Debris by Jo Anderton

I don't read as much as I'd like during the school year. Lack of focus more than lack of time, I think. So the mark of a good novel has become "when I put this down and pick it up a week and half later, do I still want to read it?" Inertia can get me through a lot when I have the brain wattage, but leaden prose and plot meandering just kill me when I am tired.

Debris by Jo Anderton passed the test quite well. Anderton has an enjoyable authorial voice, a welcome relief in a genre with too many plodders. Her plot, while probably spread a little thin for 450 pages of novel, nevertheless takes the reader through a fascinating world that has amazing technology (pions, little lights that build, fix and heal) but that has mostly forgotten how it all works. 

Much like Daniel Abraham's Long Price Quartet, Anderton creates her own wonderfully original fantastic world. I have no idea if this is fantasy or science fiction and I don't much care. It's so nice to see contemporary authors using the genre's freedom to build really cool things -- and being rewarded with publication.