial reluctance to join them in the first place. Elder was equally well drawn – naturally curious but unsure of his own abilities, his scenes with the cunning, Lear-like Eldest contain some powerhouse moments and I believed in his friendship with and jealousy of the artistic Harley.
However, the identity of the killer is easy to guess and neither Amy nor Elder makes any real attempt to work out who it is. I also found the ending too rushed and the way it tied up some ends too pat, while the allusions to Hitler a little too heavy-handed. That said, I did enjoy the book and will definitely be reading the next one in the trilogy.
The Verdict:
Beth Revis’s debut YA SF novel (the first in a trilogy) is a well-written story with solid speculative elements and a plot that moves quickly without sacrificing character development. The romance is (thankfully) underplayed with Revis more interested in the power dynamics on board the ship and how the society developed. However, the identity of the killer is easy to guess and neither Amy nor Elder makes any real attempt to work out who it is. I also found the ending too rushed and the way it tied up some ends too pat, while the allusions to Hitler a little too heavy-handed. That said, I did enjoy the book and will definitely be reading the next one in the trilogy.