Just Finished Reading: Reunion by John Gribbin and Marcus Chown

Tugela’s world is dying. It’s been years since the comets stopped coming and the air is becoming too thin to sustain life. People are either pulling back to the capital and its thicker atmosphere or planning rebellion against the apparently invincible Priests who control everything. Travelling to the Forbidden Zone in the foot steps of her grandfather Tugela discovers that everything she thought she knew about her world was a lie. So begins her journey to the almost mythical world known as Earth and beyond into the depths of space where a deranged AI is deciding the fate of both worlds.

This was clearly aimed at the juvenile SF market. Both main characters are teenagers who go on a Quest that the adults are either unwilling or unable to attempt and both grow up in the process. It’s a standard plot of many a classic novel. This certainly resides in that mould and has many of the characteristics you would expect from something written in the Golden Age of SF – except that this was published in 1991. Anyway, this was a solidly constructed tale told reasonably well. It did stagger a bit here and there but not too badly overall. There were few surprises but it did have its moments and was entertaining enough to keep the pages turning. Basically above average fare that did pretty much exactly what was expected of it.