Salvage

by Alexandra Duncan

Overview

Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean, in this thrilling, surprising, and thought-provoking debut novel that will appeal to fans of Across the Universe, by Beth Revis, and The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Internationally bestselling author Stephanie Perkins called it "brilliant, feminist science fiction."

Ava is the captain's daughter. This allows her limited freedom and a certain status in the Parastrata's rigid society—but it doesn't mean she can read or write or even withstand the forces of gravity. When Ava learns she is to be traded in marriage to another merchant ship, she hopes for the best. After all, she is the captain's daughter. But instead, betrayal, banishment, and a brush with love and death are her destiny, and Ava stows away on a mail sloop bound for Earth in order to escape both her past and her future. The gravity almost kills her. Gradually recuperating in a stranger's floating cabin on the Gyre, a huge mass of scrap and garbage in the Pacific Ocean, Ava begins to learn the true meaning of family and home and trust—and she begins to nourish her own strength and soul. This sweeping and harrowing novel explores themes of choice, agency, rebellion, and family, and after a tidal wave destroys the Gyre and all those who live there, ultimately sends its main character on a thrilling journey to Mumbai, the beating heart of Alexandra Duncan's post–climate change Earth. An Andre Norton Award nominee.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062220141
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/01/2014
Series:	Salvage , #1
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.90(d)
Lexile:	HL730L (what's this?)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Alexandra Duncan is an author and librarian. She lives in the mountains of western North Carolina with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats.

Editorial Reviews

05/19/2014
Duncan makes an excellent debut with a novel that's part feminist polemic and part coming-of-age adventure. In a space-faring future, supply ship "crewes" have developed into patriarchal tribes, with strict gender roles and a mythology to justify them: "Women of the air, stay aloft," the girls of the vessel Parastrata are warned. Ava is considered to be deviant for several reasons: she is of suspect Earthly descent, and she has a knack for both math and mechanical engineering, disciplines that are forbidden to women on her ship. After further transgressing Parastrata's laws through a romantic encounter, she is cast out into the Void. With a fierce desire to survive and with the help of a female spaceship captain named Perpétue, Ava escapes space for the deadly gravity of Earth, where she eventually discovers emotional, sexual, and intellectual liberation. Duncan's thoroughly realized setting and subtle control of Ava's voice result in a powerfully immersive story that uses its far-future SF premise to thoughtfully explore gender politics. Ages 13–up. Agent: Kate Testerman, KT Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Salvage is the book I’ve been waiting for—kick-ass, brilliant, feminist science fiction. Watch out, world. Alexandra Duncan has arrived.” — Stephanie Perkins, internationally bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door

“Alexandra Duncan’s debut illustrates a richly detailed world that vividly shows a possible future of Earth where society has both regressed and progressed, where the struggles of humanity have become more dire, but where love still remains. Everything—from the world to the characters—felt viscerally real. Original and memorable.” — Beth Revis, author of the nationally best-selling Across the Universe

“Epic in scope and intimate in execution, Salvage is an astonishing debut. Duncan expertly crafts a story of the journey to claim oneself across the infinite expanses of both space and the human heart.” — Kiersten White, author of the New York Times best-selling Paranormalcy trilogy

“Alexandra Duncan is a stunning new voice. Duncan’s magnificently flawed future world exposes humanity . . . in ways that are ripe for discussion. . . . Ava’s personal journey from oppression to self-actualization—by turns harrowing and heartbreaking, but ultimately triumphant—will keep readers glued to the pages. Highly recommended.” — Rae Carson, author of the best-selling Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy

“Duncan makes an excellent debut . . . A powerfully immersive story that uses its far-future SF premise to thoughtfully explore gender politics.” — Publishers Weekly

“Debut author Alexandra Duncan portrays a patriarchal civilization eerily reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale….Duncan’s fast-paced narrative and original settings—from the Parastrata to the Gyre (a floating garbage mass in the Pacific) to Mumbai—will keep readers riveted.” — Shelf Awareness for Readers

From the Publisher

Alexandra Duncan’s debut illustrates a richly detailed world that vividly shows a possible future of Earth where society has both regressed and progressed, where the struggles of humanity have become more dire, but where love still remains. Everything—from the world to the characters—felt viscerally real. Original and memorable.

Beth Revis

Epic in scope and intimate in execution, Salvage is an astonishing debut. Duncan expertly crafts a story of the journey to claim oneself across the infinite expanses of both space and the human heart.

Kiersten White

Debut author Alexandra Duncan portrays a patriarchal civilization eerily reminiscent of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale….Duncan’s fast-paced narrative and original settings—from the Parastrata to the Gyre (a floating garbage mass in the Pacific) to Mumbai—will keep readers riveted.

Shelf Awareness for Readers

Salvage is the book I’ve been waiting for—kick-ass, brilliant, feminist science fiction. Watch out, world. Alexandra Duncan has arrived.

Stephanie Perkins

Alexandra Duncan is a stunning new voice. Duncan’s magnificently flawed future world exposes humanity . . . in ways that are ripe for discussion. . . . Ava’s personal journey from oppression to self-actualization—by turns harrowing and heartbreaking, but ultimately triumphant—will keep readers glued to the pages. Highly recommended.

Rae Carson

02/01/2014
Gr 9 Up—Seventeen-year-old Ava was born and raised aboard a spaceship, the Parastrata, but when she makes an understandable, yet regrettable, mistake, she is cast out by her patriarchal family to the unfamiliar and unforgiving Earth below. With just her aptitude for "Fixes" and her spirit for survival, the teen must navigate through the Gyre, a floating wasteland of trash in the Pacific, to ultimately end up in Mumbai, where she searches for her modrie, her blood-aunt. Duncan delivers a finely paced dystopian novel that relentlessly charges through the finer plot points, which may leave readers confused as to how Earth became a technologically advanced wasteland. Another small hiccup is the strange dialogue among the Parastrata's inhabitants, including Ava, without explanation, which may be off-putting to slow and reluctant readers. However, the strength of Ava's character carries readers through the lengthy novel. Fans of Beth Revis's Across the Universe (Penguin, 2011) and Ally Condie's Matched (Dutton, 2010) will appreciate Duncan's first dive into the genre.—Amanda C. Buschmann, Atascocita Middle School, Humble, TX

School Library Journal

2014-02-12
Haunting, colorful environments distinguish this debut novel about a girl fighting for survival in the far future. Ava lives on the Parastrata. She knows nothing beyond her polygamous, fundamentalist religion, whose followers began living in spaceships some 1,000 years ago and which holds women as property since they harbor an interest in Earth "like a soft, rotten spot in [their] souls." Informed that she's marrying a man on another ship, Ava's thrilled to see Luck, a boy she met years ago, in the greeting party. They know they should wait until after their wedding, but they sneak into a desalination pool and succumb to sex the night before—and get caught. To their shock (though not readers'), Ava was actually promised to Luck's father. The Parastrata women wash Ava and lock her in a chilled room to await her punishment: Being pushed out into open space, which is, of course, fatal. A difficult, terrifying escape and a relative's sacrifice provide another chance, but where can she go? From the strained peculiarity of the Parastrata to a sunbaked community afloat on the Pacific Ocean to the bustle of Mumbai, Duncan's settings and diction are vivid. As brown-skinned people become Ava's chosen family, she learns that her own medium-dark skin—mocked aboard the Parastrata—isn't a religious stain, marking this a welcome browning of the science-fiction universe. Ava's decisions sometimes serve plot more than characterization, but readers caught up in the story will forgive this. Memorable. (Science fiction. 14-17)

Kirkus Reviews