June Suggested Reading: Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy

Sara Creasy’s debut Song of Scarabaeus is a science-fiction romance novel which reinvents the future through introducing some new technologies and also yields a fun reading.




The story is about cyphertech Edie Sha’nim who is kidnapped by mercenaries to help the Rebel Fringe colonies get their freedom from the Crib, which is a top secret government agency. Their interest on Edie is due to her innate talent and special training on terraforming, and she will only earn her freedom if she shows them how to prevent the deactivation of the biocyph seeds, which are part of a technology that uses genetic engineering to terraform planets.

In this time, most of the technological work is done through connecting one’s mind to equipment, and in order to keep her from running away, the mercenaries link her mind to that of Finn, a bodyguard, who risks death, if he leaves her side. As the two characters are forced to live together and face several dangers, a relationship inevitably develops between them.

A biocyph technology was deployed by the Crib on the planet Scarabaeus to terraform it, but something went wrong and the planet is dying. Edie took part in the project, a secret she desperately tries to keep from Finn and the Rebels, and she knows what went wrong.

Author Sara Creasy created a sophisticated world and a complex plot. An avid science fiction reader since high school, she commented on her influences and how she developed her story:

“I love gritty science fiction movies, and that’s how I imagined the universe of this story. Creating the main character Edie was more a matter of removing influences: I didn’t want her to have a military background, or be a genetically engineered superwoman, or be a kick-ass heroine with a smart mouth… Finally, because my background is biology, that’s what I drew from for the science part of my SF universe.”

Talking about the main character Edie, Sara Creasy told that: “She’s definitely someone who tries to do the right thing but she doesn’t always have the experience or opportunity to make the best decisions. She’s not in a position of power but she stands up to injustice and she makes whatever deals are necessary to get by.”

She also described what her writing process is like: “I sit at the computer and write. It’s that simple: get words on the page. I worked for many years as an editor, and while many of the skills required for editing are useful to a writer, I also found it was holding me back. I could never leave a paragraph or a sentence alone until it was edited to perfection. This is a bad thing when you’re trying to complete a first draft. I’m still learning that I have to just write it and leave it alone, however bad it seems, knowing I can come back later and fix it.” [1]

Song of Scarabaeus already has a sequel scheduled for 2011, and Sara Creasy has plans of writing more science fiction adventure and romance.

To read excerpts from the book, click on the widget below. For more information, visit her site.



Sara Creasy’s official site