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PW #381: Young Adult Science Fiction/Fantasy: THE SCRAPPY RASCALS AND THE GREAT APOCALYPTIC RACE

Thursday, 2 November 2017  |  Posted by Brenda Drake

Manusctipt Status: 2 Weeks Delivery

Mentor: Joanna Hathaway

Mentee: Marilyn Chin

Title: THE SCRAPPY RASCALS AND THE GREAT APOCALYPTIC RACE

Age Category: Young Adult

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Word count: 110,000 words

Pitch:

The world is ending and an eccentric prince is holding a race. The prize? A starship powerful enough to escape the apocalypse. Captain Rei Luu-Kaida and her crew of scrappy misfits must outrun and outfox the deadly competition. But when they discover the contest is something far more sinister, it’s up to them, the underdogs of the Territories, to save their world in this genderswapped MAD MAX meets China Mieville’s RAILSEA.

Excerpt:

The stars burnt fiercely in the night sky, as cold and distant as the first time Captain Rei Luu-Kaida set eyes on them. They were her earliest memories, those stars, and they were all she ever dreamed about; they were her pharos, her beacon in this transient world of death and rebirth. The stars were the first thing she saw when she closed her eyes at night and the last thing she remembered before she woke up.

And they might be the last thing she ever saw if Rei and her crew didn’t get out of Shezamite’s territory in a hurry.

Howling winds tore at Rei’s hair and filled the sails of the Scapegrace, propelling the hovership across the moor. Just two hundreds clicks away, safety awaited in the forest of pale corpse-trees that denoted the end of Shezamite’s territory. Safety from the howling berserker army that was currently hot on their heels, wielding cutlasses and spiked chains, urged on by their Queen, the White-Faced, White-Eyed Shezamite, as she gunned her hover-chariot after Rei’s fleeing ship.

And they would have made it, just by the skin of their teeth, with the strong tailwinds fuelling the ship’s speed – that is, if said winds hadn’t died away abruptly, causing the sails to droop and the Scapegrace to stutter to a halt over the moor.

Rei looked about her and muttered, “Shit.”

Filed: PW Entries

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