Cizota

931, New Galveston, Mars: Fourteen-year-old Anabelle Crisp ventures across the wastelands of an area known as the Strange, to find Silas Mundt's gang who stole her mother's voice, destroyed her father, and left her with only a desire for revenge.

Since Anabelle's mother travelled to Earth to care for her sick grandmother, Anabelle has spent her days at school and her nights in her father's diner, where her only companion is Watson – the family's automated cook and dishwasher. When the Silence came and communication and supplies between Earth and its Martian colonies ceased, life came to a tense standstill – until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.

Ballingrud's novel, which evokes both the dreamlike visions of America from Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and the harsh reality of frontier life from Portis's True Grit, impressively captures Anabelle's journey for revenge through a decimated and angry world. She is accompanied by a household automaton, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.