In the future, humanity has spread outward, colonizing all the way to the asteroid belt, and mutations have caused a social divide between those who can survive only in freefall, Fallers, and those who need exposure to gravity to survive, Grounders. There are also Floaters, people who have one of each gene, and can survive in freefall or gravity fine. This division has caused resentment and outright war between Earth and the colonies before, and it's about to again.

Earth has made what appears a major concession to the Colonists: with the Redistribution Act, homesteaders and residents in the Asteroid Belt have finally being granted the right to own the property they have lived on for generations, property that has belonged to Earth since the end of the Colony War... and all they have to do is come and register their claim at the nearest Earth Company office.

Sound too good to be true? It is. As soon as the Belters leave their rocks, the Company swoops in and occupies them- and fights off or even kills Belters trying to get home.

The long-boiling tension between Earth and the Colonists spills over into outright war, and the Skyrider, who sat out the first Colony war, is forced to take sides this time and join the rag-tag Colony fleet, along with her wingmate Jamin and her cousin Michael, both veterans of the first war. But there's a chance that she can stop the war, if only she can get through the battle lines to Earth, to let the President know what's really going on with the Redistribution Act...

This is the third Skyrider book, and it's again a well-paced, tense first-person POV read. A certain tragic event near the end made me angry with the book, the characters, and the author, and I initially rated it lower because of that. I've reconsidered. Any book that makes me care that much about what happens to the characters must be doing something right.

Though the ending of this one feels like an ending, there are two more books in the series, Pirate Prince and Floater Factor. Both are well worth tracking down, though I found them harder to get ahold of than the first three. ( )