2020-11-02
In this middle-grade SF novel, a girl discovers she’s the prophesied savior of a planet.
On the eve of her 12th birthday, red-haired Sam Sanderson is missing her parents. They’ve been gone for nine months on a secret, interplanetary government mission, and there’s no word on when they’ll return. One night, in the barn on the farm where Sam lives with her grandfather, she discovers a strange blue-skinned boy with golden eyes named Boj. He’s from the planet Kryg, where Sam’s parents stopped to refuel their ship. They asked him to deliver a note and some birthday presents, including an unusual device called a klug, which Sam must activate to return Boj to his home world. She accompanies him to Kryg, where she learns that Earth is threatened by environmental disaster, that Kryg’s sun is dying, and that she’s fated by prophecy to save them both by discovering “the Hopewell Star.” The Krygians call her Queen Samantha and allow her to return home to Earth, where she joins her grandfather in moving from their small New Brunswick town to the province’s city of Moncton. Home-schooled until now, Sam attends public school there; she’s apprehensive but soon adjusts, making friends who join her as she works on finding the star. She’s aided by meditative mind-traveling techniques that she learned, first from a book and then from other Mind Travelers. Meanwhile, billionaire Titus Dyaderos, the CEO of TitusTech Industries, is desperate to get his hands on perilium, an element crucial to his plans for escaping a dying Earth. Kryg’s moon has perilium, so Titus’ nefarious plans include seeking out klugs for study and kidnapping Mind Travelers in the hope of reaching Kryg and taking over its supply. Meanwhile, factional tensions on Kryg endanger Sam’s mission. If she doesn’t prevail, two planets face destruction.In her debut novel, State takes the basic structure of a portal fantasy—a seemingly ordinary youngster enters another world, is named the chosen one, and gains special powers—and makes it a trellis for intertwining plots that offer more original complications than usual. True, Sam’s qualifications as a uniquely pure-spirited person seem rather arbitrary, related to her rescuing a dog, which feels like a low bar. That said, the fantasy elements are bolstered by other, more believable ones, such as Earth’s chief conflict: the specter of environmental collapse through corporate greed and overreach, which has real force. It also provides some irony, as Titus wants to escape the very pollution that his corporation helped to create. Kryg’s fanciful charm is balanced by its engagingly gritty rebels, who scribble graffiti such as “ELDERS TELL LIES” and “NOT MY QUEEN.” Similarly, State brings Kryg to life as a unique world, not merely an echo of Earth. Its low gravity, for example, means that surface lakes are only possible through technology that creates a location-specific, pressurized atmosphere. Sam’s school situation, with new classes, allies, and enemies, gives richer context to her challenge of saving the world and surviving seventh grade.
A well thought out, entertaining fantasy adventure that works on several levels.
