More than 800 years ago, humans were forced to abandon Earth on generation ships. When these ships failed to find a suitable planet, they resorted to hunting, then colonizing gargantuan space animals that skim nebulae for sustenance. But these space beasts can't survive long with human parasites. After about a decade of ruthless use, the dying animal must be left behind for a new one. All homes and most possessions are left behind--save priceless metal items--and reconstructed identically in each new beast.
Seske Kaleigh is the future leader, or Matris, of a strictly matriarchal society. To keep the population in check, family units consist of 10 people who may have only one child among them. Unfortunately for Seske, the current Matris--who is also one of Seske's mothers (in the social rather than physical sense)--betrayed their society's single-child rule by carrying her pregnancy to term after Seske was born. Thus Seske is stuck with a sister (a grave slur) who has her own leadership ambitions. As if that weren't scandalous enough, the heir apparent maintains a friendship and budding romance with Adalla, a lower-class laborer. Their dual narratives intersect and diverge to reveal a society with terrible secrets living on even less borrowed time than they think.
Nicky Drayden (The Prey of Gods; Temper) crafts a wildly imaginative work of speculative fiction with a stunning setting. The upper class enjoys the creature's comforts while workers toil endlessly, building with bone, farming the guts or maintaining vital organs. Adalla's tenure in the creature's heart, where work can be done only in the 3 minutes, 47.5 seconds between beats, is a blood-pounding highlight. Escaping Exodus is a marvelous climate change metaphor wrapped in an entertaining sci-fi story. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer