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by Juliet MarillierThe people of Alban are afraid. the tyrannical king and his masked Enforcers are scouring the l
Read ReviewBurn Bright
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Into a world of wild secrets and deadly pleasures comes a girl whose innocence may be her greatest strength.
In Ixion music and party are our only beliefs. Darkness is our comfort. We have few rules but they are absolute . . .
Retra doesn’t want to go to Ixion, the island of ever-night, ever-youth and never-sleep. Retra is a Seal – sealed minds, sealed community. She doesn’t crave parties and pleasure, experience and freedom.
But her brother Joel left for Ixion two years ago, and Retra is determined to find him. Braving the intense pain of her obedience strip to escape the only home she’s ever known, Retra stows away on the barge that will take her to her brother.
When she can’t find Joel, Retra finds herself drawn deeper into the intoxicating world of Ixion. Come to me, whispers a voice in her head. Who are the Ripers, the mysterious guardians of Ixion? What are the Night Creatures Retra can see in the shadows? And what happens to those who grow too old for Ixion?
Retra will find that Ixion has its pleasures, but its secrets are deadly. Will friendship, and the creation of an eternal bond with a Riper, be enough to save her from the darkness?
Listen well, baby bats. Burn bright, but do not stray from the paths. Remember, when you live in a place of darkness you also live with creatures of the dark.
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Reviews
Apr 12,2011
Marianne de Pierres’s Young Adult sci-fi novel is the first in a new series called ‘The Night Creatures’.
Ixion is paradise for the young. It is a secret island, inhabited by wanton partiers whose only purpose in life is to burn bright and live free.
Young people escape to Ixion every day. On the back of a draculin bat or on the barge through Spiral. They come from far and wide to taste the sort of excess that Ixion demands.
Retra is amongst the newest crop of residents to Ixion. She is a Seal – from the Seal compound. Her life could not be more different from the endless nights of Ixion. Back at Seal, all women must wear veils. Men rule and punishments are handed out by the Wardens. Retra’s spirit was further broken when her beloved older brother, Joel, ran away from home to live on Ixion. When Joel left, Retra had only a heartbroken mother and tyrannical father keeping her in Seal . . . so she ran too. She ran to the island of revelry to find her brother . . .
But what Retra discovers is Ixion’s darkest secrets. The Ripers who control the island and dictate to its inhabitants. She finds Ixion segregated into gangs and groups who are becoming increasingly agitated by the violence of the Ripers. And worst of all, the Ixion natives are becoming restless about what will happen to them when they get too old for the revelry of the island and are 'withdrawn' . . . what happens when you get too old to burn bright?
‘Burn Bright’ is an epic and mystifying new novel from Australian writer, Marianne de Pierres. The novel is a cross between ‘Logan’s Run’, ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ‘The Beach’ with a healthy dose of sci-fi steampunk thrown in for good measure. It is incredible, and should most certainly be appearing on everyone’s ‘Must Read’ list for 2011!
Marianne de Pierres writes with an eclectic frenzy that is at once infectious and utterly unique. Yes, ‘Burn Bright’ is sci-fi, but de Pierres is drawing on so many fantastical genres and themes that the novel is as wonderfully haphazard as the island of Ixion. Back at the Seal compound Retra’s school teacher was a mechanical head in a box, but this alternate universe is also peppered with mystical flying bats and other creatures that lurk in dark places. These sorts of mishmashes are peppered throughout ‘Burn Bright’ – cable ‘kars’ carry party-goers to their clubbing destinations around the island, carriages sprout legs and the only places of rest on Ixion are the various chapels and churches specifically designed for partiers ‘come down’. I loved that Marianne de Pierres made the world of Ixion as diverse as the residents – a mixture of high-tech steampunk and animalism where residents are ruled by their base desires.
The silence became taut as if the crowd breathed in accord.
Lenoir laughed, feeling it. Though many could not see him as well as she could, he mesmerised them with his voice alone.
“Fear not. All we want . . . is for you to pleasure yourselves,” he said.
A cheer went up, discharging the tension.
