Reviews for Up against it
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
The asteroid colony Phoecia is undergoing a water crisis that Resource Commissioner Jane Navio suspects might be an attempt by the Martian mafia to take over the world. Complicating matters, an AI (artificial intelligence) goes rogue. Locke's debut, a refreshing blend of hard sf and topical issues, introduces a resilient heroine who faces her challenges with resourcefulness and courage. VERDICT Fans of technically sound sf should enjoy this well-constructed adventure set two centuries from now. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Compulsively readable and packed with challenging ideas, this hefty debut is set in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid colony Phoecea survives by using nanotech to process huge chunks of methane ice, until sabotage by the Martian crime syndicate throws everything into jeopardy. Meanwhile, a feral AI is evolving within the colony's computer net, intending to spread throughout the solar system. The humans who have to cope with these threats are competent, endearing, and believably frazzled: Resource Commissioner Jane Navio has to make life and death decisions while watching her public approval rating fluctuate, and teen Geoff Agre and his rocketbike-riding friends make heroic choices while squabbling with their families and each other. Locke has created a believable ecosystem of struggling, competing, sometimes uncomfortably interacting components, where trust is betrayed painfully, but allies appear unexpectedly. Most of all, this smart, satisfying hard SF adventure celebrates human resilience. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
In this debut novel written by a professional engineer and set on the asteroid colony Phocaea, a group of space-born high-school students amuse themselves by hacking matter compilers to produce dancing skeletons, using their rocket-bikes to salvage methane ice shrapnel that flies away when the colony brings in a big (and vital) rock of the stuff, and figuring out how to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance motes that are the million eyes of 'Stroiders, a reality-TV show that spies on the colonists' daily lives for entertainment back on Earth. Then the brother of one of the young men is killed in a freak accident. The accident reveals that the colony is facing a water crisis. Jane, the resource-management specialist in charge, discovers that the accident and the crisis were probably arranged by the Martian crime syndicate, which wants to control the colony. And then there's this rogue AI from somewhere . . . . Thrills, action, real characters that you come to care about, and a true sense of what it would be like to live in a space colony Locke has given all these. Here's hoping to see more books from this writer.--Murray, Frieda Copyright 2010 Booklist
