Cress: the Girl with Lots of Hair - Cora Foerstner: SciFi/Fantasy Author

Intro

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer is a series of four books. The stories are set in the distant future with a complex social and political system. The serial begins with Cinder, a cyborg mechanic who falls for Crown Prince Kaito of the Eastern Commonwealth. The second book Scarlet is about a French farm girl searching for her grandmother. The two stories converge and mix. Cinder echoes the Cinderella story and Scarlet Little Red Riding Hood. In the third book Cress, we meet an ace hacker with lots of hair and a big desire to escape her prison.

Enter Cress and Echoes of Rapunzel

Cress orbits Earth in a Luna satellite, where she’s been held prisoner for seven years. She spends her days hacking for the evil queen, spying, and watching earth on her many computers. With unlimited information at her fingertips, she knows everything about Earth and Cinder’s problems. She studies the dashing Captain Carswell Thorne with great interest and a palpitating heart. Alone with her computers for companionship, she knows Earth’s culture and people better than her Luna counterparts. She’s current on all the political intrigues and fortunes of our other heroes: Cinder, King Kai, Scarlet, Wolf, Captain Thorne, her major crush. Oh, yeah, no haircuts in space.

We met Cress briefly in Cinder when she contacted Cinder via computer to warn her that the Queen was going to Kill King Kai.

Cinder, Captain Throne, Scarlet, and Wolf want to defeat Queen Levana and need Cress, who can help them hack into the Earth and Luna’s systems.

I’ve enjoyed all the characters in this series, but Cress has a special place in my heart. She’s sweet, naive, and socially awkward. Plus, she has a big brain, oozing with intelligence. She doesn’t have a family and suddenly finds that those she’s admired and cheered from afar want to help her escape. Of course, as I’ve come to expect in these stories, very few things go as planned.

Complex World Building

As I’ve said in the other reviews, I love Meyer’s world building. She’s created a world that is unique yet familiar, and this world is riddled with problems and issues we can all understand. The world plague is still in full swing; Levana is still threatening and carrying out war plans; our reluctant heroes are still wanted criminals, fleeing for their lives.

I’m not a huge fan of the girls and women in old fairy tales because they are mostly helpless: for the most part, they are acquiescent, kind, beautiful, and saved by men, or they are evil and ugly, receiving their “just” rewards for not fitting into the proper role of a female. Meyer has created characters, female and male, who are complex and relatable. Plus, every book has been action-packed, putting me on the edge of my seat, causing me to bite my nails, and anxious for the next chapter. Meyer does an excellent job of building the relationships among these characters. Cress’ crush on Thorne is adorable, and their banter is some of the best parts of the book.

In this book, we learn more about the plague and about Dr. Erland, who helped Cinder escape from prison. You can read more about the characters here.

Fantasy? Science Fiction?

I could label this science fiction-fantasy. I think these stories lean more toward science fiction, but the fantasy motifs are there. There are reasons behind most of the fantastical parts. I enjoyed the scientific explanations. There’s enough science to keep those who like light SciFi entertained, and enough of the fantasy elements to keep fantasy fans interested in the story.