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The Palladia Series is a saga of YA action-adventure stories. The first part is set in the future civilization of Palladia, a country that exists 300 years from now. The first three books focus on Palladians even if their situations take them far from home during the story. The fourth book, the Birthday Present, is a sequel set over 1000 years after the Palladian era.
City of the Invaders: My name is Katia. I’m the one who doesn’t fit in.
It’s 2335 and people on Earth have been fighting in two clans for centuries. We’ve got colonies all over the solar system now—you know, those cities on Mars people have been planning to build like forever? I wish I had been born out there because they have no fighting between two groups that are essentially identical and won’t admit it. True, EC can read and don’t handle technology and for the Invaders it’s the opposite. But that's just a cosmetic difference over two sides who are similar in every other way. If you say that, though, you'll get in big trouble.
I don’t live in one of those outer-space colonies. I live on Earth. And in the portion of Earth where I live, the former imperial regions, everybody is EC or Invader. Except me. Did you notice I haven’t told you which one I belong to? That’s right. Because I belong to both of them. And that means I really belong to neither. I’m the “weird kid.” The rebel. The one who does everything wrong.
I'm not sure if they think getting involved in gangster politics and accidentally wrecking the opening night of a theater production counts as wrong. But that isn't going to keep me from doing it.
Consuela: My name is Consuela. I’m the one who doesn’t want to fit in.
In 2335 on Earth almost everybody is either EC or Invader. If you’re caught in between them or mixed-class, it’s tough. I’m bored by the whole thing, though. I’m an Invader to the core—I’ve got everything down pat. And I wish I wasn’t just exactly what I’m supposed to be.
My secret is I’ve always wanted to know more about the EC. I don’t know why we’re supposed to hate them. And when this random old EC woman asks me to come with her as a translator (because guess what, centuries of fighting between our two groups has created lots of barriers!) I couldn’t turn it down. What I didn’t anticipate was how much trouble my new friend is in. I always thought EC were pack-minded and loyal, but it seems I was wrong. I might turn a few heads by spending time with Miss Plummer—but if your friends turn out to be your enemies, maybe you need your enemies to become your friends.
It's Palladia, though. Here both enemy and friend are words that so often mean the same thing. Would you trust me? I’ve got to shrug and say maybe you shouldn’t.
Celestine Princess: My name is Arielle. I’m the one who doesn't like people who can't fit in.
Even when I'm one of them. In Dorilantz the conflict between the EC and Invaders isn’t a circular rigamarole between similar factions. It’s war. War on my village and my family, in particular. Which turns into a war on me.
You think I’m being angsty, don’t you? It can’t be that bad, you say. I’m exaggerating. But after a masked leader of the Invaders kidnaps you and forces you into a ritual of being shamed and mocked and yelled at over nothing, it’s hard not to draw your own conclusions. He’s out to get me. And he sure likes to tell me what to do.
He's terrifying. Everyone is so afraid of him they can barely speak in his presence. He carries a big heavy metal stick, and he’ll hit you on the head with it too. And he used to be EC, it seems. When two girls from Palladia, named Katia and Consuela, came to help me, I learned the danger from The Man isn’t that he wants to hurt me. It’s that I could so easily become just like him. The line between EC and Invader was always murky—and it has never been thinner than now.
The Birthday Present: Life after the apocalypse is supposed to be simple.
World collapse is absolutely bad news. A disaster of the worst order, generated by the rise of engineered mutants who created an autocracy with the sole purpose of trampling on humans. Inevitably, the world is filled with so many injustices you lose track when counting them on your fingers. Humans are also said to be extinct. And mutants are supposedly oppressors, never victims. Oh, and mutants are never out to get each other, only humans. In short, there can be a lot of assumptions about the distant future.
The one thing that is certain, though, is that this bleak future world has a generous helping of social inequality. In a pair of novelettes, two girls (Lucy a human and Alyce a mutant) find themselves tangled up with the rich and famous of the millennium following ours. Lucy is a bubbly and reckless girl who befriends every boy she meets, and Alyce is patient and tolerant to the extreme. But Lucy has a little nefarious scheme up her sleeve and Alyce, it seems, does have a limit to her patience after someone tries to kill her simply for being related to someone else.
