The Annunciate
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| Author(s) | Severna Park |
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| Publisher | Harpercollins |
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| In a dark, brutal new age, humans have crossed vast stretches of space and incorporated new levels of technology into their very beings. Yet they still struggle with the bloody instincts that have tormented humanity since time immemorial. ThreeSys is a triangle of stars with eleven planets each, where people are divided into three classes—Meshed, Jacked, and Jackless—a caste system of technological access. “Mesh” has emerged as the universe’s single greatest power: a tiny elite of Meshed humans can access unsurpassed knowledge, enter another dimension, and… | |
In a dark, brutal new age, humans have crossed vast stretches of space and incorporated new levels of technology into their very beings. Yet they still struggle with the bloody instincts that have tormented humanity since time immemorial. ThreeSys is a triangle of stars with eleven planets each, where people are divided into three classes—Meshed, Jacked, and Jackless—a caste system of technological access. “Mesh” has emerged as the universe’s single greatest power: a tiny elite of Meshed humans can access unsurpassed knowledge, enter another dimension, and manipulate lesser mortals’ reality.
But three of these gifted humans—Eve, Corey, and Annmarie—have harnessed this power for their own evil ends. Traveling throughout ThreeSys, the trio devotes their extraordinary abilities to selling what they claim is an end to all wars and aggression. What they’re actually selling is Staze, an opiumlike, instantly addictive drug that wraps the user in dreams and lethargy. Yet some Jacked and Jackless have retaliated against this and other abuses of power, mercilessly hunting down and killing Meshed humans.
Time is running out for the three, even as ebony-hued Eve falls in love with lower caste Naverdi, who’s Jacked, a supplier of a key Staze ingredient, and an addict herself. The only answer is on Paradise, the first ThreeSys planet where humans ever set foot. Paradise hadn’t survived its first brush with human habitation, and was blasted from its orbit into another solar system millennia ago. Now it’s the only place where the Mesh is intact—the old Mesh, the original Mesh, the real one.
The Annunciate—the first person to step off the first ship-still lives in Paradise’s myths and legends.
All Meshed wear the Annunciate’s medal, her mysterious, enigmatic image etched at the gates of Paradise, offering the elusive promise of a new world clean of sin and violence. But a far more dangerous presence awaits Eve, Naverdi, Annmarie and Corey on the abando.
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
Severna Park, author of the related SF novels Speaking Dreams and Hand of Prophecy, turns to a new universe in The Annunciate. ThreeSys is a three-star system, and each star has 11 human-settled worlds. The humans are separated not only by vast distances but also by technology, divided into Jackless, Jacked, and Meshed. The Jackless have no access to the virtual reality of the Jacked. And neither caste has access to the nanotech-sculpted dimension that the Meshed can enter to control and manipulate them.
When Jackless and Jacked rise against their overlords, three Meshed survive and struggle to retain their mastery with Staze, a potent, immediately addictive drug that traps users in an overwhelming dream. But the dream may be the entrance to another world--one inhabited by a mysterious and powerful being that wishes to enter our universe. Is it the Unknown Child, the long-prophesied savior of ThreeSys? Or is it an alien predator that will destroy humanity?
The Annunciate is an interesting, ambitious consideration of love and need, power and responsibility, and the complexities of human bonds. --Cynthia Ward
