Child of Venus
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
The Nebula Award–winning author’s “masterful SF trilogy” of human colonists terraforming the second planet from the sun comes to a stunning conclusion (Publishers Weekly).
Often compared to Kim Stanley Robinson’s acclaimed Mars trilogy, the three novels in the Venus saga—Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, and Child of Venus—further establish the Nebula and Locus Award–winning author of The Shore of Women as “one of the genre’s best writers” (The Washington Post).
The Venus Project—making the planet’s atmosphere habitable for humans—spans centuries and determines the fate of multiple generations. The great task has already survived the ravages of civil war and continues unabated, overseen by two distinct rival factions: the “Cytherian” human colonists in enclosed settlements on the planet’s surface and the “Habbers,” cybernetically enhanced human dwellers living in a mobile asteroid orbiting above the planet.
Mahala Liangharad is a true child of Venus, conceived from the genetic material of rebels who died long before her birth. Chained to the Project her forebears began centuries earlier, she is restless and dissatisfied with the prospect of spending her entire existence inside a sealed dome. But her life is changed forever when the Habbers receive alien radio signals from six hundred light years away. With all work on Venus abruptly halted, Mahala now faces the most momentous decision of her young life. She can remain behind on the unfinished planet, or leave everything she’s ever known and loved to pursue her destiny—and humankind’s—to the far reaches of the universe . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nebula and Locus award-winner Sargent's latest novel completes her masterful SF trilogy (Venus of Shadows and Venus of Dreams) about terraforming the planet Venus. Thanks to the advanced technology of the Habbers (humans who long ago left Earth to carve out habitats inside asteroids), colonists live and work in reasonable comfort within domed settlements on Venus's surface while progress continues on making the planet's atmosphere breathable advances that irritate to no end the jealous Earth-based Islamic power base of Mukhtars. Through the eyes of young Mahala Liangharad, Sargent gives readers an intimate view of life as a colonist, caught between two rival powers limited by the Mukhtars to those jobs deemed necessary to the colony's growth, while the mysterious Habbers seem to offer something more. Then Habber electronics pick up a radio signal from an alien intelligence 600 light-years away, and shifting priorities threaten the delicate balance of power between Earth and space, as well as the completion of the terraforming itself. As in previous books, Sargent brings her world to life with sympathetic characters and crisp, concise language. The only weak moment is the novel's last section, told a little too swiftly, which folds the story back on itself to confront a millennium of sweeping changes in humanity and its place in the universe.