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Naomi Foyle

Astra: The Gaia Chronicles Book 1 Paperback – March 1, 2022

by Naomi Foyle (Author)

4.5 11 ratings

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Is-land is a Gaian paradise in the middle of a blasted world - but its success comes at a dark price.

Like every child in Is-Land, all Astra Ordott has ever wanted is to get her Security Shot, do her National Service and defend her Gaian homeland from Non-Lander 'infiltrators'. But when one of her Shelter mothers, the formidable Dr Hokma Blesser, tells her the shot will limit her chances of becoming a scientist and offers her an alternative, Astra agrees to her plan.

Then the orphaned Lil arrives to share Astra's home and Astra is torn between jealousy and fascination. Lil's father taught her some alarming ideas about Is-Land and the world, but when she pushes Astra too far, the heartache that results goes far beyond the loss of a friend.

If she is to survive, Astra must learn to deal with devastating truths about Is-Land, Non-Land and the secret web of adult relationships that surrounds her . . . or her actions could bring the whole community toppling down.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Quercus Publishing
Publication date

March 1, 2022
Dimensions

5.13 x 1 x 7.75 inches
ISBN-10

178087636X
ISBN-13

978-1780876368
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A complex and daring literary story―Upcoming4.me

A friend recommended Astra as an invigorating sort of escapism. She was right. My first experience of SF enchanted and stimulated me―Dervla Murphy, author of Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle

Foyle has built a fascinating portrait, often reminiscent of Ursula K. Le Guin in its layered complexity, and threaded into a fascinating coming of age story. Gripping―Love Reading

I enjoyed Astra immensely. The novel's plot is fascinating . . . all of it set down in Foyle's smooth and flowing writing style―A Fantastical Librarian

It's hard-hitting, but it's poignant and incredibly thought-provoking . . . Naomi Foyle has a mastery of plotting and a way with words that's truly remarkable―Over the Effing Rainbow

This ambitious, thought-provoking take on a dystopian future paints a depressingly credible picture of environmental collapse . . . as events go hurtling towards the book's dramatic conclusion, I couldn't put it down . . .―Brain Fluff

This is excellent Science Fiction and I heartily recommend it . . . reminiscent of LeGuin―Birmingham SF Group

About the Author

Naomi Foyle was born in London, grew up in Hong Kong, Liverpool and Canada, and currently lives in Brighton. She spent three years in Korea, teaching English, writing travel journalism and acting in Korean educational television. She is a highly regarded poet and performer.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Quercus Publishing (March 1, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 178087636X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1780876368
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.13 x 1 x 7.75 inches

Customer Reviews:
4.5 11 ratings

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Naomi Foyle

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Naomi Foyle was born in London, UK, and grew up in Hong Kong, Liverpool and Saskatchewan. After a decade exploring Europe, Central America, South East Asia and Australia, she finally settled in Brighton a pebble's throw from the sea. Over the years she has worked in the independent book trade, jazz bars and blues diners, travel journalism and TAEFL teaching, and as a properly eccentric Tarot Card reader in Brighton's South Lanes.

Naomi's novels are deeply rooted in her world travels. Her debut novel, Seoul Survivors, a cyber-chiller set in South Korea named by The Guardian as 'among the best of recent SF', was published by Jo Fletcher Books in 2013. She has now embarked on The Gaia Chronicles, an eco-science fantasy quartet set in a post-fossil fuel Mesopotamia, informed by her human rights work for a just peace in Israel-Palestine. Astra, Rook Song and The Blood of the Hoopoe are all now available from JFB, with the conclusion of the series, Stained Light, due in 2017. Passionate about her themes and research, she blogs about politics, disability, mental health and her travels at www.naomifoyle.com

Naomi is also a prize-winning poet, the author of collections including The Night Pavilion, a 2008 Poetry Society Recommendation and The World Cup (2010) both from Waterloo Press. Originally trained in theatre, she has collaborated with artists, musicians and filmmakers on projects including the prize-winning videopoem Good Definition (2004), the award-winning bouffon opera Hush (Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto 1990), and the short verse drama, 'The Strange Wife', produced by the Bush Theatre in 2011 and published in 66 Books: 21st Century Writers Respond to the King James Bible (Oberon Press). A Senior Lecturer at Chichester University, she works as well as a free-lance poetry editor, on titles including The Privilege of Rain by David Swann (Waterloo Press 2010), short-listed for the 2011 Ted Hughes Award. Currently her desk drawer contains stacks of poems she will return to when The Gaia Chronicles are finally complete!

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

11 global ratings

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Candice K

Excellent worldbuilding and compelling story!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 21, 2022

Great concept, well executed. I think it was a very interesting decision to start off the MC so young, but it really gave the author time to world build effectively. By the time reader are fully engrossed in the world, the plot really kicks in, leaving you wanting more. An excellent first book in a series, it is complete on it's won as well as providing a compelling lead in to the series as a whole. I eagerly await the next installment!

Helpful

Anne Rosen

Exciting New Contribution to Cli-fi

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 22, 2016

Astra, the first book in the projected Gaia Chronicle series, is a superlative contribution of the genre designated as Cli-fi, and seen by some critics as distinct from Sci-fi because it depicts a world affected by environmental change not merely as fantasy but as prediction of a certain future. Astra lives in Is-Land, a country whose earth-friendly way of life is threatened by hostile forces. Every child must have a shot to create the strength needed to defend against those forces. Astra's devoted adoptive mother (Foyle re-imagines all social arrangements, including parenthood) decides to withhold the shot from her daughter. It is a daring and dangerous move, punishable by a gruesome death, and one that sets in motion the events of the novel. For all its ingenuity and suspense, a plot summary cannot do justice to a novel so full of interesting ideas. A major achievement of this novel is that it combines challenging ideas on a range of subjects, vivid characters with a fast-moving and totally engrossing plot.

