Published: Nov. 26, 2011
Words: 352,561 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9780987151445

Short description

The complete young adult space adventure trilogy, containing "Stray", "Lab Rat One" and "Caszandra". On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive. But rescue is only the beginning...

Extended description

The complete young adult space adventure trilogy, containing "Stray", "Lab Rat One" and "Caszandra". Rescue is only the beginning...

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.

The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched? (Read more) The complete young adult space adventure trilogy, containing "Stray", "Lab Rat One" and "Caszandra". Rescue is only the beginning...

On her last day of high school, Cassandra Devlin walked out of exams and into a forest. Surrounded by the wrong sort of trees, and animals never featured in any nature documentary, Cass is only sure of one thing: alone, she will be lucky to survive.

The sprawl of abandoned blockish buildings Cass discovers offers her only more puzzles. Where are the people? What is the intoxicating mist which drifts off the buildings in the moonlight? And why does she feel like she's being watched?

Increasingly unnerved, Cass is overjoyed at the arrival of the formidable Setari. Whisked to a world as technologically advanced as the first was primitive, where nanotech computers are grown inside people's skulls, and few have any interest in venturing outside the enormous whitestone cities, Cass finds herself processed as a 'stray', a refugee displaced by the gates torn between worlds. Struggling with an unfamiliar language and culture, she must adapt to virtual classrooms, friends who can teleport, and the ingrained attitude that strays are backward and slow.

Can Cass ever find her way home? And after the people of her new world discover her unexpected value, will they be willing to let her leave?
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Tags

science fiction romance, space adventure, young adult science fiction, australian science fiction

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Reviews

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Review by: Colin Hay on May 09, 2012 :
The Touchstone Trilogy - I started by reading 'The Stray' which looked a lot like a teenagers type of book (I'm nearing 60) - once I got into it I 'had' to know what happened next! I then got the ' The Touchstone Trilogy' and could hardly put it down till I had finished it. Then there was the ' Gratuitous Epilogue' which was a nice way of winding things up which leaves the reader with a 'completed ' feeling for the story. I still feel like this is a teenagers book but I enjoyed it greatly - even bought another copy to give to my sister (only a little younger than me) who doesn't normally read SF - she couldn't put it down either once she got going. Not sure if I missed a few bits, but was a little disappointed in that 'ghost - the cat' was never fully explained, and was expecting more from the gift (Collection of Earth's Artwork) to the Ruuel family. There were certain sections where the psychology hints at, or touches areas, that I thought were related to me and not recognized (or acknowledged)by others. It was a good read and I enjoyed it.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Laura kyahgirl on April 29, 2012 :
This was such a great trilogy. I think it must be quite a challenge to write several books all from the POV of a person writing about their experiences in their diary. The author created an interesting world with compelling characters and a complex mystery as well as exciting action. I loved the main character Cassandra. She was so young yet so courageous, inventive, intelligent and good natured. This is a sci-fi/fantasy story that could be enjoyed by adults and young adults alike.
(reviewed long after purchase)

Review by: Estara Swanberg on Feb. 21, 2012 :
There is no way I can even begin to review this objectively because the book hit so many of my personal kink buttons ^^ - if I were in my teens or twenties I would have started hogging the author's backlist as obsessively as I did Mercedes Lackey when I discovered Arrows of the Queen for the first time. For me this book is a 4.5 stars on first read. It might become a favourite reread

In some way this trilogy reminded me of that experience. First of all you need to like quiet and shy heroines who haven't really got a plan for their own future. Compared to Talia, Cass is not repressed, she is simply fairly bookish and not massively attractive and so she has had a best girlfriend and she has had some experience with boys, but her main emotional stay and stumble-block is her mother (divorced) and in some ways her younger brother - at least when I consider the number of times they are mentioned.

You NEED to like Cass in the first 100 pages - first of all because they are mostly her alone, dealing with the situation she finds herself in, trying to survive and second because this is a diary entry book in first person. If you don't like her voice and herself you won't like the rest of the trilogy either. When she gets found and taken to the other planet, she reports on her talks as well, but it is always pre-selected according to what she remembers or wants to remember or when she has time to write it down.

I've written a huge spoilery squee at GoodReads under this user name, if you want to read all the details.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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