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Skye Object 3270a
 
 

Skye Object 3270a [Kindle Edition]

Linda Nagata
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: $4.45 What's this?
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Editorial Reviews

Review

I practically devoured the ebook on my Kindle . . . Even with fantastical elements . . . Nagata still touches on themes of humanity, community and family in a very real sense.  But, that's what good sci-fi is supposed to do.


--Hawaii Book Blog

Product Description

In an isolated star system far from any other human outposts, a space-faring "lifeboat" was discovered by a scientist from the city of Silk. Inside the lifeboat was a two-year-old girl in frozen sleep. She had no name and no history. The people of Silk believed her to be the only survivor of a star-faring great ship attacked in the void and destroyed by the automated warships of the alien Chenzeme. They rescued and revived the child, and named her "Skye."

But the people of Silk face dangers of their own. Their city is in space, built around the column of a space elevator that rises from the planet's surface into high orbit. Three-hundred kilometers below is the wild, plague-ridden planet called Deception Well. Far-above, a dusty nebula shrouds the star system. The nebula is made of drifting dust, gas, and tiny nanomachines left behind by an ancient and mysterious race. The microscopic nanomachines were made to attack and destroy any Chenzeme ship that enters the system . . . but they will defend against other threats too, and they have no loyalty to human life.

Still, life in Silk is comfortable, and the dangers of their world mean little to the city's youth. Skye has grown into an adventurous, independent teen-but more and more she wonders about her mysterious past. Where did she come from? Who were her parents? And, most importantly, was she really the only survivor? When evidence of her past begins to awaken within her own body, Skye finds herself driven to explore both the dangerous surface of Deception Well and the airless reaches of outer space.

She is not alone in her quest. Her best friend Zia Adovna, the handsome young astronomer Devi Hand, and the adventurous Buyu Mkolu join her as she seeks to prove that other survivors of the great ship might still be found.

Unique young-adult science fiction by the Locus and Nebula Award winning author.

Product Details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 516 KB
  • Publisher: Mythic Island Press LLC (December 6, 2010)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B004FGMU7G
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Lending: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #361,735 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great YA set in a fascinating sci fi world, September 9, 2011
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This review is from: Skye Object 3270a (Kindle Edition)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It combined the best of both science fiction and young adult: likeable teenage characters struggling to find their place in a high-tech alien world. In particular, I found it fascinating how the widespread nanotech shaped both the society and the universe.

But the story isn't about the technology, it's about the characters, their adventures, and the friendships that form between them. This was what really made the story come alive for me. There's a small amount of wish fulfillment, which may or may not be your thing, but overall I found the characters to be both believable and likeable. It was a lot of fun to watch them grow and learn together.

At times, though, it felt as if the characters weren't challenged enough. The friendship and relationship issues were well done, but it wasn't until the end that they started to have any significant try-fail (or try-almost fail) cycles in their adventures. Also, while the ending was quite satisfying, it was also a little abrupt.

Those didn't detract much from the rest of the story, though. Overall, I thought it was a very satisfying read-the sort of book I wish I'd found when I was twelve or thirteen. If I wasn't already hooked on science fiction by that age, I have the feeling that this book would have turned me into a lifelong fan.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Danger! Possibly Infectious to Young Minds!, November 14, 2011
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This review is from: Skye Object 3270a (Kindle Edition)
In this young adult novel, fourteen year old heroine Skye Object 3270a (the awkward moniker refers to the astronomical designation given to the drifting lifeboat she was discovered in) is found to have "puzzle pieces" in her blood, building blocks for a plague that could wipe out Silk, her home in space.

While Skye's blood contains a potentially lethal infection, Nagata's story has spliced, into the usual literary base pairs of the juvenile, aka young adult, sf story, a more benign packet of information: a collection of memes designed to rewrite the tastes of young readers.

I refer to the usual formulaic elements of the young adult story. There is the group of teens, sometimes cunning and sometimes rather clueless in the operation of the physical and social worlds: Skye, orphan and wild girl who has spent a lot of time under the surveillance of cute companion/robot/pet/city- designated overseer Ord and who lives with the city's oldest citizen; her friend Zia, slightly older than Skye with parents who grow the octopoid lydras, creatures genetically engineered for construction work in the hard vacuum in space; the boisterous Buyu, would-be planetary explorer and victim of unrequited interest in Skye; Devi, a sixteen year old suffering from an overprotective mother who has cloned him from a brother dead far in the past. It will come as no surprise that young romance crops up between Devi and Skye. Adults are, of course, rather clueless to the threat to Silk.

You will note, I didn't say these are clichés. I am not a fan of the young adult stories or, generally, stories with young protagonists, but I liked this story. I found the teen characters realistic and not annoyingly plucky or unrealistically competent.

Part of my enjoyment came from the story setting. Silk, you see, is on the midpoint of a space elevator with its anchor being Deception Well, a planet full of alien nanotech, and I've always found space elevators a nifty alternative to the more conventional rocket travel. And there is the back story of Deception Well's original inhabitants and their enemies, the alien Chenzeme. With some of Nagata's scenes hinging on concepts of gravitational acceleration and rotational velocity, some actual science and math is introduced in the manner of Robert Heinlein's or Robert Silverberg's juveniles. My adult brain was kept intrigued and entertained. The heavy use of genetic engineering and nanotechnology, realistically presented with a surprising amount of detail for a juvenile work, further added to my pleasure, and, I suspect, a young reader might find those elements and the space elevator intriguingly and realistically different from the wonders of the juvenile fantasy genre.

In short, Nagata, I think, has a good chance with this work to accomplish her goal of infecting the next generation with the meme of science fiction, the love of plausible speculation and the wonder of science. And adults like me will be happy to follow along.

I didn't exactly miss Nagata's work the first time around. I bought, on the strength of reviews, her first two novels which, coincidentally, are set in the same universe as this novel, but I didn't read them, and they definitely are not prerequisites for jumping into this story.

[Review based on copy of work provided by author.]
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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellant SciFi story for young adults., November 14, 2011
This review is from: Skye Object 3270a (Paperback)
Skye Object 3270a,named for the designation of the life boat she was found in, and her friends discover a secret that can threaten everyone they know. The book details their search for an answer that will save not only themselves and their world, but also other children still in lifeboats. An excellent book for the young adult reader.
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More About the Author

Linda Nagata grew up in a rented beach house on the north shore of Oahu. She graduated from the University of Hawaii with a degree in zoology and worked for a time at Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui. She has been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and lately a publisher and book designer. She is the author of eight novels including The Bohr Maker, winner of the Locus Award for best first novel, and the novella "Goddesses," the first online publication to receive a Nebula award. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui. Find Linda on the web at MythicIsland.com.

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