Helpful

C. Jefferson

A nice concept, but extremely problematic delivery...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 13, 2015

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.]

In a dystopian future that has led to a culture who has turned back to a simpler life that is reverent to nature, Astra lives the life of a happy little girl. She has a bright future ahead of her, but all of that changes when one of her Shelter mothers shares a secret with her that causes her to rethink everything she knows. And when a young orphan girl comes to stay with them, Astra's life changes again, and so do the lives of everyone around her.

I wanted to love this book, and when I read the description, I thought I would. It's a dystopian story with some fantasy elements and everything about it screamed "THIS IS UP YOUR ALLEY!" And while the core of the story might be, there are some really, really problematic elements of this story that got in the way of what could be an otherwise great book. First, though the main character here is nearing adolescence, this is NOT a young adult book. There is a heavy focus on sex and sexuality, including between the children, and the focus on it really detracted from what the book could have been. There were several times I had to flip ahead and also considered stopping reading entirely at one point. It didn't advance the story, either, which made it seem even more gratuitous. As a result, I can't recommend this one...

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

B. Wigmore

Ideas, characterisation, plot, this has it all

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 1, 2018

Verified Purchase

I thought Astra was worth five stars when I first read it, and a reread hasn't changed that at all. I am in awe of this book, the way it combines a deeply moving character-driven story with an intensely imagined and very interesting setting. (I say "combines" but they are inseparable from each other.) All the characters in the very diverse cast are so well-defined, even from a few lines, and the technology, politics (both progressive and regressive), ethics and culture of the Gaian state are very well thought out. But it's the story-arc of Astra herself that makes this book. As a young child, a committed and unquestioning member of her nation, she is forced to make a decision whether or not to go against a government directive to her whole age cohort to get injected with "security serum". This will make her healthier, stronger, emotionally better balanced, and more in tune with her friends (it's initially surprising, but made entirely credible, that the Gaians in this future fully embrace GMO). Against that, it might limit her intelligence, and she desperately wants to be a genius scientist when she grows up. Far too young, she is faced with the choice to go against the state, and keep a secret for the rest of her life, in order to later serve it better. But keeping that secret becomes an intolerable pressure, especially when she becomes subjected to the effects of all the normal teenage hormones, which all her stronger, happier friends are seemingly able to cope with, and the state itself is increasingly revealed as less idealistic and tolerant than it might have first appeared. And if the secret comes out, it won't be just she who suffers ...

The tension builds brilliantly to the story's conclusion, and though the viewpoint convincingly inhabits Astra at various ages, whether 7, 12 or 15, it never reads as a children's or YA novel. The only negatives I could find are that there might be some exposition in the first couple of chapters that could have waited till later, and the rebuilding of the world after the Dark Time seems to have been better handled and more successful than I think might perhaps be the case. But those really are quibbles. This series (now complete with the fourth book, Stained Light, hence my reread) really does deserve to be much more widely read than it is.

One person found this helpful

W. Klein

Uncovering Gaia

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

I loved the sophisticated philosophical underpinning of this book with its shades of Aldous Huxley, Orwell, Wyndham, with a topping of Harry Potter (owls!). The dystopic eutopia, where it becomes evident that even an ostensibly pure/ benign ideology may give rise to authoritarian means to 'protect' it and the sinister genetic manipulation is also reminiscent of the 3rd Reich -- genetic manipulation that is clever and chilling. Characters are satisfyingly complex, though the Gaians have a certain annoying smugness at times. I thought I wouldn't go on to the next book, but I did. 'Rook Song' is more visual and disturbng as it shows the conflicts within the post-disaster world developing the same destructive patterns as the pre-disaster world with powerful forces opposing each other, a familiar incapacity to deal with difference, and a set of totally bizarre, mainly believable characters with raves and a few drugs thrown into the mix. Foyle is writing powerfully of everyday horror set in a fantasy world with contemporary characteristics: challenging and interesting stuff.

Simon Kemp

Trouble in Paradise

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 27, 2014

Verified Purchase

Oh, I did enjoy this book! It's fascinating, then gripping, then ultimately very moving. The premise of a character discovering the dark side to their utopian society is familiar to science-fiction readers, but I've never seen it as subtle and troubling as this, with both the genuine goodness of Is-land life and its rotten foundations compellingly and convincingly realized. The growth of the main character, Astra, from a trusting seven-year-old embroiled in schemes beyond her comprehension to snarky adolescent on the brink of a terrible truth, draws you into the story and carries you along. In fact, I was so caught up in Astra's life in Or, and the seductive simplicity of the Is-landers' culture, apparently in perfect harmony with each other and with nature, that when things suddenly, shockingly, take a different turn, I was amazed to see how the author had been quietly, subtly putting the pieces in place all along, ready to make her move. It's not over yet, though, and I can't wait to find out where we go from here.

2 people found this helpful

Roo I MacLeod

Meh

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 29, 2019

Verified Purchase

Confusing, really, and Astra is obviously the girl to take to your heart, but there's no warmth, no chance to like her. I was desperate to get to chapter 2,hoping the pace would pick up, but I didn't get there. Not for me.

J. O'Donoghue

Green Thoughts From A Green World

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

With a main character to match Pullman's Lyra Astra is a novel to lose yourself in. The writing is crisp, clear, vivid, with brilliant descriptions of the green world Foyle has created. This is a book that has all the makings of a classic of fantasy fiction, and from the very first page I was entranced. Recommended.

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