I mean, who wouldn't get annoyed by that?
City of the Invaders: My name is Katia. I’m the one who doesn’t fit in.
It’s 2335 and people on Earth have been fighting in two clans for centuries. We’ve got colonies all over the solar system now—you know, those cities on Mars people have been planning to build like forever? I wish I had been born out there because they have no fighting between two groups that are essentially identical and won’t admit it. True, EC can read and don’t handle technology and for the Invaders it’s the opposite. But that's just a cosmetic difference over two sides who are similar in every other way. If you say that, though, you'll get in big trouble.
I don’t live in one of those outer-space colonies. I live on Earth. And in the portion of Earth where I live, the former imperial regions, everybody is EC or Invader. Except me. Did you notice I haven’t told you which one I belong to? That’s right. Because I belong to both of them. And that means I really belong to neither. I’m the “weird kid.” The rebel. The one who does everything wrong.
I'm not sure if they think getting involved in gangster politics and accidentally wrecking the opening night of a theater production counts as wrong. But that isn't going to keep me from doing it.
Consuela: My name is Consuela. I’m the one who doesn’t want to fit in.
In 2335 on Earth almost everybody is either EC or Invader. If you’re caught in between them or mixed-class, it’s tough. I’m bored by the whole thing, though. I’m an Invader to the core—I’ve got everything down pat. And I wish I wasn’t just exactly what I’m supposed to be.
My secret is I’ve always wanted to know more about the EC. I don’t know why we’re supposed to hate them. And when this random old EC woman asks me to come with her as a translator (because guess what, centuries of fighting between our two groups has created lots of barriers!) I couldn’t turn it down. What I didn’t anticipate was how much trouble my new friend is in. I always thought EC were pack-minded and loyal, but it seems I was wrong. I might turn a few heads by spending time with Miss Plummer—but if your friends turn out to be your enemies, maybe you need your enemies to become your friends.
It's Palladia, though. Here both enemy and friend are words that so often mean the same thing. Would you trust me? I’ve got to shrug and say maybe you shouldn’t.
Celestine Princess: My name is Arielle. I’m the one who doesn't like people who can't fit in.
Even when I'm one of them. In Dorilantz the conflict between the EC and Invaders isn’t a circular rigamarole between similar factions. It’s war. War on my village and my family, in particular. Which turns into a war on me.
You think I’m being angsty, don’t you? It can’t be that bad, you say. I’m exaggerating. But after a masked leader of the Invaders kidnaps you and forces you into a ritual of being shamed and mocked and yelled at over nothing, it’s hard not to draw your own conclusions. He’s out to get me. And he sure likes to tell me what to do.
He's terrifying. Everyone is so afraid of him they can barely speak in his presence. He carries a big heavy metal stick, and he’ll hit you on the head with it too. And he used to be EC, it seems. When two girls from Palladia, named Katia and Consuela, came to help me, I learned the danger from The Man isn’t that he wants to hurt me. It’s that I could so easily become just like him. The line between EC and Invader was always murky—and it has never been thinner than now.
The Birthday Present: Life after the apocalypse is supposed to be simple.
World collapse is absolutely bad news. A disaster of the worst order, generated by the rise of engineered mutants who created an autocracy with the sole purpose of trampling on humans. Inevitably, the world is filled with so many injustices you lose track when counting them on your fingers. Humans are also said to be extinct. And mutants are supposedly oppressors, never victims. Oh, and mutants are never out to get each other, only humans. In short, there can be a lot of assumptions about the distant future.
The one thing that is certain, though, is that this bleak future world has a generous helping of social inequality. In a pair of novelettes, two girls (Lucy a human and Alyce a mutant) find themselves tangled up with the rich and famous of the millennium following ours. Lucy is a bubbly and reckless girl who befriends every boy she meets, and Alyce is patient and tolerant to the extreme. But Lucy has a little nefarious scheme up her sleeve and Alyce, it seems, does have a limit to her patience after someone tries to kill her simply for being related to someone else.
I mean, who wouldn't get annoyed by that?