Across The Universe by Beth Revis

Seventeen year old Amy joins her parents on a inter-galactical colonisation mission to Alpha Centauri. While her parents are essential to the future of the colony, Amy is listed in the manifest as ‘non-essential cargo’. Cryogenically frozen (and the book goes into quite uncomfortably detailed descriptions about what this might feel like), the colonists are loaded aboard ‘Godspeed’ for the 300-year voyage, with the spaceship manned by workers who, over the generations, will tend the vessel and the precious cargo.

Amy begins to awaken. Are we there yet? Embedded in her cryogenic soup, she begins to drown, but is rescued by a quick-thinking worker. But Amy’s journey is just beginning. Someone is unplugging the colonists and allowing them to die. Fifty years before the voyage is due to end, Amy finds herself stranded alone in a world that has long forgotten her and everyone and everything that she remembers – with a murderer on board. It is utterly chilling.  

Revis portrays the claustrophobic and incestuous atmosphere aboard ‘Godspeed’ extremely well and the desperation of Amy in trying to adjust to her new life. There is no grass, only something that looks like it. There is no sun, only a bright light that sort of looks a bit sunnish but not really. The food looks familiar but doesn’t taste the same. The animals look like animals back on Earth, but don’t behave like them. She wants nothing more than to unplug her parents and to have someone or something familiar to clutch hold of – but her parents are vital to the future of the colony and she needs to protect them against whoever is killing the space travellers.  

Of course, it’s also a love story. Each generation (bred at precise intervals and injected with DNA-enhancing genes to overcome the dangers of inbreeding) has a leader – Elder. Amy is so different – among an entire spaceship of people who look the same, she alone has pale skin and ‘sunset hair’. She’s a freak and is shunned, but Elder is entranced. With the help of rebels on board, Amy and Elder defy the dangerously omnipotent hierarchy to discover the secrets aboard the ‘Godspeed’ – who is killing the colonists and why, and why isn’t the ship getting any closer to its final destination.  

This is a book written for teens, but very entertaining and suspenseful. Revis creates a very realistic picture of life aboard the ship and the secrets and dangers that must be overcome.

 

Di