(Pendomus Chronicles, #1)
Publication date: October 10th, 2013
Genres: Dystopia, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Synopsis:
Humanity has colonized on a tidally locked planet known as Pendomus, a planet of extremes. Half eternal scorching desert and half perpetual arctic night. Surviving along the temperate band between the two, we’ve set up home in a complex known as the Helix. Within the Helix lies a highly sophisticated, highly technological society functioning solely on humans fulfilling their life’s purpose. That purpose is determined and nurtured through a person’s natural aptitudes, as read by their daily brain scans. Eating, sleeping, even procreation is handled by professionals. These basic concepts, no longer a part of society’s every day norm.
Seventeen-year-old Runa Cophem longs to be more than part of the Helix machine. Her life inside is anything but fulfilling. She feels disconnected, and longs to be more than society dictates. Inside, no one socializes, no one interacts in a meaningful way. It’s never set right with Runa. She would love nothing more than to reach out to her family, but not even her own mother can show any semblance of love for her. Instead, Runa has found solace in the ancient woods nearby, despite being strictly forbidden.
Runa’s life takes an unforeseen turn when she’s brutally attacked, and left for dead in those woods near the Helix. Rescued by a stranger with blue hair, she’s immersed into a surprising way humanity has survived. Fueled by a yearning to belong, and an attraction she didn’t even know was possible, Runa wants desperately to make a new life. Yet, there’s much she doesn’t know about herself, about the planet and the forces controlling her from afar.
What she needs is some answers.
Seventeen-year-old Runa Cophem longs to be more than part of the Helix machine. Her life inside is anything but fulfilling. She feels disconnected, and longs to be more than society dictates. Inside, no one socializes, no one interacts in a meaningful way. It’s never set right with Runa. She would love nothing more than to reach out to her family, but not even her own mother can show any semblance of love for her. Instead, Runa has found solace in the ancient woods nearby, despite being strictly forbidden.
Runa’s life takes an unforeseen turn when she’s brutally attacked, and left for dead in those woods near the Helix. Rescued by a stranger with blue hair, she’s immersed into a surprising way humanity has survived. Fueled by a yearning to belong, and an attraction she didn’t even know was possible, Runa wants desperately to make a new life. Yet, there’s much she doesn’t know about herself, about the planet and the forces controlling her from afar.
What she needs is some answers.
Purchase:
Born and raised in central MN, Carissa Andrews has always loved books. She started her career at 15 in a bookstore, just to be able to afford her book fetish. By 19, she worked for a magazine publisher. At 22, she was working for printers to learn their trade. At 27, she went back to school for graphic design, and became an award winning designer. Little did she know all of her experiences would lead her to becoming a self-publishing power house.
At 31, a magical world on a planet far away, invaded her mind.
At 34, she’s learned what she needs to make her work successful.
Pendomus (Book 1 of the Pendomus Chronicles) will be released OCTOBER 10, 2013.
At 31, a magical world on a planet far away, invaded her mind.
At 34, she’s learned what she needs to make her work successful.
Pendomus (Book 1 of the Pendomus Chronicles) will be released OCTOBER 10, 2013.
Author Links:
I really liked this very different sci-fi/paranormal type book. Its hard to really describe without really giving anything away.
I want to keep this spoiler free as well, as some of the shockers are what were the best parts of the story.
I liked how the point of view would swap between the 2 main characters the female, Runa, and the male Trae, and I really liked both of them. It was a refreshing read for me, as it was so different and new for me.
I liked the mystery surrounding Runa as well, and some of the special things about her, again, do not want to spoil it for you.
This book is a well written one, and think anyone who likes a little different, or sci-fi/paranormal/dystopia in a YA Fantasy type, will love it as much as I did.
I highly recommend it, and give it 5 out of 5 stars. And also, how awesome is that cover too?? It’s amazing, and is what attracted me to the book in the first place.
I was given a copy of this book from the author for my honest review.
Excerpt (Part of Chapter One)
CHAPTER ONE
Runa
A long, abrasive, invisible tongue grazes the fleshy part of my left cheek. The creature snorts beside my ear, but I can’t bear to turn my head. My mind plays tricks, rippling my memory until all that remains is an intangible, cold touch. I don’t have the power left in me to fight.
How do you fight something you can’t even see?
Hot breath flashes across my frozen cheek as a muzzle nudges along my neck, making me shiver. The creature takes slow, deliberate inhalations, edging to my ear, into my hairline. Repulsed by the intimacy of its touch, the burden of consciousness threatens to depart.
“Runa, you know what’s waiting outside. You can’t possibly be so stupid as to think you can live in the elements alone. I know you don’t believe me, but the Morph is out there. With the way its evolutionary leap defied nature, no one can predict what it’s capable of now. You need to respect that. Besides, RationCaps aren’t hidden in the woods. Food doesn’t grow on dead trees, you know.” The memory of Baxten’s warning echoes from the past.
Regardless of my brother’s admonishment, I had to take the chance. After everything that’s happened, after all that I’d be losing… I knew he’d never understand, but unfortunately, now he never will.
The Morph’s sticky tongue returns, paying particular attention to my eye socket, drenching the area in saliva. The viscous liquid pools in my eyelashes, cementing my eyelids together. Whatever its intention, it plans to take its time. I swallow hard and will death to claim me.
