THE WINDS OF MARS

Hoover (Only Child, 1992, etc.) makes Mars the futuristic setting for a compelling coming-of-age story. Raised in the domed capital city of Olympia on this rich and newly independent world, narrator Annalynn, 17, is remarkably unspoiled, considering her status as presidential daughter. She attends the city's elite military academy with robot protector Hector in tow; there she learns that as one of the president's heirs she has been implanted with an MT (mind-transfer chip) that will someday allow her to transfer her consciousness into an android body, as her father has done. This bid for immortality costs the president any trace of humanity: he is a cold, calculating despot who prefers the degrading "attitude of respect" to a warm embrace from his daughter. When revolution comes, and he flees, Annalynn is left behind to rebuild; in the process she becomes the caring leader her father never was. Although characters often succumb to hyperbole, Hoover commendably created a world that is fully three-dimensional. Readers learn how interstellar trade, corporate interests, and greed shaped a frightening and at times too-familiar society, more concerned with maximizing its profits than caring for its own citizens. (Fiction. 11+)