Review of Indie Ebook Removed – Book 1 of the Nogiku series by S.J. Pajonas #Brainfluffbookreview #Removedbookreview

I enjoyed Crash Land on Kurai so wanted more of this interesting world where most of the survivors of the human race happen to be Japanese and go back to their ancient customs and roots in a post-apocalyptic world.

Can she piece together the truth before Earth’s last city tears itself apart? It’s easy for Sanaa to ignore the first signs of trouble. After all, she’s living her dream with a job and life she loves. But when she’s reassigned as a data analyst for a mysterious, well-connected man, she starts to piece together the alarming reality. Corrupt clans vie for control of the city, desperate for a ticket off the dying planet.

I really liked this one. Sanaa is a hard-working youngster, driven to try and help alleviate many of the problems holding up humanity’s flight to the stars, while living in the last large underground city. However, time is running out. The Earth’s crust is breaking up and the climate is steadily deteriorating. Sanaa has always assumed that she would continue to pursue her studies, having worked very hard to distinguish herself. And then one day it all changes. She is yanked away from her friends and the job she loves and told she needs to pursue a different path – while not really understanding what that path is. This could have been a really hard sell – that our lively, intelligent protagonist is completely derailed from her life’s ambitions and yet somehow goes along with the flow without creating too many waves. However, Pajonas has been clever in setting up the world where she is an orphan living with her aunt and her lover – a world where obedience and doing your best is highly prized in a society teetering on the edge of obliteration.

In many ways, this story is comfortingly familiar to anyone who reads this genre in that we have a youngster immersed in what they believe to be their life’s ambition, often with the difficult start, and doing very well. At some stage, everything suddenly falls apart as they are forced into embracing a far more difficult, often darker occupation and in following this path, on the advice of some mysterious mentor, they encounter romance.

What I think makes this one stand out, is the complexity of the characterisation and the layers of society and sheer detail we get of Sanaa’s everyday life. This gives us a greater understanding of not only her actions, but her thoughts and her doubts. While the romance was predictable, I was relieved there were no major quarrels or upsets and it is genuinely sweet. One interesting difference was that Sanaa had previously experienced two very unsatisfactory love affairs and talks quite frankly about them – which is atypical in this kind of story.

However, I don’t want you to go away with the idea that this is all about the romance – it isn’t and if it had been I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did. This book does what all good science fiction achieves – takes me to a different place and a different time and immerses me in a completely different culture, leaving me wondering what I’d do if it were me. Recommended for fans of character-led, adventure science fiction.
9/10