Shattered (Chronicles of White World Book 3) - M. Terry Green

Shattered is a worthy end volume to M. Terry Green's dystopian sci-fi trilogy.

When we last left Thirteen, Cord, and little Miyu, they had liberated a slavers' ship and were heading for Helado, the city-on-a-volcanic-island where Thirteen hoped to find and rescue her sister at last. Hot on their heels was Helado's navy, headed by Prince Céfiro, who has sworn to win his father's favor by bringing in the Ghost -- the pirate who preys on Helado's most profitable industry by attacking slaving ships and setting the slaves free.

Cord has no interest in going to Helado, for reasons he is trying to keep secret. But he knows where Thirteen's sister is, and Thirteen has demanded that he take her to her. So when the navy catches up to them at last, he does the one thing he knows will reunite the sisters.

To tell you what he does would be a major spoiler. Suffice it to say that Green provides her readers with more than our fair share of twists and turns. Thirteen, Cord, and Miyu are affecting and engaging characters, and I couldn't stop reading until I reached the final page. If you're a fan of dystopian sci-fi, I highly recommend the entire Chronicles of White World series.

Trapped (Chronicles of White World 2) - M. Terry Green

M. Terry Green turns in another fine effort in this second book of her Chronicles of White World.

As Trapped begins, we are back on the Pacifica Ice Sheet with Thirteen and her castaway crew: Cord and his young daughter, Miyu. Thirteen can see her goal on the horizon -- Volcano Helado, where she last saw her sister -- but an impossibly long rift in the ice sits between her crippled skimmer and her goal. Chased by slavers who want to put an end to Thirteen's attacks on their trade, she and Cord debate whether to chance crossing the chasm at an ice bridge. The bridge seems stable enough until Thirteen sends a probe into it to check its thickness. The next thing they know, all three of them are sliding under the ice and into a mysterious colony that resembles the Hotel California in one respect: you can never leave. But if anybody can get them out, it's Thirteen.

Some middle-of-the-series books suffer from being nothing but a bridge between the beginning and the final volume. But Green is the kind of storyteller who knows how to keep things moving. We still don't know a lot about Thirteen's past, and Cord is more of a mystery man at the end of this book than ever. But I'm confident all will be explained in the final volume -- which I'm very much looking forward to.

Iced (Chronicles of White World, Book 1) - M. Terry Green

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the books in Green's Olivia Lawson, Techno-Shaman series, so when I heard she was beginning a new series, my hand immediately went up for an ARC. And I'm glad I asked, because this one promises to be just as good.

The series is set on a future Earth after the next Ice Age has begun. It's unclear to me whether it's a natural phenomenon, or whether some kind of nuclear winter set it off. Either way it's very cold, and there are apparently few human survivors. They have retained enough technology, and developed additional tech, to cope with living in such a cold climate. But still, falling on the ice is tantamount to a death sentence.

Unfortunately, barbarism has survived, as well. Thirteen is a young woman who was previously some kind of slave (which kind becomes apparent partway through the novel). She has somehow procured a skimmer -- a sort of hovercraft for flying over the frozen Pacific -- and she has made it her business to attack slave ships, kill the crew, and free the cargo of slaves by handing over the ship to them. She has an ulterior motive: she's looking for information about her sister, from whom she was separated when they were both made slaves. But she is a thorn in the side of the nation-states that have built their economy on slavery. And the leader of one of those nations in particular has sworn to put the Ghost -- who they believe is a man -- out of commission permanently.

Things get interesting for Thirteen when she finds the survivor of a shipwreck. Cord was iced when slavers attacked the convoy he was in and captured his young daughter Miyu. Thirteen believes Cord knows something about her sister, and Cord senses that information is the only thing keeping her from killing him. Thus begins their uneasy partnership in a quest to steal Miyu back.

Green has clearly done her research, and she's done a great job with transferring sailing terms to this new, futuristic environment. I found myself pulling for both Thirteen and Cord, and couldn't put it down 'til I found out what happened to them. Now I'm looking forward to the next book. Highly recommended.

Shaman, Healer, Heretic (Olivia Lawson, Techno-Shaman #1) - M. Terry Green

I loved this book, and was so glad to find out it's the first in a series.

Olivia Lawson, known as Livvy, is a former med student who now works as a shaman, healing people in a different way. She uses special goggles to go into a trance state so she can venture to the Middle World and talk the spirits of dying people into coming back. It doesn't pay very well, and people are suspicious of her work. Even some of her clients think shamanism is next to Satanism.

She awakens one night to find a kachina -- an honest-to-goodness Hopi Indian god -- standing over her bed. That should be impossible. There's no way any beings from the other side can get through to this reality.

At the same time, shamans have begun dying while in the other world. Livvy gets the idea that all the techno-shamans should band together to cross the divide and find out what's going on. She talks her boss, SK, into helping her pull everybody together -- a tricky feat, as shamans work alone.

Somebody's spreading rumors that the shamans are responsible for bad things that are happening on this plane, making her job even harder. To top it off, there's a paramedic who seems to have taken a shine to her -- but can she trust him?

Livvy's a great character. Her angst is believable, and I felt sorry for her when she seemed to have trouble convincing the other shamans to help. I did wish the author had mentioned Livvy's ability to jury-rig electronics sooner, but you can't have everything.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series.