A Promising Start to a New Dystopian Trilogy

Fire Country (Dwellers/Country Saga #4) by David Estes (Self-Published, 2013, 402pp.)

Scrawny, clumsy, head-in-the-clouds Siena lives in fire country, a land where a long-ago catastrophe caused the sky to turn from pale blue to blood red. The average lifespan is thirty years, and mankind has resorted to polygamy to survive. Young people are required by law to start breeding in their mid to late teens, and every three years, teens are paired with new mates during an event known as the Call. This Law is not to be questioned. Or so Siena thinks. An unlikely heroine, she doesn't even begin to question her prescribed role in life until a few months before her Call ceremony. As she prepares to consider her preordained fate as a soon-to-be Bearer, a classmate, Lara, suggests the unthinkable: what would happen if young women rebel against the status quo?

Estes has created a memorable heroine in Siena in this first volume in the Country Saga (sister series to the Dwellers Saga). Although some of the concepts he explores here are a bit cliche (the fire country tribes are too much like Native Americans in some aspects, while their enemies, a notoriously feral all-female tribe, are too much like Amazons), Fire Country still proves to be a promising start to a new dystopian trilogy.

Sets the Bar High for Other Books by Estes

The Sun Dwellers (The Dwellers/Country Saga #3) by David Estes (Self-Published, 2012, 398pp.)

The Sun Dwellers finds Adele, Tristan, and the gang setting off on a mission to kill the egomaniacal Sun Dweller President Nailin and end a war that is wreaking havoc in the Lower Realms. By the end of the story, there will be more death, more innocence lost, and an awesome secret revealed that changes everything.

What can I say? It’s a good book. The pacing is quick, the tension is almost painful, and the ending climax is pretty epic. That said, like the other books in this series, it isn’t great. The author gets a little heavy-handed at times about the socioeconomic disparities between the Sun Realm and the Lower Realms, and certain supporting characters remain as flat as they were the moment they entered the story. That said, it’s still a very good end to The Dwellers Saga, and sets the bar pretty high bar for its sister series, The Country Saga. Recommended for Ages 15-Up.

A Satisfactory Second Installment

The Star Dwellers (The Dwellers/Country Saga #2) by David Estes (Self-Published, 2012, 374pp.)

By the end of The Moon Dwellers, heroine Adele has busted out of juvie with her new friends, Cole and Tawni, saved her little sister, Elsey, from an orphanage, reunited with her renegade father, Ben, and has finally met up with her love interest Tristan, the Sun Dweller president’s rebellious son. In the beginning of The Star Dwellers, the group has been scattered. Cole has been killed by Sun Dweller forces. Adele and Tawni have embarked on a mission to spring Adele’s mom from the Star Realm prison, while Tristan and Adele’s family work with the Resistance to convince the Star and Moon Realms to unite against the Sun Realm.

Overall, The Star Dwellers is a very satisfactory installment. Since I normally roll my eyes at teen romance, I was pleased to see that the lead couple (Adele and Tristan) show their maturity by focusing on their various missions, rather than mooning over each other’s absence. Some of the supporting characters, like Tawni, still remain a little flat, but I’m hoping that this will be amended in later installments. Recommended for Ages 14-Up.

A Good Introduction To Science Fiction For Teens

The Moon Dwellers (The Dwellers/Country Saga #1) by David Estes (Self-Published, 2012, 366pp.)

In the first volume of David Estes’s Dwellers/Country Saga, Earth as we know it is over. Due to an environmental cataclysm, people have been forced underground. Now, people live in what’s known as the Tri-Realms. The luckiest live in the Sun Realm (closest to the Earth’s surface) alongside the likes of the system’s dictator-president, Edward Nailin. The not-so-lucky middle-class are stuck in the Moon Realm with terrible living conditions, while the truly desperate are forced to live in the Star Realm, the deepest level of them all. Told from the points of view of its two teenage narrators, the novel chronicles the plight of middle-class waif Adele Rose and Tristan Nailin, the president’s rebellious son, two strangers who are surprised when a chance-glimpse of each other seems to awaken a peculiar connection between them.

The YA genre could definitely use some good science fiction, and The Dwellers/Country Saga is a good place to start. While the action is non-stop, the world-building pretty thorough, and the pacing consistent, the characters, unfortunately, were not given equal chance to develop at the same rate as these other factors. Aside from that, though, it really does make for some exciting reading: with action and love at first sight, there’s enough here to attract both male and female teens. Recommended for Ages 15-18.