During a standard drill however, Kenzie finds herself unexpectedly taken hostage by a group of prisoners bent on escape.

Fortunately, with usual corporate efficiency, the station is so heavily controlled by one AI, that it can be staffed with only six human guards including Kenzie and her parents, after all each prisoner has a chip to suppress their powers and the AI’s control of the prison’s routine is absolute. 50 years ago the probes came, imbuing the next generation with various special abilities, and Sanctuary serves as a prison for some of the most dangerous, teenage criminals with super powers. Like her parents, Kenzie has always been a loyal citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the corporation which controls most of the world’s law enforcement, after all she knows that being a corporate citizen provides her and her family wealth, status and luxury way beyond what is available to government citizens in their crime ridden, run down government cities. The story is told entirely from the first person perspective of 17 year old Kenzie Cord a junior prison guard on the space station Sanctuary. And Kenzie might have to team up with her captors to survive-all while beginning to suspect there’s a darker side to the Omnistellar she knows.While super powers have never been a favourite plot device of mine, I have always been up for a bit of space opera and dystopia, and the idea of a novel set on a prison in space with one of its guards as a protagonist was certainly one that got my attention.

Yet it soon becomes clear that her mother is more concerned with sticking to Omnistellar protocol than she is with getting Kenzie out safely.Īs Kenzie forms her own plan to escape, she doesn’t realize there’s a more sinister threat looming, something ancient and evil that has clawed its way into Sanctuary from the vacuum of space. As a junior guard, she’s excited to prove herself to her company-and that means sacrificing anything that won’t propel her forward.īut then a routine drill goes sideways and Kenzie is taken hostage by rioting prisoners.Īt first, she’s confident her commanding officer-who also happens to be her mother-will stop at nothing to secure her freedom. Kenzie holds one truth above all: the company is everything.Īs a citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the most powerful corporation in the solar system, Kenzie has trained her entire life for one goal: to become an elite guard on Sanctuary, Omnistellar’s space prison for superpowered teens too dangerous for Earth. Alien meets Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds in this thrilling debut novel about prison-guard-in-training, Kenzie, who is taken hostage by the superpowered criminal teens of the Sanctuary space station-only to have to band together with them when the station is attacked by mysterious creatures.

Sanctuary by Caryn Lix