Queen by J.S. Fields is a majestic science fiction story set on Queen a tidally locked planetoid covered in red sand, where ‘the mornings look like blood’. Fields has written a glorious quest which turns into an action adventure, with a world that is as much a star of the book as the creatures that live there. I want to write so much about the book that it has been almost impossible to select snippets to tell you about.
Earth was dying so the population moved into space, searching for places to settle. Queen is one of those places and was colonized by human scientists who are trying to terraform it and grow trees and plants. To be a settler you needed to be a scientist and have a vulva. Yes, a vulva! Whatever you look like and identify as, the vulva will get you in.
I haven’t yet mentioned the rabbits that are everywhere, and the beetles the height of a school bus and twice as long that the scientists are studying. Nor the mella, who are the terrorists/ renegades that live outside the dome.
Ember is a botanist and works in a lab in the dome on Queen. Her wife Taraniel has incurable cancer and chooses to walk out into the red sand to die, and the story starts with Ember volunteering for survey duties so that she can find her wife’s body. She needs the solitude and time to remember her wife. This is not a sad story though and Ember’s journey is full of adventure, anger and lot of surprises.
Her sister Nadia was once her younger sister but was too young to be put in stasis for the journey to Queen and is therefore now older than Ember. Something that is typical of Fields storytelling, small details that are amusing. They have a very close and loving relationship, with the usual joshing and truth-telling that marks siblings. Nadia is also a scientist and when Ember disappears leaves her safe environment to look for her.
Pros And My Favourite Parts
I loved it all.
It’s been so difficult to pick favourite things and moments. Fields has an imagination that will take you to another level in your thoughts about an alternate existence. Rabbits and beetles something that we can get a hold of from our world and have a familiarity to us. But put them onto Queen and they become something else.
The interaction between Nadia and Ember is irreverent and made me laugh out loud. In fact, a lot of the actions and happenings are amusing. The story has a serious plot and the things that happen are at times calamitous, but I treasured moments such as Nadia and colleague Varun, searching for fuel for their flyer on an enemy base and Varun is desperate for a toilet. The small humorous tale, alongside many others, within the main story is beautifully done.
Cons And Heads Up
I need to mention here that some of the action scenes end up with a number of deaths, but it was nothing that I thought gratuitous.
The Conclusion
I’ve just read this book for the third time and can’t get enough of it. I’ve told all my friends about it. There are a number of interesting messages in the book, but I don’t want to spoil the story and give away things that happen. You need to read it yourself. Suffice it to say, it has been one of my favourite reads this year and I am happily awaiting book 2.
Excerpt from Queen by J.S. Fields
Operation not recommended.
Ember ignored the TOPA. “Hold on!” Her words sounded tinny, suddenly, through her suit, but that was irrelevant. Ember ran toward the woman, toward the tree, down the dune, into the sand funnel and death. “If you let go, I will kill you.”
She’d started higher than the mella, but her boots slipped, skidded, and she rolled down the dune side, too fast to have any control. The opening of the hole she’d created drew closer, swallowing the world. Her suit and left leg registered chitinous impact, and an unidentified root grabbed at her elbow, but she couldn’t see anything except red sand.
ABORT ABORT ABORT
TOPA flashed the word over and over across her face shield. A hideous klaxon, one part fire engine and three parts angry two-year-old, blared in Ember’s ears. TOPA had never made that sound before, and if she survived this fall, Ember swore she’d pay the upgrade fee to make sure it never did it again.
She kept slipping, past the opening, sand pulling her legs down. Tiny little air jets whirred into action. Ember’s shield cleared, then darkened again with sand. The air intake valves clogged. Red flashed across her face shield. The interior of the suit turned damp with her breath, and she had to take deeper and deeper breaths to get enough oxygen. The sand under her gloved hands went soft, giving her the disturbing thought that she was about to be sucked down a giant funnel.
Ember kicked like she was clawing her way up from a dive off a diving board, an Earth activity she’d been passably good at until pools were banned due to water rationing. One of the intakes cleared, and fresh air blasted through the suit. The mella’s ungloved hand grabbed her, bringing the bent tree into focus as the suit’s air jets finally caught up. Ember’s vision cleared.
Bless maple trees and their stubborn desire to grow anywhere. Ember swam up the side of the funnel and flailed for a branch, the mella’s pants, anything that might hold her in place. Trust looked really different when you didn’t want to turn into beetle fodder. Ember’s fingertips brushed something firm and slipped off, just to have the mella grab her wrist, yank hard enough that Ember was certain something popped, drag her up the side of the funnel, and wrap Ember’s fingers around smooth, sand-worn bark.
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Series
Hidden Earth
Queen
Bits and Bobs
ISBN number: 9781648904912
Publisher: NineStar Press
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Note: I received a free review copy of Queen by J.S. Fields. No money was exchanged for this review. When you use our links to buy we get a small commission which supports the running of this site
