Present Books In Favor Of Stray (Touchstone #1)
| Original Title: | Stray ASIN B004T3A518 |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | Touchstone #1 |
Andrea K. Höst
Kindle Edition | Pages: 273 pages Rating: 3.98 | 3522 Users | 425 Reviews
Specify About Books Stray (Touchstone #1)
| Title | : | Stray (Touchstone #1) |
| Author | : | Andrea K. Höst |
| Book Format | : | Kindle Edition |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 273 pages |
| Published | : | March 20th 2011 by Andrea K. Höst (first published March 1st 2011) |
| Categories | : | Science Fiction. Young Adult. Fantasy |
Explanation As Books Stray (Touchstone #1)
On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched?
Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow.
Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?
Rating About Books Stray (Touchstone #1)
Ratings: 3.98 From 3522 Users | 425 ReviewsAssess About Books Stray (Touchstone #1)
People have been recommending this book (and trilogy) to me for years, but it never sounded like my kind of thing, so I never followed up - until a reader on Twitter generously sent me the trilogy to get through my post-op recovery period. I gave it a try - and guess what? I LOVED IT. I should have tried it so much sooner!The funny thing is, none of the plot description sounds like the kind of book I'd want to read. The first third is just one character alone exploring (and doing her best toI usually find diary-style books somewhat underwhelming, but it worked fantastically in this sci-fi / fantasy / psychic space ninja story. Can I say that again? Psychic space ninja story. What I loved: first, there were so many commentaries layered into this story. On the surface, intriguing story of an Aussie high school girl who walks through a wormhole on her way home from her final exams, ends up on an abandoned world and struggles to survive, only to be rescued by psychic space ninjas (yay!
I downloaded this as a free book from a Bookbub ad, despite the fact that my TBR pile is immense. That was at, perhaps, 1PM, and I read the first few chapters while I ate lunch. Then I quit working a little early and picked it back up again. Then -- despite the fact that I had plenty to do -- I read, and read, and read some more, and then bought the next book, and read some more. It's almost midnight and I just bought the third book and its sequel. Problems with this book: oh, the information
I read this book, and the whole Touchstone trilogy, immediately after reading the Medair duology by the same author. It's fascinating how this trilogy is completely different from the Medair duology: first person instead of third, SF instead of F, a diary format instead of a straightforward narrative, a contemporary protagonist instead of a straight secondary world type of story. And it is SO GOOD.Cassandra has a very strong, appealing contemporary voice in an amazingly believable SF world that
This book shouldn't have worked.The diary structure means that there's an unavoidable amount of 'telling' going on at first (Höst comes up with an excellent workaround later). The main character, for all she's pretty good at surviving, has to get rescued a lot. There are SO MANY characters you really need the appendix to keep them straight. And the plot, while good, is subservient to Cass's life, which means there are long stretches where the plot goes away in favor of the interpersonal
So, for about the first twenty pages, my thoughts were: "There is nothing happening. Why is there nothing happening? *sigh* I will continue reading, nevertheless. The description promised cool things."Then something happened, and I was excited and kept reading because I wanted to, not because I was forcing myself to. Except, after the something happened, nothing happened. And I was staying up at all hours reading it. My thoughts: "There's still nothing happening. And yet, I can't stop reading.
I loved this book, loved, loved, loved it. Its the first book in ages to keep me up until the wee small hours because I absolutely positively had to know what was coming next. Heres the premise: almost-eighteen year old Cass is walking home from her suburban school one day after her last exam before graduation when - pop! - she finds herself in the middle of a not-Earth forest, with no way back. For a while, she is on her own, walking through this world with its odd mixture of Earth-like
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