#Review - Alone Out Here by Riley Redgate #YA #SyFy

Series: Standalone
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: April 5, 2022
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Source: Publisher
Genre: Science Fiction

"Utterly absorbing, and packed with heart, action, and questions that lingered long past the final page. I read it in a single day."--Amie Kaufman, author of the Aurora Cycle and the Elementals trilogy

The year is 2072. Soon a volcanic eruption will trigger catastrophic devastation, and the only way out is up.

While the world’s leaders, scientists, and engineers oversee the frantic production of a space fleet meant to save humankind, their children are brought in for a weekend of touring the Lazarus, a high-tech prototype spaceship. But when the apocalypse arrives months ahead of schedule, First Daughter Leigh Chen and a handful of teens from the tour are the only ones to escape the planet. This is the new world: a starship loaded with a catalog of human artifacts, a frozen menagerie of animal DNA, and fifty-three terrified survivors. From the panic arises a coalition of leaders, spearheaded by the pilot’s enigmatic daughter, Eli, who takes the wheel in their hunt for a habitable planet. But as isolation presses in, their uneasy peace begins to fracture. The struggle for control will mean the difference between survival and oblivion, and Leigh must decide whether to stand on the side of the mission or of her own humanity.

Riley Redgate's Alone Out Here is being sold as Lord of the Flies set in space. The year is 2072. Soon a volcanic eruption will trigger catastrophic devastation, and the only way out is up. While the world’s leaders, scientists, and engineers oversee the frantic production of a space fleet meant to save humankind, their children are brought in for a weekend of touring the Lazarus, a high-tech prototype spaceship. 

 

Children of dignitaries from all over the world have gathered to tour the generation ship Lazarus, which is a prototype that has been built as a way to transport as many humans off of Earth as possible in anticipation of super volcanoes going off and making it uninhabitable. This is the new world: a starship loaded with a catalog of human artifacts, and a frozen menagerie of animal DNA. 

 

But when the apocalypse arrives months ahead of schedule, First Daughter Leigh Chen, the First Daughter to an Asian-American female president, and 52 teens from all over the world, are the only ones to escape the planet. From the panic arises a coalition of leaders, spearheaded by the pilot’s enigmatic daughter, Elizabeth Jefferson, who takes the wheel in their hunt for a habitable planet called Juventh some 1100 years away. Leigh is well trained as a politician, to say the right thing at the right time, to give answers that aren't really answers and calm everyone's nerves.

 

But as isolation presses in, their uneasy peace begins to fracture. The struggle for control will mean the difference between survival and oblivion, and Leigh must decide whether to stand on the side of the mission or of her own humanity. Without the supervision of any adults, these kids will have to create their own society and its sets of rules. Things fall apart rather quickly. The mental state of the teens begins to deteriorate. But some rebellious kids have something else in mind. 

 

As tensions rise within the group over everything from time in the VR simulator to food to turning around to rescue an astronaut that may still be aboard a space station, Leigh begins to question her decisions and find a voice of her own. The only chance of survival is to work together and keep their moral compass pointing north. Truth be told, I am deeply disappointed with the ending to this book, and unfortunately, I am not allowed to say why because it's a huge spoiler. Could there be a sequel? Not sure if that will happen, but there probably should be to explain what the hell happened.

 

I startle awake to a world that's alive. Everything is a tumult of sound and motion, a siren howling overhead, a glow pulsing through the barracks' windows, a bare bulb over my bunk trembling like a furious fist. I sit bolt upright as the screaming starts.

For an instant I can only stare at the rows of bunkbeds in chaos. I know exactly what's happening--I just don't understand how. The eruption isn't due until next spring. Soon is the shorthand that news anchors have been using, as in, soon, cubic miles of lava and ash will explode from Mount Shasta, a peak in Northern California, and cause a chain reaction that will render the planet uninhabitable. Since the announcements, we've watched the ground swell like an abscess and waited for the lance to drop, hoping and praying for more time.

Now I don't hope. I don't pray. I'm rolling out of my bunk and cramming my feet into my sneakers. If the last three years have taught me anything, it's that denial is useless. Only the facts matter, and there's just one fact to cling to anymore: the Lazarus, one of the generation spaceships we meant to save millions of people, is standing half a mile outside our barracks door.

I seize my backpack from the floor, but the strap snaps taut, caught beneath my bedframe. "Move," I grunt, pulling harder. "Come on, move!"

It isn't coming free. I need to open my hand and run, I know that--but a protective panic is blazing up in me, the thought that this is all I have.

Someone lets loose a string of Arabic behind me, and a pair of hands heave the frame upward. The bag flies free. As I hug it tight to my chest, I cast a wild look around, but the speaker has already disappeared in the mayhem.

I wrangle the bag onto my shoulder and sprint for the exit, darting between the shadowy, muscular bodies of soldiers. Warren and Jones, my Secret Service detail, passed me to these officers yesterday--six high-ranking military officials assigned to safeguard our group. Last night, on the way to the cafeteria, I heard them muttering mutinously about babysitting. Now they're barking commands over the siren, trying to corral stricken eleven-year-olds into line.

I join the cluster of people at the door just as a girl flings it open. She cries out, clapping her hands over her ears. In pours the sound, the undertow of rolling bass, the gut-shaking drop of the earth tearing apart.

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