The Girls From Alcyone

by Cary Caffrey

Sigrid and Suko are two girls from the impoverished and crime-infested streets of 24th century Earth. Sold into slavery to save their families from financial ruin, the girls are forced to live out their lives in service to the Kimura Corporation, a prestigious mercenary clan with a lineage stretching back long before the formation of the Federated Corporations. Known only to Kimura, the two girls share startling secret-a rare genetic structure not found in tens of millions of other girls. But when their secret becomes known, Sigrid and Suko quickly find themselves at the center of a struggle for power. Now, hunted by men who would seek to control them, Sigrid and Suko are forced to fight for their own survival, and for the freedom of the girls from Alcyone.

• ISBN10: 1105337278
• ISBN13: 9781105337277
• Publish Date: 19 December 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Lulu.com
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 314
• Language: English

Reviews

[inlibrisveritas]

The Girls from Alycone is a book for the sci-fi adventure lovers out there who want a story with pretty awesome tech and kick ass main characters to delve into.

The story spans a pretty decent sized time-frame and covers from when the girls are first taken in by the Kimura Corporation to when they are adults and fully functioning mercenaries, and while the book moves a decent clip it doesn’t feel rushed or glossed over. We get a good idea of the tactics used to make these somewhat unassuming girls into women with tech built in and a knack for handling trouble single-handily. Our focus though is mostly on Sigrid and Suko as they grow up, grow closer, and deal with the on coming storm of in fighting within the mercenary guilds. Sigrid’s slow transformation into the sure and steady woman she becomes is quite awesome. She starts out rather slowly, always trailing behind the other girls in most of their lessons, but she thinks differently and she knows what she’s good at…and soon she becomes a focus for both Kimura and those who want them gone. She becomes a badass, in fact…this book is full of female badasses even the ones on the other side of the conflict are pretty epic. The relationship that forms between Sigrid and Suko, while not the overall focus of the novel, is just the right little push to make this one hit home. I might be a little partial but best friends slowly falling for each other kind of gets me every time.

I really loved the world-building as well, and while it is a sci-fi story with some pretty cool advancements and space travel it still held on to somethings like weapon technology, and think it gave it a little flair. I get kind of tired of seeing laser weapons and the like, so to see grenades and bullets is a plus. I’m really pleased with the amount of things GfA explores in this like: indentured servitude, birth debts, space travel tech (relays!), privatized “non-bias” companies in charge of major functions, and merc guilds functioning within laws and are recognized by the powers that be.

I think at this point it’s safe to call me a Kristen James fangirl. This is my 6th audiobook that she has narrated, and I seriously can’t wait to listen to more. I actually bought another audio simply because she’s the one reading it. I think Girls from Alcyone is some of her best work, simply because of the amount of voices she uses with different inflections and accents is pretty high…and of course she’s great at putting just the right amount of emotion into every word.

I’m super excited for book two, because the ending of this one puts the girls in a rather interesting place and with the fight far from over I definitely can’t wait to see how Sigrid handles it.