TITLE: Light Years
AUTHOR: Kass Morgan
RELEASES: October 9th 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
GENRE: Teens + YA Sci-Fi
Like dancing – if your partner was armed with 140 megatons of explosives.
In Illumicrate’s May box, we unexpectedly received an exclusive ARC of Light Years. On first look, I was sure I wouldn’t like Light Years much…boy, was I wrong! See, until very recently, sci-fi hasn’t really been my bag. Ever since reading the likes of The Lux Series, Illuminae and LIFEL1K3 (review here), that’s really changed! Holy damn, Kristoff has changed my life… I’m starting to love the space setting and ‘other life forms live in space’ approaches.
He’d always known he was a wiseass who’d never amount to anything.
This novel is so multi-cultured and diverse! There are serious LGBT themes and the characters all hail from various planets, making for a serious melting pot of personalities. You have your opposition to mixing the academy (damn racist shitheads), of course, but a major part of the premise is based on inviting in new skills and untapped potential from the ‘Settlers.’ These characters really show us that different does not mean less than capable. They also hilarious, unique, and interesting. There’s even an infiltrator! I especially loved that it was told from multiple viewpoints. I felt we get so much more from the story this way.
“We’re shaped by our pasts, but we’re not defined by them. We can all make choices.”
So, why not 5 stars if I loved it so much? Well, I feel like there could have been more depth to a few of the characters, as well as the plot itself. I realise this is the first in a new series, but I got through it very quickly and still had some questions. I feel like the relationships should have taken more of a backseat to the actual storyline of being new to the Academy and the strife between the Quatra Fleet and their sworn enemy. That cliffhanger, though, really redeemed the whole thing! I’m definitely going to be reading book 2!
AMAZON | BOOKDEPOSITORY| GOODREADS
Ender’s Game meets The 100 as hidden secrets and forbidden love collide at an interstellar military boarding school in a new sci-fi series from New York Times bestselling author Kass Morgan.
Reeling from the latest attack by a mysterious enemy, the Quatra Fleet Academy is finally admitting students from every planet in the solar system after centuries of exclusivity.
Hotshot pilot Vesper, an ambitious Tridian citizen, dreams of becoming a captain–but when she loses her spot to a brilliant, wisecracking boy from the wrong side of the asteroid belt, it makes her question everything she thought she knew. Growing up on the toxic planet Deva, Cormak will take any chance he can get to escape his dead-end life and join the Academy–even if he has to steal someone’s identity to do it. Arran was always considered an outsider on icy Chetire, always dreaming of something more than a life working in the mines. Now an incoming cadet, Arran is looking for a place to belong–he just never thought that place would be in the arms of a Tridian boy. And Orelia is hiding a dark secret–she’s infiltrated the Academy to complete a mission, one that threatens the security of everyone there. But if anyone finds out who she really is, it’ll be her life on the line.
These cadets will have to put their differences aside and become a team if they want to defend their world from a cunning enemy–and they might even fall in love in the process.
Light Years is the first book in a thrilling and romantic new sci-fi series from the bestselling author of The 100.
If you’ve read this already, what did you think? Love it or think it needed a bit more? Leave me a note in the comments!
Thank you so much to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers and Illumicrate for providing me with an ARC. All quotes are taken from an ARC and may not match the final release.
The Wayfaring Bibliomaniac 