Saving myself a little time today by cross-posting. Check out the author's blogs here and here.
What's a Telmaj? We're not told till a third of the way through this book, but by then we're caught up in the story, which starts with just a boy hiding behind a garbage can.
Smijj, like Harry Potter (and this'll occur to anybody who's read HP), is an orphan living in a harsh world, who sometimes finds himself able to do things that should be physically impossible. Like Harry, he's about to find out what he is. This will lead to both joy and danger.
Smijj's home is a rundown space station, thousands of years in our future. His talent is teleportation, the ability to move himself and other people and objects by thought. He can't control it very well, or he wouldn't be hiding from the staff of a store he's just stolen something from. His people, the Telmaj, are needed in an economy that depends on space travel, but they're also exploited. When he escapes onto a well-run cargo ship, it's literally a wish come true. But it's also the beginning of new troubles for him.
One thing that keeps Smijj going is the kindness he finds here and there -- in neighbours, other crew members, and even slaves. He always tries to return it, instead of letting his harsh life make him selfish.
Mrs. Manning doesn't go overboard with gruesome details. Smijj's life is unpleasant, not unbearable. The slaves in the story aren't beaten or starved -- they just have to spend their days doing things like mending dishes with futuristic Krazy Glue. Likewise, the love story of two adult characters is told with next to no mushiness.
I would've liked to see more physical description, especially of the Telmaj homeworld, but we can hope for that in the second book. It also seemed to me that the plot wound up a little too quickly. But, again, the story's not really over yet.
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