He waved his hands once more for quiet. “In Ixion music and party are our only beliefs. Darkness is our comfort. . .”
Retra is a fantastic protagonist through which to experience the world of Ixion. She stands out amongst her fellow celebrators – she cannot shake the lessons that have been beaten into her since childhood. Retra cannot lose herself in the burn – both because she is hunting for her run-away brother, and because she can't help the perverse feeling that Ixion is wrong and something is looming above the merrymaking.
‘Burn Bright’ also features a cachet of wonderful secondary characters. The various gangs of Ixion read like Peter Pan’s lost boys – Kero, Clash and Krista-belle. Then there are those who are new to the island and become fast friends with Retra – Rollo, Suki and Markes. Retra forms the first friendships of her life on Ixion, at the same time that her loyalty and trust are put to the test by the island’s inhabitants. The secondary characters are made all the more fascinating for their quick bonding with Retra – it seems like the island of Ixion inspires heightened emotion and unions are formed quickly and intensely amongst friends and lovers.
‘Burn Bright’ is a novel of intriguing complications. Ixion seems like a haven for the young – where people are encouraged to burn bright, live free and be without consequence. But of course, freedom has a price. Marianne de Pierres is writing some subversive moral lessons for her characters – some are obvious, like the disastrous effects of eating the ‘pods’ that Ripers hand out like lollies to revellers. Other messages are murkier and will take more books to wade through and pick apart – like deciding what price you’re willing to pay for change and betterment.
‘Burn Bright’ is an epic new young adult sci-fi novel. Marianne de Pierres has written a beautifully frantic book that meshes sci-fi with fantasy and steampunk, while also exploring base human nature and the consequences of chasing the dream and living to burn. Impressive and addictive. I eagerly await second novel, ‘Angel Arias’.
Mar 11,2011
Retra is a girl sealed of from the world living in a guarded and restrictive community where information is withheld, rules are strict and punishments are a common occurrence. With even her thoughts and feelings denied she knew she could survive because she had her brother, but then one day her brother ran away.
Naif is a girl awakening to a new world of pleasure and freedom, uninhibited by parents or rules she is discovering a side of herself she never knew existed. But more then that she is discovering the dangers of Ixion. In the dark all senses are heightened and along with enjoyment comes a very real sense of fear, not just of the unknown but of the dangers that comes only with living in the dark.
Burn Bright is a decidedly dark and decadent story of a utopian paradise layered over a richly delicate and dangerous world of secrets, pirates and dark creatures. A provocative and intoxicating story of a girl breaking through the naivety of childhood and entering the seductive world of adulthood, a world filled with sex, drugs, music and of cause night creatures. An Enthralling read that questions societies morals and individuals actions wrapped in a beguiling cover.
Mar 11,2011
When Retra runs away to Ixion, the island of parties, youth and eternal darkness, she doesn’t do it for the same reasons as the others. While they just want to lose themselves in the constant rush, she wants to find someone: her brother.
So, ignoring the pain in her thigh from her disobedience implant, she makes it aboard a ship bound for Ixion. For the first time in her life she is free from the strict rules and harsh punishments of her life in the Seal, but Retra is all too aware that even here she doesn’t fit in. Her upbringing marks her apart from the other ‘baby bats’, and in a place where modesty is a sin, she struggles with its ways and its secrets – what lies behind the pale faces of the Ripers, their supposed guardians? And in a world for the young, what happens to those who grow too old? Are their lights snuffed out in the darkness?
Burn Bright introduces one of the most exciting worlds I’ve encountered since Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, or Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn, and it will surely appeal to fans of both. Ixion is such an easy place to get lost in, helped along by strange, wonderful characters and Marianne de Pierres’s lush writing, which at times feels like you’re floating through a dark dream. This is the first YA book from the Australian author, who has previously written crime under the name Marianne Delacourt, and I for one feel so lucky she’s ventured into this genre because Burn Bright really is a book that takes your breath away.
Burn Bright is the first in the Night Creatures trilogy, so once you’ve devoured the pleasures of Ixion, you can look forward to more, baby bats.
