Publisher: Pocket Star

Author: Keith R.A. DeCandido

Release Date: 11/28/2006

Pages: 320

MSRP: $7.99

Recommended Audience: Young Adult

The backstory of Nova is very interesting, and this book was to be the behind-the-scenes look at her from the canceled PS2 game. The book starts out on Nova’s 15th birthday and leads up to the death of her family. She then runs from the rich area to the gutter to live in alleys, and she discovers she’s a teep/teek or telepathic/telekinetic. What she has to grow through is pretty horrible, including her working for the drug lord Fagin and the Wrangler, who is sent to capture her for the Ghost program.

The story is very simple and isn’t very sophisticated, but it gets the job done, and you can really feel bad for what Nova is going through. Knowing she’s just a girl makes her seem more vulnerable, including the fact that she almost gets raped and must kill for Fagin to stay alive. For some reason, DeCandido tries making up his own slang that the people in the gutter use, and it feels forced and is pretty lame. His style of writing is very simple, but he gets his point across. I would have liked to have seen some more detail in the world of the city she lives in, but due to the shortness of the novel, you get the bare minimum. The book doesn’t feel very StarCrafty except for some names from the game and the ongoing battle with the Zerg that goes on in the background of the book through UNN feeds she hears. I thought this was the most clever part of the book, but overall, that’s it.

Nova is a decent novel and gets her story across, but don’t expect anything fancy or deep here. With the terrible use of made-up slang and his simple style of writing, this makes for a weekend read, but after that, you will probably forget about it.