Title: Vessel
Publication date: May 2015
Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.
Author: Lisa T. Cresswell
The sun exploded on April 18, 2112. It exploded in a Class X solar storm the likes of which humankind had never seen.
They had nineteen minutes.
Nineteen minutes until the geomagnetic wave washed over the Earth, frying every electrical device created by humans, blacking out entire continents, every satellite in their sky.
Nineteen minutes to say goodbye to the world they knew, forever, and to prepare for a new Earth, a new Sun.
Generations after solar storms have destroyed nearly all human technology on Earth and humans have reverted to a middle ages like existence, all knowledge of the remaining technology is kept hidden by a privileged few called the Reticents and books are burned as heresy.
Alana, a disfigured slave girl, and Recks, a traveling minstrel and sometimes-thief, join forces to bring knowledge and books back to the human race. But when Alana is chosen against her will to be the Vessel, the living repository for all human knowledge, she must find the strength to be what the world needs.
PURCHASE LINKS
I would like to thank the author for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Doing so does not sway my review in any way.
I love dystopian and you can't get much more dystopian than this. 50 years prior to the story the world was basically wiped clean of data, electronically held information, etc, by a solar storm. There's some information still out there, but it's held on tightly by a small group. This is the story of Alana, a slave girl, and her life.
I liked Alana right away. I could sense her resentment and anger and could understand her, as a person. As the author tells us the story, she also allows us to get to know Alana in a way that a reader normally doesn't. Instead of filling in the blanks as they come, we are pretty much given Alana's life as it is happening.
Recks...Alana's saving grace. He comes on the scene and the author gives us even more to admire about Alana and the story. Recks becomes more than someone to admire and Alana knows that she needs to know more from and about him.
A fast paced story that hits the action hard and doesn't disappoint the reader. So many twist and turns but not a distraction but a welcome addition, because that just means there's so much more to know and learn. A welcome book to the dystopian genre and mature readers will enjoy this.
ABOUT LISA T. CRESSWELL:
Lisa, like most writers, began scribbling silly notes, stories, and poems at a very young age. Born in North Carolina, the South proved fertile ground to her imagination with its beautiful white sand beaches and red earth. In fifth grade, she wrote, directed and starred in a play “The Queen of the Nile” at school, despite the fact that she is decidedly un-Egyptian looking. Perhaps that’s why she went on to become a real life archaeologist?
Unexpectedly transplanted to Idaho as a teenager, Lisa learned to love the desert and the wide open skies out West. This is where her interest in cultures, both ancient and living, really took root, and she became a Great Basin archaeologist. However, the itch to write never did leave for long. Her first books became the middle grade fantasy trilogy, The Storyteller Series. Her first traditionally published work, Hush Puppy, is now available from Featherweight Press.
Lisa still lives in Idaho with her family and a menagerie of furry critters that includes way too many llamas!
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