TALTRIX BOOK ONE SURVIVING THE GAUNTLET

In this distant-future SF/fantasy debut and series launch, a supernaturally gifted young woman endures hostility at an elite university.

Redder “RT” Torch suffers for her father’s sins. Years ago, Grave Torch kidnapped her and her older brother, Avi, apparently convinced that RT had powers that enabled her to unify the multiverse. This ultimately ignited the Final Wars, and Grave Torch rightly sits in prison. Now that RT’s psychic gift has developed, she’ll be leaving her Mars home to study and train aboard Taltrix, a spaceship university. On the plus side, she’ll reunite with Avi, who’s been there for a year. There’s friction as well, thanks to the Torch siblings’ infamous father. RT gets bullied more than Avi since she’s the alleged unifier and noticeably stronger than most fellow students, though that doesn’t hinder her plan to excel in the upcoming Taltrix-sanctioned gauntlet, held in a coliseum. But for the spectators, will this prove that RT is the unifier, the very same issue that started a war? Copeland’s dense worldbuilding allows for the cast and their backstories to shine. Taltrix students, for example, hail from one of the Three Regions (within the Milky Way); they enhance features with alien DNA, showcase telepathic/telekinetic abilities, and maybe dabble in “new religions,” like Unism (whose loyalists side with Grave). RT meets her share of amicable peers, mean kids, and someone to crush on, and the adults are just as varied. Parts of this first installment are deliberately vague, including specifics on the multiverse, the Final Wars, and colonization on other planets. Nevertheless, a primarily unknown menace—someone is launching mental assaults against RT and Avi —ramps up suspense, as do such unpredictable characters as Grave and several others harboring secret agendas.

An engaging interplanetary cross-genre story that’s only just getting started.