What I’m Reading: THE LEGACY HUMAN by Susan Kaye Quinn

Susan Kaye Quinn is the kind of author that makes me want to dip into unfamiliar genres, like when I read Third Daughter, her steampunk, Bollywood-ish romance. (I know, me reading romance? But it was really good.) I'm a huge fan of her Indie Author Survival Guide as well.

Sue’s new Singularity Series is the real-deal sci-fi disguised in a YA wrapper. Billed as the “spiritual successor to the bestselling Mindjack trilogy,” and told in a first person, present tense narrative, The Legacy Human has philosophical depth that transcends the YA genre label.

TLH opens in a post-Singularity world, a world separated between “ascenders,” immortals who have made the leap from meatsuit to a human-machine hybrid bodyform, and “legacies,” those who preserve the human genetic code. In the words of Elijah Brighton, the nearly-18 year old main character:

They care for us, feed us, treasure us. We are their origins. The only problem with being part of a living genetic museum is that you’re not allowed to change.

As with most utopias, they’re not as perfect as you’d like them to be, and post-Singularity Earth is no exception. Eli’s one of the lucky legacies: he has a patron, Lenora, who allows him to continue his artistic career as a painter and support his sick mother.

Humans don’t get to ascend anymore, except in rare instances, such as winning the gold medal in the Creative Olympics, an annual event where human artists compete for the ultimate prize: the opportunity for the winner and his family to ascend.

Eli has a gift—let’s call it that—and ends up getting invited to the Games as a last-minute contestant. His mother is on death’s door and Eli winning the gold is her last shot at salvation. The problem for Eli is that his artistic gift is only available to him via an unpredictable fugue state. As he desperately tries to figure out how to control his power, he begins to realize that there’s more to it than just making great art.

The Legacy Human has it all: memorable characters with agency, great villains, impossible odds, and tremendous world-building. Quinn does a phenomenal job of building the world around Elijah without info dumping the information. I’d even go so far as to compare it favorably to DUNE, my favorite sci-fi novel of all time. But don’t expect the gritty violent realism of DUNE. While The Legacy Human manages to take on some hefty philosophical questions, while masquerading as a YA novel.

You can get The Legacy Human for an introductory price of only 99 cents on Amazon.

And you should.

David Bruns is the creator of the sci-fi series The Dream Guild Chronicles, and one half of the Two Navy Guys and a Novel blog series about co-writing the military thriller, Weapons of Mass Deception, coming in May 2015.