The series is Sentinels of the Galaxy by Maria V. Snyder. There are currently two books: Navigating the Stars & Chasing the Shadows. Beware of spoilers in the following reflection.
Maria V Snyder’s Sentinels of the Galaxy series currently has two books. The third is not out until November, but it is already on my reading list. So, short review – I like this series.
The first book, Navigating the Stars, follows Lyra Daniels as she is forced to move across the Milky Way Galaxy to a new planet because of her parents’ research. Her parents are expert archaeologists studying terracotta warriors found on different planets. Lyra is nearly 18 Actual Years old and she definitely acts like a teenager. She spends time getting into trouble on the advanced data-communications-navigations system, the Q-net. But there are troubles ahead when looters come and attack the dig site. Lyra is drawn into danger. The book ends with Lyra’s death and her subsequent resurrection as Ara Lawrence.
The second book, Chasing the Shadows, continues to follow the first person narrative style of Ara Lawrence (aka Lyra Daniels). To hide the fact she isn’t permanently dead (only flatlined for a few seconds), Ara became a security officer for the dig site. Using her rapidly growing worming skills (future based hacking), Ara needs to track down the bad guys who not only looted the dig site, but destroyed many terracotta warriors and released the alien shadow-blobs. These hostile life forms (HoLFs) are deadly and growing in intelligence.
I read the first book a few weeks back (maybe a couple of months) and I don’t remember all the details very well. But I feel like I actually prefer book two to the first book. Which is very unusual. As for why I liked Chasing the Shadows better, I think it had more explanation. There was more science, more aliens and generally more explanation of the plot. The first book was more about Lyra/Ara and setting up the world. But the second book was more about explaining the world, about finding answers. And these were interesting answers. I suppose in many ways the second book was more fantasy than the first book.
The author’s take on space travel was interesting. It is generally not my favourite way of dealing with the space travel, but it ranks high for most thoughtful. In this world, there exists a Crinkle Machine, that connects two distant points in space. For this reason ships (and their passengers) are able to travel great distances in the blink of an eye – but with constraints. They are traveling into the future. So while it may not seem like very long inside the Crinkle Process, the rest of their friends and relatives are aging. And actually, Snyder did a good job selling this feature. It was rather sad when you thought about it. But people continued to travel and to age differently than those left on planets.
It does raise some questions, like why those people from Earth manage to maintain the same sorts of outlooks. But for the people on the outer reaches of explored space, it is an interesting problem.
One of the aspects that I don’t love is the teenager-ness of the main character. While, Lyra/Ara is well written and reasonably believable. I find that I am at a point in my personal life when I really don’t want to read about teenagers. They are a strange mix of child (classified as someone adults readily ignore and who sees adults as one dimensional beings) and adult (classified as someone who can be trained in combat). Teenagers are hormonal, with epicly dramatic relationships. And while Snyder does a pretty good job of balancing out Lyra/Ara with her parents being present, it is still one of my least favourite aspects of the books.
Still, these books are well written. They have an interesting take on space, travel and aliens. The characters are complex, detailed and well crafted. And the story is interesting. Rating of 5 out of 5 stars (or 4.5 if I am feeling stingy). Good stories, definitely recommend. And truthfully I am excited for the next book.