As the centuries passed, those Hidden Worlds with poor resources grew poorer. One of the poorest is Santandru. Every year, its seas take more men. One village, Moraine, is down to a single fishing boat. The Hope of Moraine is failing, unable to maintain its offworld technology. By law, it shouldn't put to sea. But if it doesn't, the village will die. So it does, and is lost.

To support her widowed sister's family, 19-year-old Linnea Kiaho becomes a contract servant on Nexus, the Pilot Masters' decadent world. She brings with her a mysterious family heirloom: a silver tube containing a secret the jump pilots will pay well to recover. But instead of a revelation, Nexus brings more secrets. The Pilot Masters, who control all travel and communication, clandestinely plan to end contact with Santandru and the other failing worlds, and Linnea's new master, the Pilot Master Iain sen Paolo, has his own family mystery to unravel.

Converging on their secrets, Iain and Linnea provoke the opposition of the most powerful men on Nexus, even as they discover unexpected feelings for each other. And, as they realize their secrets may be dangerously linked, Linnea and Iain uncover the most dangerous secret of all: the ruthless Cold Minds have found the Hidden Worlds.

The Singularity won't be for everyone

In this promising debut novel, scientist/technical writer/medical editor Kristin Landon demonstrates a number of strengths. Chief among them is a gift for the details that bring her protagonist and protagonist's world to life. From the coarse sand that grinds underfoot, to the burned boot that signifies the death of a village, to the insults hurled by a desperate survivor, the author makes the struggling, subsistence-level world of Santandru seem so real that readers might swear Landon grew up fighting for survival in some cold, poverty-stricken fishing town in her native Pacific Northwest.

Unfortunately, the plot of The Hidden Worlds draws it away from the author's greatest strength. As Linnea Kiaho enters the Pilot Masters' world, the details become less frequent and more generic. Unlike the gritty planet Santandru, the jump pilots' world and starships and shield-covered city aren't far removed from the stock sets of SF. Partly the problem is that Linnea and Iain sen Paolo spend a fair amount of time as prisoners, and cells just don't offer as much visual and sensory detail as, say, a fishing village. But mainly the author hasn't visualized Iain's wealthy world as clearly as Linnea's hardscrabble colony.

Still, many readers will hardly notice the drop-off in specific details, since what The Hidden World loses in sensory stimuli it gains in schemes. Iain's father plots against Iain with Iain's uncle, the Chairman of the Line and a man with designs of his own. Iain colludes with Linnea. His cousin Rafael schemes against Iain and his own father. The Pilot Masters conspire to abandon their duty to the poorer colonies and to hide the news that the Cold Minds have found the Hidden Worlds. Landon's plot navigates this complex array of intrigues nimbly, never becoming tangled or confused.

Another strength of The Hidden Worlds is Landon's skeptical approach to the Singularity (in this case, a sort of nanotech). The Singularity that transforms all humanity is a great SF concept, but, for some readers it's ultimately not credible, since arguably the human race has passed through other Singularities (fire, tools, the Industrial Revolution) with its basic nature unchanged. Like those predecessors, Landon's Singularity doesn't create a post-human race (though it does create some unlucky zombies). Instead, she develops human characters with human strengths and weaknesses—kindnesses and cruelties, selfless sacrifices and selfish acts—in all their ugliness and glory.