WARNING: Late Arrival Spoilers abound for These Broken Stars and This Shattered World.
One year ago, Flynn Cormac and Jubilee Chase made their infamous Avon broadcast, accusing LaRoux Industries of crimes and conspiracies on their planet. Two years ago, LaRoux Industries' starliner Icarus crashed, killing fifty thousand crew and passengers, leaving Tarver Merendson and Lilac LaRoux the only survivors. Now, the time has come for a reckoning.
Sofia escaped the planet Avon a year ago, and now she's devoted herself to revenge against the man responsible for her father's death. Gideon is a hacker, a cyberactivist working to bring LaRoux Industries and its owner to justice.
When their infiltrations of LaRoux Industries cross each other, Sofia and Gideon must rely on each other to escape. But they're not out of danger, and soon must go on the run from the corporation hunting them.
Both have personal stakes in bringing down LaRoux, and neither are content just to escape. They soon team up to take on the juggernaut, but first they have some uncomfortable truths to face. And they are not the only ones working to stop LaRoux...
Their Fractured Light is the concluding part of The Starbound Trilogy by Meagan Spooner and Aimee Kaufmann, which began with These Broken Stars and continued with This Shattered World.
Tropes:
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Anyone born on a recent colony world is given a "genetag" tattoo at birth. It's a unique identifier, and it's permanent; Sofia's is still visible after four painful treatments to remove it. Anyone given such a tattoo, wherever they go and whatever they do in life, will always be identifiable as "lesser." Does that sound like a slave brand to anyone else?
- Foreshadowing: Gideon having a Biblical name hints from the start that his dead brother was Simon, who was murdered for loving Lilac.
- Heel Realisation: When Gideon recognises the numbers on Sofia's genetag tattoo, he realises she's the one he's been chasing for a year, not the collaborator from Avon he assumed. This makes him realise he's become consumed by revenge, too blinded by his anger to see what's in front of him.
- I Have Your Wife: Gideon's rebellion contact offers he and Sofia a place to lie low, but betrays them when her children are taken hostage.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Sofia shoots at Roderick LaRoux, but Lilac instinctively Takes The Bullet for her father. The pain makes her lose concentration, allowing the whispers she's been keeping at bay to take control of her body.
- Oh, Crap!: When Flynn recognises the numbers on Sofia's genetag tattoo, and realises she's the person he's been cyberstalking and harassing for the last year, thinking she's an escaped collaborator from Avon. This leads to his Heel Realisation.
- Revenge Before Reason: Both Gideon and Sofia suffer from this tendency.
- Gideon is obsessed with bringing Roderick LaRoux and anyone working for him to justice because LaRoux killed his brother. This leads him to cyberstalk and harass a woman who left Avon a year ago and who he believes is a LaRoux collaborator in hiding, but in fact it's Sofia, who's working for the same goals he is.
- Sofia is determined to kill Roderick LaRoux for his part in the death of her father. Her determination to go through with it even when the situation indicates that bigger things are at work leads to the whispers taking control of Lilac, and LaRoux Industries through her.
- Shout-Out: Many codenames throughout the book are taken from Alice in Wonderland.
- You Killed My Father: Literally Sofia's motive for killing Roderick LaRoux, as her father was killed as a direct result of his experiments on Avon. Gideon wants to avenge his brother, who LaRoux had killed for being in love with Lilac.
