Lora Beth Johnson

På en ny planet vågner den syttenårige Andrea fra en kryonisk søvn 1000 år senere end planlagt

Goddess in the Machine

Bound for humanity's new colony planet, seventeen-year-old Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than scheduled, forcing her to navigate an unfamiliar planet where technology is considered magic and its practitioners revered as deities.

Leah | @LeahsLittlePleasures

"𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐤𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠. 𝐆𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬. 𝐒𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬. 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝. 𝐀𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩. 𝐀 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐬."

I loved Goddess in the Machine SO MUCH! For me, it was AH-MAZING 🙌🏻✨ I forget sometimes how much I really love sci-fi and this was the perfect read in between all my new romantasy faves in August. It definitely gave me alllll The 100 vibes, especially the Reina storyline!! 😍 And holy plot twists that kept me 100% hooked and drawn into the story! It was fast-paced and edge-of-your-seat good. Zhade also makes me giggle. I can't wait to see what happens in Devil in the Device!

• READ THIS IF YOU LIKE •
— dystopian x sci-fi with palace intrigue
— cryo-sleep mishaps
— Dual POVs x flashbacks
— lots of techy tech
— tech x magic
— political/crown conspiracy + cover-up
— artificial intelligence
— sweet but swoony romance

Ruby Ferehawk

megan

This book felt like a cross between "Across the Universe" by Beth Revis and the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. I love a good space travel sci-fi novel, and this book certainly has it all.
Andra is such a spunky, strong, and intelligent character, and her voice captivates the reader and really pulls them into the story. I sympathized with her struggles, and I was always anxious to hear what would happen next.
As I said, this book did remind me of other YA sci-fi novels, but never in a way that felt tired or repetitive. Johnson was able to hold her own in this genre and establish herself as an excellent writer. All in all, if you like sci-fi and strong female characters, this is the book for you.

Jessica Williamson

4 stars

Y'all! This book had some SERIOUS plot twists. Like, there were a lot of them, and I only guess one sooo... they were good.

First let's talk about what I have read as the major complaint of this book. The language. Yes. The characters who are 1000 years ahead in civilization do speak a futuristic form of English. They say "firm" for "yes", "neg" for "no", and "evens" for "okay". There are other things as well, but honestly, after the first couple of chapters, I knew exactly what everyone was saying. And it makes sense that language would evolve over 1000 years. I mean, we don't speak like Shakespeare anymore, do we?

That being said, this book is primarily a sci-fi political mystery drama. I mean, we have to figure out how Andra didn't end up getting woken up when she was supposed to. Why is everything in the colony failing. What is Zhade actually trying to do? Who is the real ruler of the dome? I mean, there's a lot going on here and I think it was all paced and put together wonderfully!

I enjoyed the characters, I liked getting to learn about them and see how they progressed as the book went along. Andra learning more and more about the colony as things moved was just super interesting. 

Anyone who likes YA Sci-Fi will probably enjoy this. I recommend it! 

4's all around.

Heather Heaton

This book really drew me in very quickly and I was plugged into it from then on. There were several plot twists throughout the book keeping me on my toes and interested. One of my favorite parts about this books was how the author changed and tweaked language. Language was different a thousand years ago so of course it is going to be different 1000 years in the future. I think it was unique and different and added a little something to the story and made me appreciate the author and her abilities more. I would consider myself a sci-fi beginner and I think that this book was perfect for me and am curious as to how more seasoned sci-fi readers may like this book. It didn't have too much technical talk or convoluted ideas to wrap around and was a pretty easy read throughout. I would have liked to see a little more character development in some way. At the end of the book I wasn't super connected to the characters as much as I wanted to be and the love interest seemed as though it could've been more of a friendship or it should've been bumped up a notch. The ending left me excited for the next work in this series. I am so excited for where this is going!

laura

* I got this book for the review*

I thought this was such a unique science fiction novel. This is not a super heavy science fiction novel. I really liked the duel POV characters and really liked all the side characters. The whole concept about "goddess" was really different. I also really liked the world billing and found it to fast past read. The story did not have any shocking twists and I saw some of the larger ones coming. I found the end to be exciting and def checking out book 2!

Anastaciya

2.5☆
Wellllll... I have issues with this book. I wouldn't say it's bad, BUT. There's nothing new in it. I've read similar things many times before, and they were made better 🙈 I love sci-fi with a fantasy flavour to it, the AI, the space/time travel, the twists... the idea was great, the execution - not so much. There was one specific moment where it felt so inconsistent... we're smart readers, and what the author did there, it felt like it came out of nowhere. It's like that twist wasn't very well thought out...
It just made me want to reread The Fifth Season 🤷🏻‍♀️

Samantha Bass

This was a solid 3.5//5 stars for me.

