This Hollow Valley

ISBN-13: 9781493587544 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 312 str.

MS Ember Dawn Pepper

Opis

Ilena Magan lives with her people in the caves of Hera 6. Lee is a soldier, a rare thing for a woman, knee deep in the fight against the Enemy - those of the Earth's refugees who decided, centuries ago, to stay in the forest camp instead of following them to the caves. Upon first landing on Hera 6, thousands of years before Lee was born, the only problem the humans thought they'd have to work through was how ugly and unpleasant the planet was. That problem was fixed, though, with an unexpected gift - projection. And while the majority of the refugees could only create visions and landscapes for themselves, a small group of women developed the ability to force their visions onto other people. Some viewed this as dangerous. Others were awe-inspired. When talk began to rise about getting rid of the women, the ones who held them in reverence escaped into the caves with them and hid. Now, thousands of years later, the non-believers have lost their powers of projection and instead have been gifted with extended life and strength. But they want the power or projection back...and the others want these new abilities as well. So while one side fights for a chance at beauty, and the others for longer lives, both fight out of anger and hate. Ilena encounters one of the enemy tending to a rash on his little girl's arm. Sickness is strange and foreign to him, so he agrees to allow Lee to take samples of skin and DNA to her medical labs to find a cure. In return, she can examine the samples for information on how to gain his people's power. Forced into continual contact with the enemy, both begin to realize that what they've been taught to fight for might be an illusion - something to distract them from the desolation of their situation. Lee has already lost her whole family to war, and the enemy is on the verge of losing his little girl; both are looking for a more satisfying answer to life, and both seem to be slowly finding it in each other.