A Million Suns by Beth Revis

A Million Suns by Beth Revis

A Million Suns

Author: Beth Revis

Book length: 400 pages

Release date: January 2012 

Content note: YA 9th grade up violent content

“People are, at their heart, constantly moving toward a state of entropy. Much like this ship. We’re all spiraling out of control.”

Synopsis with a few of my thought sprinkled in:

In A Million Suns, the second book in the Across the Universe series, the people of the huge spaceship, Godspeed, are off the drugs that their “Eldest” used to control them. Elder must take over leadership after Eldest’s death. Elder does not seem to realize that freeing everyone from the drugs is also unleashing pent-up emotion/frustration. In the first book Elder says he likes a little chaos, and now he is getting it….full force. To top it all off, there are lots of secrets that Eldest and Orion have kept from Elder. These secrets can threaten the ship and everyone in it. Elder inherits all of this, and has his sixteen year old hands full!

Then there is Amy who is chasing clues to secrets left by Orion. Amy is a teenager who was accidentally “unfrozen” from her cryogenic state in the first book. The frozen people, like Amy, are not suppose to wake up until they land on the new planet. Amy finds herself in a mess that was NOT part of the original plan. Amy and Elder are very busy with the twist and turns in this action-filled plot. This keeps them, along with the reader, busy trying to find answers to all the mysteries that have been hiding for years beneath the drugged populations and the tyrants who have been drugging them. 

Now for my thoughts:

Not many second books in a series are as good as this one. There is a  new set of problems in this story. We still have about two thousand people in a huge space ship (ten square miles on several levels), that think they traveling toward a new planet that is always only twenty years away. But now there is an aging engine to worry about, food supplies are down, people are refusing to work, and talks of mutiny/revolution is building.  It is interesting to read how this small society falls apart with anger, fear, and despair  Believe it or not, this is just the beginning of the problems. 

Elder (the Eldest in training) is 16 and not old enough or mature enough to take over the ship. He is idealistic and has the heart of a servant, but has more to chew than he can swallow. Also, he does not think ahead. He never asks himself, “hummmm what will happen if I….” He just jumps right in making quick decisions and then has to put out fires afterward. Since I am also a person who jumps before thinking, I identify with Elder. He makes me uncomfortable with his impulsiveness even though I like him, and I keep wanting good things for him. 

Amy is the only person on the ship who is from “Sol-Earth.” She is not trusted by anyone except Elder. In fact, Elder is quite infatuated with her. Amy, not unlike any teenage girl, struggles with her feelings for Elder because she feels she should have choices. However, even if there is a teenage boy or two frozen in the cryogenic area, there will be few choices for Amy. After all, she is on a spaceship with the only people she will ever know for the rest of her life! Amy will have to emotionally wake up, but we readers have to remember that she is only seventeen. Her quest to solve Orion’s puzzle is interesting and fun, but a little hard to figure out why he would create just a complicated puzzle when he could have just left her a message explaining his information. What if Amy could not solve his clues? Maybe Orion IS completely insane….

The secrets and the problems keep this book exciting. I figured out several of the mysteries before they were revealed, but that did not ruin my enjoyment of this plot and its fabulous setting. I heard criticism about the first book and its lack of feasible science. But I assumed from the start that the science would not be “real.”  I think science fiction fans like me will love this book. I plan to read the third book as soon as possible.