Freefall by Joshua David Bellin

FREEFALL by Joshua David Bellin is definitely worth a read if you are a sci-fi fan and are looking for adventure, romance and space travel science. Bellin packs all of that, plus commentary on socio-economic and racial disparities, into FREEFALL which alternates between time periods (Earth in 2150-2151 and an Otherworld in 3151).  Cam is a privileged Upperworld teenager from Earth who becomes enamored of a young woman named Sofie, leader of the Lowerworld opposition. Sofie holds steadfast to her beliefs:  “The main job of a pundit or priest or philosopher … was to tell stories. Publicly, where anyone who wanted to could hear them.  Sometimes the stories were called sermons. Sometimes they were called dialogues. Sometimes they were called parables. Sometimes they were called Vedas. No matter what they were called, their purpose was the same: to lead their audience to the ways of wisdom.”

And it is Cam who struggles to live up to her expectations: “She’d seen through me the way she always did, seen that deep in my heart I was holding back, expecting her to prove something to me before I committed fully to her cause. Life’s like that in the Upperworld.  You learn to believe there’s always an out.” Earth is rapidly disintegrating and the leaders send two starships (with their passengers in deep sleep) to another planet – a millennium in the future. Of course, there are complications and not all is as it should be in the future world for Cam and his friends Adrian and Griff or for Sofie and her people. Read FREEFALL, called “a strong choice for YA sci-fi shelves” by School Library Journal, to see what happens next.