SANCTA FEMINA

A resilient 20-something battles menaces across planets in Combs’ SF debut.

Hella Nazari, returning from military training on Saturn’s moon Titan, witnesses a devastating nuclear blast on her home world of Earth. She and others aboard their orbiting vessel escape in cryo-pods. Hella crash-lands on an Earth-like planet where she discovers she’s not alone. There’s good news and bad—Hella’s alarmed to discover she’s been in cryo-sleep for 20 years but happy to learn that Earth’s population wasn’t entirely wiped out. In the meantime, she’s evidently a prisoner of religious leader and political extremist Mordecai Abramovich, though he doesn’t immediately explain why. If she can escape, Hella can make it to Titan and reconnect with friends from the military academy. That’s a possibility if she can gain control of one of Abramovich’s faster-than-light ships, which can likewise get her back to Earth, where some of her adoptive family survives. But surviving isn’t easy when they’re up against the Regime, a cyborg army hunting the people Hella loves. Combs’ deliberate pacing suits the dense worldbuilding as readers learn about a distant-future Earth in the aftermath of catastrophic global warming (“The death of the Old World was self-inflicted by its people”). Technology shapes this novel’s cast—many extend their lives via synthetic organs or bodies, and cloning plays a significant role in the plot. There’s also Hella’s astonishing palm screen, with which she synthesizes a knife from “microscopic particles,” as well as the furry robot dog she befriends. Other characters do eventually crop up, leading to surprises. All the while, Hella proves smart and capable, often staving off panic attacks despite myriad intense situations. She winds up in action scenes that are few but memorable; Hella practices with such real-world blades as a Japanese katana and an Egyptian khopesh (sickle sword), both perfect for an enemy who requires decapitation to kill.

Chic tech and a skilled, extraordinary hero fuel this diverting interplanetary adventure.