She is no longer a Recorder but is still nameless—an aberration the Consortium never allows. She finds reprieve in new battles against two infestations—first, a plague, and second, gigantic cockroaches. In Aberration, Cathy McCrumb resumes the story of Recorder, dealing in solid sci-fi themes with notes of a manipulative Big Brother. Her compelling style with a keen sense of humanity invigorates this story in which even villains gain their measure of love and loss. Self-sacrifice and nods toward faith add hints of light. Some readers may feel a little confusion from introductions to new characters who are then shuffled offstage, yet Aberration brightly weaves together science fiction, color, and heart.

Best for: Fans of science fiction.

Discern: Some violence, medical treatment withheld from someone who later dies, implications that children and other “unfit” people are killed and their organs harvested, an extended post-epidemic sequence with moving corpses, characters show callousness to suffering and death, descriptions of disease and giant insects.