Heather Lee Dyer

Dyer, Heather Lee. Earthlight Space Academy Box Set. Space Academy Nos. 1-3. Kindle, 2020.
Books set in a space academy are my favorite form of young adult fiction. That has been the case since I first read Robert Heinlein’s Space Cadet and the Tom Corbett series by Carey Rockwell, the pseudonym for the multiple anonymous authors of the series. I really wanted to like Heather Dyer’s contribution to the genre, but I could never buy into the world-building of the series. We have a dystopian Earth that needs to move a significant portion of its population into space because of an environmental collapse that is never adequately explained. The refugee camp that is the home of our heroine makes little sense to me, either. The wall that separates the refugees from the Chinese population on the West Coast seems an implausible waste of resources. The academy itself with its highly selective admissions is designed to create an astronaut core to build the space habitats and move the population. I would have liked the series more if Dyer seemed interested in how that might be done. Our heroine is likeable enough, but most of her supporting cast come straight from central casting. 2.5 stars.… (mais)