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Beyond the Hidden Sky
Genres: Children's fiction, Fantasy/SciFi/Speculative, Science Fiction (Sci-Fi), Young Adult (YA)
Age Groups: 12-15
Formats: Ebook, Audio, Paperback
Star Trails Tetralogy Volume I
Choices, even seemingly small, insignificant ones, can have tremendous consequences as each character discovers in this fast-moving space adventure. Teenage siblings Dirck and Creena Brightstar have never gotten along, even in the best of conditions, so being confined in a cramped starship cabin as the family emigrates to another planet inevitably results in an explosive argument. Desperate for some time alone, Creena explores the ship’s labyrinth of passageways hoping to find someplace to escape from everyone. She succeeds, but getting fired off in an escape pod was a bit more than she bargained for. With no support from starship authorities to help in the recovery, her father has no choice but to find her himself. Space travel, however, is never simple. Time passes at different rates based on velocity, complicating their separation with not only the vastness of intergalactic space but time as well, triggering a series of events that will change everyone’s life forever. But was it really an accident or what her father’s power-hungry nemesis, Augustus Troy, planned all along?
Reviews
Marc Secchia on Amazon
I've two voracious bookworms aged 10 and 9 respectively, who ate this book and came begging for more. Fantastic read, my girls want you to know. If you're a parent like me with younger kids who read well above their age group, then you're always looking for clean but challenging fiction that they won't finish in an hour.
This is science fiction which is thoughtfully written and appropriate for a younger audience, without compromise on the 'hard' side of science and technology. Plenty to do with the paradoxes of near light-speed travel, for example. The world-building is particularly noteworthy - inventive, consistent and accessible. The editing is sound and the characters well-drawn. Tech is never used as a magic wand to get the MC out of difficult situations - she needs to think her way out, and that's great. Love the cover art too.
My girls give this 5 stars and I, having recently finished it, couldn't agree more! Highly recommended.
Amazon Customer
As an avid YA reader, I was pleasantly surprised to have won this novel in a giveaway. It’s been quite a while since I’ve read sci-fi, and I was thrust into a riveting, highly detailed and believable world from page one. Beyond the Hidden Sky is a space adventure surrounding the journey of Creena Brightstar and her family as they navigate the uncertainties of space all while trying to reunite after a deliberate scheme by villainous Troy tore the Brightstars apart in the beginning.
From spaceships to otherworldly planets, the descriptions throughout the novel drew me in and helped me imagine what it would be like to be the characters. I could really get in their heads and cheer for them as they tried to overcome every challenge that headed their way. While the space lingo seemed daunting at first glance, the novel was written in such a way that it was easy to pick up on the more I read, so if you’re hesitant to read the novel because of that, don’t be.
Besides a enlightening adventure story, Beyond the Hidden Sky delves into a world that perfectly portrays the importance of family, finding balance between instincts and logic, sibling rivalry, and the idea of something greater in the universe. I look forward to the rest of the series to discover where Creena and her family end up in this vast universe of possibilities. I recommend this novel to those who like reading about other worlds, space travel, science, and family sagas.
Colm Herron on Amazon
Up until last Tuesday my experience of science fiction was limited to the Star Trek and Star War series and Douglas Adams. But being at a loose end I decided to give Beyond The Hidden Sky a lash (as we say here in Ireland). And what an experience! For the four daydreaming days that I spent reading this shimmering star of a novel I moved house from Earth to Verdaris, a planet that spins inconveniently in the path of a cluster of comets. And that's the least of its problems.
Star Wars tells of the conflict between good and evil but Marcha Fox's book has all that and more. So much more. Here we have the battle between logic and inspiration added to the grating differences that rear their heads in every family. Creena Brightstar - what a beautiful name for a beautiful teen! - is gifted with far too much intuition for her own good and lands herself and her loved ones in trouble. She gets trapped in a pesky pod and is catapulted into space to planet Verdaris. Never before have I come across anything like this place Verdaris. Plants that talk in rhyming couplets, a new language that's both delightful and accessible and a rogue's gallery that makes the gunfights of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns seem like the clearing up that has to be done after an archdeacon's dinner party. And as if all that wasn't enough Creena has a brother called Dirck. Dirck the jerk I call him. Watch out for him (there's one in every family).
In short, this is a treat I never expected when I was gifted this dream of a book.