Today I am reviewing Nyxia. I received this proof copy on my Illumicrate box (August 2017). I was not sure what to expect to be fair. Also, be warned that this review may include spoilers.
Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
Emmett Atwater isn’t just leaving Detroit; he’s leaving Earth. Why the Babel Corporation recruited him is a mystery, but the number of zeroes on their contract has him boarding their lightship and hoping to return to Earth with enough money to take care of his family.
Forever.
Before long, Emmett discovers that he is one of ten recruits, all of whom have troubled pasts and are a long way from home. Now each recruit must earn the right to travel down to the planet of Eden—a planet that Babel has kept hidden—where they will mine a substance called Nyxia that has quietly become the most valuable material in the universe.
But Babel’s ship is full of secrets. And Emmett will face the ultimate choice: win the fortune at any cost, or find a way to fight that won’t forever compromise what it means to be human.
Rating: 
I debated a lot between 3.5 and 4 fox rating. In the end I stood it up against my other 4 fox books and it wasn’t just there (maybe a 3.75? 3.80 but I don’t have enough foxes for that).
I will mention the things that bugged me the most first, and then load you up with those that I really liked. On the thing that jumped to me the most is Emmet’s mental file system. From what the book explains, this is for when you are angry and you file it away under a letter. But through the whole book, Emmet files SO many things away and a few that I would not have considered “anger” (they were things that would have made me suspicious or curious or bothered me or even that I would consider useful). Either Emmet has serious anger issues (so that almost everything makes him angry) or the file system isn’t explained as well as it should (I am seriously hoping for the latter). Also, it bugs me a lot that Nyxia is this unexplainable substance that can protect you from being harmed by itself but also when it pleases it, lets you get injured by more nyxia. Yet there is a lot of mind control. And everything is solved by Nyxia. Maybe it just needs to be better explained or something, but I am not pleased with how Nyxia is (but that can be just that I like science to back my sci-fi).
On the good things is the diversity, both in gender, colour, race, country, etc. but also in personality. The characters were mostly unique though I admit with so many of them, at times I wasn’t sure who responded to which name (I could remember that the character doing X had done Y before, but what was the name was beyond me).
It was interesting to see all the interactions between them. Also, this has an Ender’s Game feel (much more than a Hunger Games one) but thankfully it is not the same.
One of my favourite things was how mercy, compassion, teamwork, relationships and competition were explored throughout the book. Kaya, Morning and Vandemeer are my favourite characters.
This may not make my utter favourites but I am really looking forward to the next book and to learn what Eden looks like. I don’t think that they are actually prepared at all for what is to come but we shall see.
And Babel is horrid, but this is just a part of making a good villain (not in a villain that is good but rather making one well), with lots of layers and secrets.
Moon recommends
To read this is you like sci-fi and challenges. Maybe a competiton is interesting or corporations with hidden agendas. You may also be interested in Ender’s Game or maybe one of Anne McCaffrey’s books, a) if you’d like to explore how we deal with a planet that has another race in it and we want to keep it, then try Donna’s series starting with Decision at Donna, b) or if you prefer to wonder about strange substances and mining them I’d recommend the Crystal Singer series, starting with Crystal Singer, or c) if you’d like to explore what happens when humans are slaves of another race and part of an experiment on freedom try the Freedom series starting with Freedom’s Landing.
If you’d like to grab a copy of Nyxia, you can get one from amazon here.
Disclaimer: There is an Amazon Associates link, but if you choose to use them and buy from them, know that you’re just helping me buy more books and feed my reading needs. Book synopsis is from Good Reads.
