“Stardancer” Offers Middle Grade Readers a Humorous, High Stakes Space Adventure
Novelist Steven Kent and WordCrafts Press are thrilled to announce the release of Stardancer, an exciting space adventure aimed at upper middle grade readers but which will also appeal to the Young Adult Sci-Fi market. Stardancer is already turning heads as the ebook version catapulted to the Number 1 Hot New Release in Amazon’s Children’s Space Exploration category, and the paperback version debuting at Number 68 on the online retailer’s Best Sellers in Children’s Robot Science Fiction Books chart.
Stardancer officially released on Thursday, April 24, 2025, in hardback, paperback, and all major ebook formats.
Thirteen-year-old Namida’s father gets sick and is exiled to Earth to recover. Unless she can conjure up a plan, she and her mom will have to go to Earth, too. When she learns that her father’s replacement wants to trash her father’s work and replace humans with new robots, Namida enlists her two friends to help her become the indispensable expert on her father’s programs, so she can save humanity and her father at the same time.
But a group of the creepy replacement bots go berserk andstart ripping the space station apart. With the lives of over two thousand crew members at stake, Namida must lead the new “honey-bots” she and her friends created to battle the rogues.
The trouble is, all she’s taught them to do so far is dance.
“When I was a child, books echoed back new worlds of wonder and started stories running through my head,” says author Steven Kent. “Since that timeI’ve always wanted to share worlds of my own. My novel,Stardancer, began with the idea of children creating robots that didn’t understand their purpose, then they decided it must be to destroy things. I married that ideawith C. S. Lewis’ argument against what he called Naturism, or reductionism, which is the most convincing argument for the existence of a soul I’ve heard.
“It also reflects what Terry Pratchett had the Grim Reaper sayat the end of his novel, Hogfather, although he put it more cynically.”
Written with upper middle grade readers in mind, the stakes are high, the danger is real, the technology is cutting edge, and the escapades of a 13-year-old genius are alternately humorous and poignant, making Stardancer a great choice for anyone who loves a grand science fiction adventure. But the tale is also thought-provoking as its protagonists and antagonists alike must grapple with such lofty topics asthe meaning of life and what makes a person a person.
“There is more to us than mere blood and clay,” Kent muses. “Science and technology are fascinating, but the most precious things in life cannot be seen under a microscope or distilled in a test tube.”
From the Novel
“Where did you put the Annihilation Button?” I whisper.
“The what?”
“It’s a small transmitter with a big red button.”
His eyes are locked on the hallway behind me, his body paralyzed, awaiting death.
“We have to find it.” Whatever I say to Mr. Spencer, the mantis-bot also hears, so I invent a tantalizing lie. “Dad rigged it to destroy the entire space station.”
I feel the mantis pause.
“You can’t be serious!” This snaps Mr. Spencer out of his paralysis, and he gapes at me in disbelief. “Why would Stirling Wiles create such a thing?”
I fumble for an explanation. “To…achieve maximum entropy! If the mantis-bots get hold of it, everything will be destroyed and everyone will die. Tell me where it is!”
“That’s utter insanity. Even if a device like that did exist I wouldn’t…oh, yes, I do recall. It’s in the parts cabinet by the door.”
Then Mr. Spencer screams and scrambles on top of the desk. I’ve only heard first grade girls reach that pitch before.
“I suppose, in a way, I could say that I wrote this book over the past couple of decades,” Villella muses. “I can remember being a 23-year old youth pastor teaching high school students about the importance of avoiding a spiritual mismatch using the imagery of 1 Corinthians 6:14-15. I would hold up a wooden yoke to show them the problem if the two things in it tried to go in two different directions. So that chapter goes back that far. However, the concept that marriage is a co-workership—where we accomplish things for God that we couldn’t accomplish alone—it didn’t dawn on me to say it that way until later in life once I began pastoring adults. This book is a summary of twenty years of pastoral preaching and counsel.”
About the Author
Steven Kent lives with his wife among Midwest scarecrows and cornfields and firmly believes that autumn is all too brief of a season.
He has been getting lost in the interdimensional spaces between library shelves since he was a boy, and hopes someday to never have to return to reality.
Between those shelves, he has discovered treasures that touched his heart and imagination. It’s past time to return the favor.
Connect with Steven online at:
stevenkentbooks.wordpress.com
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