Naya has worked incredibly hard to make her mother proud. This has been a personal ambition for most of her life, and she feels she still hasn’t achieved it. Her mother is no ordinary woman. Not just driven, important, powerful and cold, her mother is The General, leader of the NSDE (Neo Settlers Develops & Engineers). This is the organisation that controls the city of Ema and its residents.

“The NSDE initiative was formed to save humanity from the chaos and dangers of Outside. Pollution, over farming and introduction of untested bio-engineered elements resulted in deadly droughts, pollen storms and mutated swarms. NSDE was humanity’s last chance.”

Children are trained to become soldiers of this regime, to police the inhabitants, and to prevent creatures called Spiravits from attacking them. Training includes lessons on how dangerous the Spiravits can be. They may look human, but their eyes are milky white and they can be vicious and calculating. They also have a strange power that can produce explosions, killing any living thing around them.

No matter how hard Naya trains, even with the help of her best friend and top cadet Kaven, she can never be ruthless enough, strong enough or single-minded enough to achieve the standards her mother insists upon. When she is given another way to graduate along with her class and Kaven, she accepts.

The General gives her a dangerous mission: Infiltrate the Spiravit’s lair and return with intel in order to eradicate them.

It’s risky from one moment to the next, and Naya discovers truths even more shocking than her mother’s mission request. Torn between both worlds, she uses a strange gift she has had since small – communicating with the city walls with her mind.

Split into two timeframes (during soldier training and then on a mission), main character Naya tells this dystopian story.

The soldier training shows the reader all the hard work, effort and pain (both physical and mental), Naya has gone through to try and impress her mother who is the leader of their entire city. Naya can’t seem to ever achieve the results she aims for but continues to struggle regardless.

This determination and grit aids her in a perilous mission outside the safety of the city walls, and allows her to see the truth that is hidden from city residents. This is shown cleverly on the cover of the novel. The city is clean, and ordered and if you tip the cover over, you see broken structures surrounded by trees and nature. The telling component is the way the human within those landscapes is composed. The city holds a running figure. The Outside, a calm, awed human being.

This theme of misconception between people is a common one, and one our world continuously finds itself in – INSIDE shows a dystopian view of it with an imaginative Sci-Fi twist.

A gripping read.

Author – S A Gales

Age – 11+

Read more Dystopian Novels here

Publisher – Allen & Unwin

Set in – Unknown Future / Inside & Outside a semi-sentient city

Viewpoint – 1st person

Orphan – No father present

Violence – Yes

Real Life – No

Fantasy – No

Blend – Dystopian / Sci-Fi

(2025, Allen & Unwin, Dystopian, Secret, Grief, Action, Betrayal, Future, Sci Fi, Cadet Training, Soldiers, Loyalty, Truth, Lies, Outsiders, Prejudice, Misconceptions, Control, Energy)