Review: Fascinating story and world, with some heavy concepts
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 12, 2014
This is a really unique world and cast of characters, with very few being cleanly in the "good" or "evil" camp, although even those who straddle that line into the more questionable ethical areas are very well-drawn and believable and often extremely sympathetic. The story starts out with a group of young soldiers readying to take their final exams to be admitted into the "soldier" class of a roughly 3-caste society system, where everyone is either a breeder type, a soldier or one of the cultivating (farming) class. One of those soldiers, Raine, is female, and as a result, we see her being discriminated against for not choosing to be a breeder like most women, and forced to endure more strenuous trials and bullying as a result.At first, the whole storyline seems to live inside a wholly made up, even prehistoric type society, but not long after the trials take place, events take a turn and spin out of Raine's control...and soon we find out we're actually in a dystopian version of the United States, and that most of the remaining society is far from the reality of the Umbrae (the society of which the main character, Raine, is a member). The Umbrae have been cut off from all technology and contact with the other races, most of them have no memory of the larger world, having been segregated off in a pre-technological type of "pen" with no knowledge of what lives on the other side of those walls.Given my background (race and caste systems, politics and sociology), I loved all of this...and the complex, race-based society that the author creates. At times, some of the really cool world- and society-building details slowed the story down a bit, but never in a way that bothered me, as it was always wound into the characters and especially Raine as she grew into a much bigger role into this new world than anything she would have imagined back in Umbrae.That being said, I'm looking forward to the sequel! (and REALLY hope there is one...it said at the end of the book that there is, so I'll be looking for it). In particular, I am very curious about the storyline raised by Khan, as well as how Raine's relationship with Aksel will unfold, given everything that happens at the very end of the book.Highly recommend!