Star Splitter
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A 2024 Edgar Award Nominee!
Survival and self-determination collide in this haunting, pulse-pounding science fiction novel from Edgar Award–winning author Matthew J. Kirby that spans both space and time.
“An intense, read-in-one-sitting kind of ride.″—Kirkus, starred review
2199. Deep-space exploration is a reality and teleportation is routine. But this time something has gone very, very wrong. Seventeen-year-old Jessica Mathers wakes up in a lander that’s crashed onto the surface of Carver 1061c, a desolate, post-extinction planet fourteen light-years from Earth. The planet she was supposed to be viewing from a ship orbiting far above.
The corridors of the empty lander are covered in bloody hand prints; the machines are silent and dark. And outside, in the alien dirt, there are fresh graves carefully marked with names she doesn’t recognize. Now Jessica must unravel the mystery of the destruction all around her—and the questionable intentions of a familiar stranger.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Space exploration, teleportation, and cloning experiments end in disaster in this heart-pounding thriller by Kirby (A Taste for Monsters). Seventeen-year-old white-cued Jessica Mathers is preparing to teleport to the Theseus, a research facility in orbit around distant planet Carver 1061c, where she will be reunited with her parents, whom she has not seen in six years. In 2199, teleportation involves her body being scanned to an advanced 3-D printer at her destination, upon which its counterpart is destroyed at the point of departure. But instead of emerging on the Theseus, Jessica arrives in a crashed lander on Carver's surface, seemingly alone. Alternating before and after chapters chronicle the events leading to Jessica's appearance on Carver and her struggle to survive in the planet's postapocalyptic landscape. Dual timelines imbued with believable hard science, harrowing action, and strong characterizations permeate Kirby's breakneck adventure. Questions of personhood are skillfully elevated, explored against an inventive future backdrop in which cloning is the norm and the potential consequences of deceptively simple-sounding procedures come at high costs. Ages 12–up.
