The Infinity Trap by Ian C. Douglas
(IFWG Publishing International)
Zeke is a 15-year-old boy who fakes being psychic to get into an exclusive school for psychics on Mars. This school is used to train people with the potential to translocate to different star systems to get people off of dying Earth. It’s less expensive and more doable than terraforming Mars, although they had started to terraform the red planet before they changed their minds and concentrated on that psychic translocation project. Zeke takes a space elevator up with the rest of his classmates and is translocated from that space station to the school on Mars itself.
I hesitate to call this a science-fiction version of “Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts” but there are some parallels. For example, there is a pretty awful headmistress, and pettiness amongst the fourth years who mercilessly give the first-years a hard time—but those are normal in any teen academic setting. Zeke has stalwart friends as loyal as Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, but their escapades revolve around psychic abilities rather than magic.
The hazards on this partially-terraformed Mars, however, are unique and include alien artifacts and those who would misuse them. Zeke touches one of these artifacts and is given an instant understanding of truly-ancient Martian speech, including the ability to speak it flawlessly. And then he starts getting possibly artifact-fueled premonitions about problems on Mars, although he doesn’t call them that because, of course, he doesn’t have any psychic ability at all.
The mystery plot has a lot of twists and turns, and despite it being a YA novel this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed reading The Infinity Trap. In fact, I finished it in one sitting and would heartily recommend it to anyone from 12 to 80 years of age.
