First published 2024
The boy has spent his life as one of the Chained, working in the depths of a mining ship that travels between stars. Everything changes when he gets summoned upstairs to meet a woman who will become his professor. She tells him he is no longer Chained. He has been selected to study at the ship's university with the privileged class. The professor has dedicated her career to winning approval from her academic colleagues, hoping to secure a better future, but she keeps falling short of her goals. As the boy and the woman work together, they start to understand how the chains that bind them both actually function. They discover they hold the power to break those chains. Their learning becomes a mutual transformation that will reshape their entire world.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, coming-of-age, social-issues, academic, alternate-universe
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family, mutual-transformation
Setting: Stars
Period: Future
88 pages · ebook · Tordotcom