Kingdom Of Cages (Hardcover)

Kingdom of Cages follows the all-female Trust family - primarily the two daughters, Chena and Teal - and their unwanted role in saving the Human race from a deadly disease wiping out entire planets' populations. Pandora is the final known planet capable of sustaining Human life, and is absolutely "backward" compared to the life the Trusts had known previously while living aboard the orbiting space station Athena; Pandora is a diehard environmentalist's sweetest dream, with the little technology allowed comprised entirely of natural elements and thus often in need of maintenance and repair.

Yet the people of Pandora are essentially slaves to the ruling families; most of the commoners are fully aware of their condition, but accept their fate and do everything possible to stay in line and not cause any problems. Chena and Teal, however, are intent on bucking the system and escaping back to Athena, ultimately to rejoin their long-lost father. Yet, despite the allies they find along the way, there is so much working against them that their battles seem absolutely doomed.

The political intrigue between the rulers and the commoners, Pandora and Athena, and Pandora and the rest of Humanity provides a triple-threat that underscores the impending apocalypse and the Trusts' unwilling role in the crisis. Unfortunately, the tale wraps up too quickly and too "cleanly" given the situation in the final thirty pages. Overall, however, Kingdom of Cages is an excellent novel which fans of science-fiction will certainly enjoy.

There was no need for prisons. Anyone who broke the law forfeited their body right. That meant The Hothouses took them for experimenting on to find a cure. The Eden Project was a theory of creating a fetus with a high immune system that would not turn against the body of the mother hosting it. Of course, this meant only certain females were compatible. Luckily, the closest genetically perfect hosts, one family, left the Athena Station and settled on Pandora. They were (single parent) Helice Trust, and her young daughters, Chena and Teal. If they refused to volunteer for the Hothouse, they were to be forced.

Pandora was ruled by governments called "Family". Each colony (complex) had a Family. Each member of the Family had a "Conscience" which was a chip that strongly persuaded the member to do what was considered right. Each complex had a "City-Mind", an artificially created (but living) intelligence that WAS the complex, itself. Aleph was the city-mind for the Alpha Complex, where the story took place. She kept in touch with all the other city-minds. The city-minds took care of the Families, who in turn, took care of the villages in the colony. However, someone had been making covert alterations to Aleph without her knowledge. Someone who was out to force the Trust women into the Eden Project. Someone who altered nature's insects to kill any invaders the Authority may send.

***** This is the story of Helice, Chena, and Teal Trust. The story covers a ten year span, after all it deals with genetics. It is so well written that it was surreal! I found myself fully engrossed in the story and detested any time I had to stop reading. Highly recommended! *****

"Kingdom of Cages" is set in the far future. Humanity has colonized and spread out over countless planets. Recently, dozens of the colony planets are suffering environmental collapse and strange new diseases, threatening to wipe out the human race. One planet, Pandora, is untouched by this crisis. Pandora is the most Earth-like of all the planets and is kept in pristine shape by its inhabitants, ecologists and geneticists, who live in dome cities to study and preserve the natural riches of their planet.

As the story begins, representatives from the dying colony planets deliver an ultimatum: Pandora's brilliant scientists must find a cure for the impending crisis, or their untouched paradise will be destroyed. The main characters of the novel, the young girls Teal and Chena Trust, are chosen to participate in the "Eden Project" which will presumably save humanity. They quickly find out that Pandora's scientists may need more from them than they are willing to give.

"Kingdom of Cages" is an interesting novel which works on many levels: an environmental story, a science fiction novel and a coming of age tale. However, I found some plot elements unlikely or far-fetched, and some things are extremely over-simplified. This, combined with the young age of the two protagonists, make this novel sometimes resemble Young Adult or adolescent fiction. It's also disappointing that the resolution seems rushed and unsatisfactory after almost 600 pages. Despite all of this, "Kingdom of Cages" is not a bad read for young SF readers, fans of Sarah Zettel and maybe those who are particularly interested in ecology.

Note: The cover art, a piece by renowned fantasy artist Michael Whelan, is beautiful ... it doesn't seem to have much to do with the story.