Welcome to my stop on the official Zenn Scarlett blog tour being presented by Strange Chemistry! Today I have a guest post by author Christian Schoon along with my review of the book!
Zenn Scarlett
Author: Christian Schoon
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble
Description:
When you're studying to be exoveterinarian specializing in exotic, alien life forms, school... is a different kind of animal.
Best-selling author Mike Mullin (Ashfall) calls Zenn Scarlett "...delightful, bizarre, and occasionally terrifying." Melissa West (Gravity) says it’s “Utterly imaginative… sci-fi at its best. Fantastic world-building. Deep characters... I couldn’t put it down!” And Temple Grandin (Animals in Translation) says "All future vets will want to read Zenn Scarlett and her adventures with veterinary medicine on alien animals."
The Story
Zenn Scarlett is a resourceful, determined 17-year-old girl working hard to make it through her novice year of exovet training. That means she's learning to care for alien creatures that are mostly large, generally dangerous and profoundly fascinating. Zenn’s all-important end-of-term tests at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars are coming up, and, she's feeling confident of acing the exams. But when a series of inexplicable animal escapes and other disturbing events hit the school, Zenn finds herself being blamed for the problems. As if this isn't enough to deal with, her absent father has abruptly stopped communicating with her; Liam Tucker, a local towner boy, is acting unusually, annoyingly friendly; and, strangest of all: Zenn is worried she's started sharing the thoughts of the creatures around her. Which is impossible, of course. Nonetheless, she can't deny what she's feeling.
Now, with the help of Liam and Hamish, an eight-foot sentient insectoid also training at the clinic, Zenn must learn what's happened to her father, solve the mystery of who, if anyone, is sabotaging the cloister, and determine if she's actually sensing the consciousness of her alien patients... or just losing her mind. All without failing her novice year....
Zenn Scarlett is an original and utterly fascinating young adult science fiction novel that follows leading lady Zenn Scarlett as she begins her exoveterinarian training on the planet of Mars. Zenn and her family live on one of the last human colonies on Mars, at a cloister where they treat and board alien creatures. Zenn is following in her mother's footsteps to become a veterinarian to these strange animals, despite her mother's death during a routine procedure when Zenn was younger. Right before her end exams, Zenn and her uncle Otha begin noticing a spike in animal escapes. Combine that with the lack of communication from her father, the newly friendly towner Liam Tucker, and Zenn's strange ability to communicate with the animals - things are definitely getting worse. Now Zenn must figure out who is behind the animal escapes, what has happened to her dad, and what the weird connection is between the animals and her - all without failing her exams.
This is one of the few young adult science fiction novels out there that truly lives up to the genre. The author has built an amazingly detailed and vivid world on Mars - complete with an intriguing history and backstory. I was immediately immersed into Zenn's world on Mars and I loved learning all about the colonies, as well as the background story and history of what happened before with the Earth and the other alien worlds. The world building was flawless and I was easily able to see Zenn's world like I was there alongside her. The characters were all authentic and realistic, even though some of them were aliens. They each had a unique personalities with faults and quirks like the rest of us, especially Zenn. She's a typical teenage girl living on an almost abandoned colony on Mars, yet she deals with things we can only imagine. She's smart, strong, reasonable and definitely likable, yet she has flaws and weaknesses that only serve to make her a better heroine. The plot itself was wholly original and extremely well executed. It definitely goes beyond what any other young adult science fiction novel out there has - and it stays completely true to the genre without being flooded with romantic involvement or anything else. It's a straight-forward science fiction novel that's also filled with action and adventure. The writing was incredibly well done with a fast pace and an effortless flow throughout. This is honestly one of the most original novels I've read in young adult fiction in quite some time. I highly recommend it to fans of the genre as well as anyone who wants a breath of fresh air in the YA market.