The biggest issue I had at the beginning was the language. Lora Beth shows how the language has changed within those thousand years with different spelling and their own slang. At first it's very daunting trying to understand what these people are trying to say but as I continued to read, I found it easier to understand the characters and her writing. This was a huge relief for us. I was seriously considering DNFing the book due to the inability to fully grasp what was going on, but I'm glad I stuck it out.

The other thing I had an issue with was the main love interest. Because of the language change and confusion, Zhade came off as a child to me. It was so hard to think of him as a teenager, or an adult, or however old he was. I could only see him as this 11/12 year old kid helping Andra with the way that he talked. Which is not what you want for a love interest. Over time, it got better, but the beginning was rough especially when trying to picture him flirting, which he does a lot.

Now, I didn't get fully invested into the story until 200 or so pages in. That's a lot of pages to read before I'm excited to see what's next. I had been mildly interested in what was going on before the 200 page mark, but the events that happen after page 200 is what really brought me in and got me excited to read what happens next. 

Once I got into the thrill of the book, it was really good. Good enough that I want to read the sequel when it is released. Yay! This book isn't supposed to release until June 30th, 2020 so the early draft I got could have changed a lot in that time between when we got the ARC in November and release date. So take my criticism with a grain of salt on this one. But overall, pretty good.

Kaele Perkins 

** spoiler alert **
           6 STARS ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 

I can’t even process what I just read. THIS WAS AMAZING. I NEED book two now. I have to see Andra end up with Zhade, I need her to forgive him and her mother. I need her to be the ruler the people need. I need to know how this ends. I’m still in shock.

Lorien O'Brien

First thing I want to say is that more people need to pick up this book! Where's all the reviews, the fanart? I need it!

*ahem*

Anywho...

I was chilling on Instagram when I came across the post on Penguin Teen's page of the first 5 or so minutes of the audio book. Normally I would listen to like 30 seconds, if that, and then keep scrolling. This time I froze, and I listened to the whole thing. I even paused it and got down my Owlcrate Edition I had gotten earlier this year and read along. And once the audio book clip finished I kept reading. I barely stopped to eat and run some earrends I had to do that day. And I finished it in basically in one go. The only reason it says it took me two days to read is because I read past midnight.

It's been a while since I did that, and it's a testament to how damn *good* this book is! Especially for a debut novel for a brand new author. It was so gripping, and a pleasure to read.

I really enjoyed Zhade and Andra as narrators. They were so different, but so interesting. I liked how they both had their own agendas that meld together throughout the story. I liked the world, and how believable it is. And the language! You can tell the author studies languages. It added such a cool layer to the world, and didn't detract from it. It's rather easy to understand and follow, unlike others I've seen.

All in all I loved them book. The twists and turns of the novel weren't too predictable. Even weeks later I find myself thinking of this novel, craving more of this world and what happens next. I can' wait to get my hands on book 2, Devil in the Device.

Manon van Heumen

I doubted a little while what to rate this, 3 or 4 stars. Because of the ending, I decided to rate it 4 stars. I really enjoyed it, and it gives so much perspective for the sequel! I can't wait to read that.

Jennifer

Megan During

Ella Evans

Kaitlyn Spalletta 

Samantha Hernandez

Andra wakes up from a cryogenic sleep 1,000 years later than she was supposed to, forcing her to team up with an exiled prince to navigate an unfamiliar planet in this smart, thrilling sci-fi adventure, perfect for fans of Renegades and Aurora Rising. When Andra wakes up, she's drowning. Not only that, but she's in a hot, dirty cave, it's the year 3102, and everyone keeps calling her Goddess. When Andra went into a cryonic sleep for a trip across the galaxy, she expected to wake up in a hundred years, not a thousand. Worst of all, the rest of the colonists--including her family and friends--are dead. They died centuries ago, and for some reason, their descendants think Andra's a deity. She knows she's nothing special, but she'll play along if it means she can figure out why she was left in stasis and how to get back to Earth. Zhade, the exiled bastard prince of Eerensed, has other plans. Four years ago, the sleeping Goddess's glass coffin disappeared from the palace, and Zhade devoted himself to finding it. Now he's hoping the Goddess will be the key to taking his rightful place on the throne--if he can get her to play her part, that is. Because if his people realize she doesn't actually have the power to save their dying planet, they'll kill her. With a vicious monarch on the throne and a city tearing apart at the seams, Zhade and Andra might never be able to unlock the mystery of her fate, let alone find a way to unseat the king, especially since Zhade hasn't exactly been forthcoming with Andra. And a thousand years from home, is there any way of knowing that Earth is better than the planet she's woken to?

Goddess in the Machine

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