Children of Scarabaeus

An electrifying sci-fi adventure with a dash of romance

De: Sara Creasy

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Hunted by a ruthless empire. Bound by a deadly leash. One last chance to break free.

Edie believes she and her bodyguard-turned-lover, Finn, can find refuge from the tyranny of the Crib empire by fleeing to the Fringe worlds. But Edie’s extraordinary ability to manipulate the ecology of evolving planets makes her far too valuable for the empire to lose.

Recaptured and forced to cooperate — or else she will watch Finn die — Edie is shocked to discover the Crib’s new breed of cypherteck: children. She cannot stand by while the oppressors enslave the innocent, nor can she resist the lure of Scarabaeus, the first world she tried to save, when researchers discover what appears to be an evolving intelligence.

But escape — for Edie, for Finn, and for the exploited young — will require the ultimate sacrifice… and a shocking act of rebellion.

Love conquers botany

Sara Creasy’s Children of Scarabaeus is the sequel to her Song of Scarabaeus. Edie ends up back in the hands of her crib nemesis and is forced to work on a planet terraforming project. She manages to keep her bodyguard/lover close by. Her nemesis is also grooming a group of children for future terraforming projects. Edie is always plotting and at the same time determines that her current project will fail due to project manager’s machinations. She escapes to Scarabaeus and learns that the planet has devel-oped some sort of sentient life forms and uses this knowledge to finally free everyone from the clutches of the crib.

Creasy offers a bland tale with monotonous action scenes and too many overlapping miniplots. The final denouement is less than climatic.

The narration is rendered by virtual voice and as such there is no character distinction necessitating greater attention to follow conversations. Pacing is smooth.