WHY MY M.C. ROCKS...(in MOHO, of course)
Every author likes to think their protagonist is special. I
think it’s safe to say that most of us wouldn’t write the books we write if we
found our main character entirely average with nothing of interest to say and
who spent their day staring glassy eyed at the wall. Well, unless a deadly boring hero was
integral to the plot. I’m sure this book has been written, but I must’ve
skipped it.
So, Zenn Scarlett is my own special person. How so? What
makes her tick? At a fundamental level, she runs on to two central, sometimes
warring attributes: logic and fear.
Zenn was raised in a science-based cloister and exoveterinarian
training clinic on Mars. Her mother and uncle are both exovets, and Zenn intends
to be one too. Raised in an environment where science and reason are very well
regarded, if not indispensable, concept, Zenn has not surprisingly grown up to
feel that life should be conducted along these lines. She’s also the only child
in the sprawling cloister compound. And, because a menagerie of alien animals is
housed here, and because the villagers in the nearby town are deeply anti-alien
xenophobes, Zenn has grown up isolated from other kids her age. Add to this,
the fact that her mother and father are both absent in her life, and you can
probably begin to see where the fear aspect of her personality-drivers comes
from.
Zenn’s scientific outlook on her world has allowed her to
apply a fairly strict sort of winnowing process when dealing with new
information or situations: assemble data, analyze it, weigh the cost-benefit of
taking action A as opposed to action B, take the selected action, evaluate the
result and apply that information to the next similar situation. Now, she’s not
emotionless or even close to it. She is human, after all, and 17, and facing
all those growing-up-ish things any 17 year-old faces. She tries to reason her
way through them. Now and then, she fails. But even then, she’s not the type to
let set-backs freak her out.
Even when good-looking, chip-on-shoulder towner boy Liam Tucker
begins “taking an interest” in her, Zenn remains, for the most part,
unflustered and more baffled and annoyed than instantly love-struck. She’s
simply not the type to allow a romantic distraction to derail her single-minded
focus on achieving her highly challenging goal of making it through her novice year
of exovet training. She considers Liam’s attentions the way she’d consider most
other human interactions: with a logical eye to the situation’s pros and cons. Of course, emotions aren’t always amenable to
reason, and Zenn’s logic can only take her so far, after which, she’s crossed
the boundary into terra incognita.
The difference with Zenn is that she knows even in the most unfamiliar
terrain, she can at least attempt to let her reason help her map a path. Adding
another layer to this coping mechanism, however, is the fear element. The two
most important people in her life have left her, for one reason or another. It’s
hardly shocking that because of this she views any new human relationship with
more than a little trepidation: don’t let yourself open up and like someone,
they’ll desert you.
And that’s why I find Zenn so interesting as a character.
She’s on the verge of entering a stage of life where almost every day brings
new, often major, intellectual and emotional challenges. So, writing the book,
and seeing my main character deal with all this novelty in her own, Zenn-ish
way, was simply one of the most illuminating and enjoyable creative experiences
of my life. Yeah, I know, every parent thinks their baby is a gift from the
gods. Guilty as charged.
Thanks for stopping by the blog today and sharing more reasons why Zenn rocks with us Christian!
Born
in the American Midwest, Christian started his writing career in
earnest as an in-house writer at the Walt Disney Company in Burbank,
California. He then became a freelance writer working for various film,
home video and animation studios in Los Angeles. After moving from LA to
a farmstead in Iowa several years ago, he continues to freelance and
also now helps re-hab wildlife and foster abused/neglected horses. He acquired his amateur-vet knowledge, and much of his inspiration for the Zenn Scarlett series of novels, as he learned about - and received an education from - these remarkable animals.
Find Christian:
Author Blog: christianschoon.com
Twitter: @cjschoon
Publisher’s Website: http://strangechemistrybooks.com/our-authors/christian-schoon/
*Note: I did not create the banner found at the top of the post. It originally appeared on the book blog Chapter by Chapter.*
4 brooms! Zenn likes! Thanks, Steph, for letting me drop by your dreamy hang out. Cheers!
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