ISBN: 0345534085 9780345534088

Category: Fiction / Science Fiction / Space Opera

Page count: 384

<b><b>NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • <b>A gripping science fiction saga about three students from a school for those with extraordinary powers, from the award-winning author of <i>The Best of All Possible Worlds</i></b></b></b><br><br><b>“A smart science fictional fable as inventive and involving as it is finally vital.”—<i>Tordotcom</i></b><br><br>On the verge of adulthood, Rafi attends the Lyceum, a school for the psionically gifted. Rafi possesses mental abilities that might benefit people . . . or control them. Some wish to help Rafi wield his powers responsibly; others see him as a threat to be contained. Rafi’s only freedom at the Lyceum is Wallrunning: a game of speed and agility played on vast vertical surfaces riddled with variable gravity fields.<br><br>Serendipity and Ntenman are also students at the Lyceum, but unlike Rafi, they come from communities where such abilities are valued. Serendipity finds the Lyceum as much a prison as a school, and she yearns for a meaningful life beyond its gates. Ntenman, with his quick tongue, quicker mind, and a willingness to bend if not break the rules, has no problem fitting in. But he too has his reasons for wanting to escape.<br><br>Now the three friends are about to experience a moment of violent change as seething tensions between rival star-faring civilizations come to a head. For Serendipity, this change will challenge her ideas of community and self. For Ntenman, it will open new opportunities and new dangers. And for Rafi, given a chance to train with some of the best Wallrunners in the galaxy, it will lead to the discovery that there is more to Wallrunning than he ever suspected . . . and more to himself than he ever dreamed.<br><br><b>Includes two bonus short stories</b><br> <b><i> </i></b><br> “There is a weight and grace to [Lord’s] prose that put me in mind of pewter jewelry.”<b>—NPR</b><br>  <br> “This novel is a satisfying exercise in being off-balance, a visceral lesson in how to fall forward and catch yourself in an amazing new place.”<b>—<i>The Seattle Times</i></b>