For a moment, darkness consumes everything. My eyes flutter open as my long white hair whips across my face. The delicate braids I’d taken so much time to arrange this morning would blend into the snow beneath me, if I weren’t staining it crimson. The sweet stench lingers in the air, tugging my impulse to gag.
With no warning and even less fanfare, the Morph’s claws slice through the flesh above my left eye. My skull screeches as claw contacts bone and an instant later squishes unceremoniously through my eyeball.
Suddenly, I’m four again. The smell of death carries from the present, clear through to the memory. But now, I can’t take my eyes off my father’s sunken face. The light in his warm brown eyes is gone, yet I clutch his hand, desperate to keep his essence somehow attached to his body. The room vibrates, pulsing with an energy that makes my skin crawl and my stomach lurch. The medics arrive, wrenching my hand from his without thought, and wheel him from my life. So I will move on. So we’ll all go on as if he never existed … So we’ll forget.
But I never did.
I still hear his deep, boisterous laugh echoing through the main corridor of our Living Quarters. I remember the way my head bobbed up and down on his chest when he held me close. The way he always smelled like engine grease and electricity. I recall his last few moments, his last few breaths, as if I’d taken them myself.
To have him treated like that … his body destroyed without so much as a salutation to a life once lived felt wrong.
I blink away the memory, fighting through saliva, sweat, and blood.
The Morph’s enormous paw dangles above me, covered red so it can take the shape of my would-be killer. He’s massive, easily ten times the size of my frail body. My vision blurs, my head lolls to the side as I wait for the end.
Between the branches of this barren forest, snowflakes flitter through the air. They accentuate the blazing array of color from the sun as it hangs heavy in its locked region of the horizon. The halo is bright today, wrapping around the orb in a circular rainbow.
This place between life and oblivion is surprisingly peaceful.
Little gray birds gather in the trees. They call back and forth, seeming to be speaking to each other about me. A few scratch at the dirty snow beside me, looking for something. Their hops are odd, scritching back, a quick hop forward, just to start all over again. My memory download on animal resurrections from Earth called them juncos. Kind of a funny name.
One in particular hops closer, tilting its head from side to side, examining me, this dying bag of flesh and blood in front of him. The junco has beautiful black eyes and a white beak—an oddity, since the others’ are yellow. A small smile breaks across my lips, and I chuckle.
He’s just as different as I am.
The quiet silence with the birds is interrupted as a ferocious howl snaps me back to the present. Seconds later, my body makes a crevasse in the snow and slams backward, hitting an enormous tree. What little vision I have blurs and takes on a brighter, more intense quality. The Morph pushes my upper body through a huge gash in the side of the tree, dangling me partway inside. My scalp tingles as the inner chamber of the tree resonates all round me.
The birds screech, and the one with the white beak swiftly dives in. His little gray body is so small, and his swooping gesture does nothing to distract my attacker. Pinned inside the tree under a dripping paw, I watch again as the bird circles in, and like a bomb, dives. The Morph grunts as the bird bounces off the nothing that should be its back.
The air ripples around us as the tiny bird lands in a heap beside the tree’s entrance. Gray feathers ruffle in the breeze on an otherwise still body. Slowly, its white beak parts, to offer a final exhalation.
The unfairness tugs at my heart.
How could something so innocent give its life for me? What a waste.
My hair whips in circles, striking the sides of my cheeks, attacking my tears for even attempting to emerge. The tears burn, and I struggle to blink away the blood streaming into my remaining eye. The massive structure I’ve lived in my whole life comes into focus.
The Helix.
For the first time I can remember, disgust bubbles at the building’s stark contrast of glass and metal with this forest of dead trees. Out here, the gnarly dark branches rise into the sky like they’re orchestrating the celestial sphere. Some of the trees are ancient; their trunks command the space of a building, and for as long as I can remember, they’ve called out to me, whispering their stories of memories long forgotten.
It’s unfortunate humanity never got to witness them in their glory. The Helix’s history downloads tell us no life existed on this planet before the colonization happened. Yet, I’d hoped to be granted a way to study them as part of my professional appointment. With the way Pendomus is tidally locked, we know little can survive on its own. Humanity has been lucky. We’ve found survival on this temperate band between the desert and frozen tundra.
Supposedly, we brought the spark of creation with us. However, this remnant of the past, when life had sustained itself, is evident. Even in this landscape of hushed sounds and broken fragments of a life different from my own, life finds a way. This knowledge has always granted me comfort.
I’m probably the only one in all of Pendomus who thinks this way. These woods had been my place of peace. It’s hard to believe only days ago I thought I’d been given a sign, a trinket from these woods. A simple blue crystal that held so much, a promise my journey ahead would be bearable, maybe even beautiful. I wish I’d brought it along instead of leaving it behind inside the Helix for Baxten to remember me.
The Morph snorts, evidently nonplussed by the bird’s feeble attack. He bends in, lapping up the sticky red liquid from my face and nudging my head for better access. With no fight left in me, I blink slowly, allowing the intrusion to continue. Bright light pours into my vision, and I’m floating … floating … A pulse of heat spreads from my right side, and through me, all the way down to my toes. The warmth surrounds me, cocooning me in a blanket of serenity.
Finally. The end.
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