I’ve seen so many planets dancing

Poor Cress, man. In “The Lunar Chronicles,” Cress is our Rapunzel — locked away in a satellite orbiting Earth, performing high-tech intelligence operations under coercion by her Lunar mistress, who happens to be the chief aide to the evil Lunar Queen. So it could be said that Cress is the most important VIP whose political influence could never buy her own personal autonomy.

Cress and our heroine of the long arc, Cinder, first crossed paths when Cinder intercepted classified data hidden by Cress in a droid belonging to Emperor Kai of the Eastern Commonwealth on Earth. Unused to socializing but with unlimited access to news feeds from Earth, Cress had since been monitoring Cinder, now an international fugitive, and waiting to see if she would reach out again for help. When that time finally comes, a daring attempt is attempted to free Cress from her tiny prison in orbit, but Cinder’s posse — herself, Scarlet, Scarlet’s paramour Wolf, and the charismatic Captain Thorne — become separated from one another, leaving Cress and Thorne alone in the Sahara to fend for themselves.

As with the preceding two stories, Cress is loosely inspired by a classic fairy tale, but the story in the pages is in service of Meyer’s expansive sci-fi world, where humans of Lunar (i.e. they are from the moon!) descent have a “gift” that operates through bioelectricity but functions like mind control, and cyborgs are often indistinguishable from fully human counterparts. It’s intensely creative and exciting, and every story introduces another fleshed out character to root for. Cress is a slightly tougher sell than her predecessors, being unequipped for brash heroics and exceedingly naive due to her isolated exile. Yet, she’s also intelligent and does learn quickly, so from the beginning to the end it’s a pleasure to observe the growth and development of this character, who demonstrates that a female protagonist doesn’t need to be “kickass” to be strong.

My feelings on this series overall are still shaped like two thumbs up, and I’m checking my library every day to see when I can hop in the queue to check out Winter, the next book, when it’s finally released!