SOJALS rating:

Awful (1/5)

I first read this on the 1st July 2003.

In a future America, a disastrous drought has led to civil war, splitting the continent. The American East fights the West. British Columbia struggles to remains neutral.

The civilian areas on both sides are targeted for light raids, the use of space-based lasers to wantonly destroy large areas of the surface. Everyone is at risk. Many families have evacuated their children to British Columbia to be safe from the wanton destruction.

The Hellene Family are well placed in the Hydra Company in Denver Springs. Dares Hellene is Security chief, his wife Medea is chief scientist. Their daughter Ariadne is a bright but innocent sixteen-year-old looking forward to working as a biologist alongside her mother.

But increasing danger from light raid attacks has obliged Ariadne's parents to evacuate her to neutral Victoria. She's sixteen years old, an enthusiastic, trainee biologist and now she is forced to work as nursemaid to group of younger children in the house of the unpleasant Mrs Ponsonby. Ariadne is unhappy and frustrated.

When the weekly letters from her father stop coming and when her mother's letters have taken on an unfamiliar character, Ariadne knows that something is wrong. She decides it is time to run away from Victoria, and return to her parents. She really has no idea what she is letting herself in for.

It's difficult to determine when in the future this is presumed to occur. The culture has changed quite dramatically, there is a strong Greek influence over Western America and it is hard to imagine how that could arise in the next fifty years or so. However the feel of the plot is that of some Victorian romance.

It's written with Connie Willis' normal fast-moving style, but is clearly intended for a teenage, and perhaps a female teenage, market.

This is a fairly enjoyable read but nothing special. Surprisingly mediocre for Connie.