Reclaiming Shilo Snow by Mary Weber has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. This book is a sequel to “The Evaporation of Sofi Snow.”
Reclaiming Shilo Snow by Mary Weber has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. This book is a sequel to “The Evaporation of Sofi Snow.”
Inola Snow is in a precarious position. As CEO of Corp 30, she is one of the most powerful women in the world, but she also is the mother of Sofi Snow — the brilliant 17-year-old computer genius now considered a terrorist. Inola has made some hard choices in her life, always with the hope that she was doing the best for humanity, if not her children. When she became CEO of one of the ruling corporations, she had to leave Sofi and her brother, Shilo, in care of their father.
When the Delonese, a dying alien race, set their planet in orbit near the moon, Inola made another difficult decision. She made a secret deal with them. She would provide 20 children a year on whom they could perform genetic research. Inola even let them take her own children after their father died.
The Delonese hoped to find genetic cures to help them be able to procreate again. In return, they would give Inola and Corp 30 the cures to many diseases, including cancer. The arrangement worked out well for 11 years, until the Delonese began taking more children, enough that other people began to notice.
A bomb exploded at the Fantasy Fight Games — virtual competitions that pit players against each other in an epic live-action computer game. The explosion was an attempt to destroy the evidence about Corp 30’s arrangement with the Delonese, orchestrated by Ms. Gaines, Corp 30’s president, although the blame has been placed on Sofi’s shoulders. People thought the bomb killed Shilo, but through a mental connection with him, Sofi tracks him to Delon.
As Inola waits anxiously for news from her daughter and from the Delonese, Sofi searches for her brother while evading capture. Miguel, an ambassador from Earth and her former boyfriend, joins her search. They learn that Delon is not actually a planet, but a space station. They also discover the extent of the Delonese experiments in vats underground. The aliens have been harvesting human children for their tissue and body parts in an effort to save themselves. The sight triggers Sofi’s repressed memories of her previous experience with them in which they conducted horrific experiments on her and her brother.
Sofi hears Shilo’s voice giving her instructions on how to evade capture. As they enter another room filled with aliens in pods, she reaches out and touches one. She feels an electrical shock and sees the alien inside move. Both she and the Delonese realize that she is able to animate the cloned aliens within the pods. Miguel gives himself up to an alien search party in order to give Sofi more time to find Shilo. While in their custody, Miguel watches a videoconference between the Delonese head ambassador, Lord Ethos, and the leaders of Corp 30, including Inola and Ms. Gaines.
Lord Ethos warns that he will find Sofi and use her brain patterns to give life to the clones. If Inola tries to warn Earth’s government, he will view it as an act of war. Ms. Gaines tries to keep the peace, but it is obvious Lord Ethos plans to create a clone army by whatever means necessary. And if the Delonese have an army, their next step will be to conquer Earth so they can live on a planet, not a space station.
Lord Ethos captures Sofi and recaptures the children she rescued earlier. He threatens to kill them if she does not tell him how she is accessing the space station’s computer systems. She refuses, even after she witnesses them using poison gas to kill one of her friends. She is brought to a gathering of Delonese and ambassadors.
Miguel arrives, and they have a private conversation in which he apologizes for his past behavior and admits his love for her. Then everything around her seems to stall, as if paused on a television screen, and her brother, Shilo, appears, signaling her to be quiet. With his help, she is able to unhook herself from the machines programming her mind. Sofi frees Miguel before the Delonese completely wipe away his memories. She discovers she now can access the Delonese computer system with her mind.
An unknown hacker contacts Inola and claims to want to help her and her children. Her long-time chauffer and closet friend, Jerrad, warns her to be careful, but Inola obeys the hacker’s command to go to the black markets. There she witnesses the cruelty of humanity, where children are sold for sex. Others are forced to fight against other children or animals for sport.
That night, the next level of the Fantasy Fan Games is announced. The fans have voted on who they want to see participate in the games, and to her shock and horror, Inola is nominated. The others nominated are all people who would expose the Delonese conspiracy. Inola realizes the system has been rigged so that they will die in the arena. She puts together a montage of video and audio evidence about Corp 30’s agreement with the Delonese and how others in Corp 30 have resorted to violence to cover it up.
She contacts Lord Ethos and demands her children be released. If not, she will release the video to the world. He assures her that such an action will start a war. As her chauffer drives her to meet with Nadine, a reporter who has also been chosen to play the Fan Fight Games, their car is attacked.
Jerrad is killed, but Inola is saved by Ranger, a friend of Sofi, Shilo and the hacker who has been messaging her. He offers to help Inola and Nadine survive the games if they will expose the Corps’ plans with Delon. They readily agree.
Sofi and Miguel free the children from the Delonese machines, along with their friends Claudia and Danya. Finally, Sofi finds her brother, Shilo, and frees him as well. Together, they are able to access the computer to the shuttle they are on and pilot it to Earth. They bring the children to a medical center for treatment, and then find their way to the Fantasy Fan Game so they can help Inola and Nadine escape death.
Inola is thrilled to learn that Shilo and Sofi are free from Lord Ethos. As the game begins, they realize not only has it been rigged to cause the players’ deaths, but Ms. Gaines also has assassins shooting arrows into the arena to assure they die. Sofi jumps into the arena and decries the bloodbath.
Inola orders Ranger to play the video of Corp 30’s crimes. Sofi throws a spear toward Lord Ethos as he throws one at her. He is killed, but Inola steps in the path of the one aimed at Sofi. Inola dies in the arms of her children. Sofi is tempted to use her abilities to destroy the Delonese, but her friend Danya urges her to show mercy.
Sofi pulls back from their computer system, and the Delonese use their remaining power to transport their space station back through a wormhole and disappear. Danya, a Delonese ambassador, is grateful to be left behind on Earth by her people so she can resume her life with her human husband and their children.
The charges against Sofi and Shilo are dropped, and they are free to live out their lives. Miguel makes an impassioned speech to the world to recognize that they should feel the same anger at their own inhumanity toward their fellow men as they do toward the Delonese. He challenges everyone to regain his or her sense of community and humanity.
Sofi and Miguel are voted in as the new CEOs of Corp 30. Although reluctant at first, Sofi realizes it will be an opportunity for them to help eradicate the black markets and make other changes to help the world.
Sofi and Shilo are said to glare at the coroner who took away their father’s body like he was the hand of Satan. Inola thinks that Ms. Gaines has a heart destined for hell. Another character says someone has ascended from hell. Inola thinks the Delonese did a Hail Mary when they came through the wormhole in an effort to save themselves.
Miguel was brought up in the Catholic faith and thinks his mother would have dragged him to a priest to confess a lie. Miguel references that humanity is at the mercy of something bigger than their university.
Sofi makes a request for God to help them all after Miguel’s speech. The game announcer uses the common Christian question “Can I get a witness?” in a mocking way.
Inola compares the Fantasy Fan Game arena to a temple to ancient gods. Sofi has a telepathic connection to Shilo.
Although made clear throughout the story that Inola loved her children, she made a decision early on to put the needs of Corp 30 and the world above their need for a mother and their well being. In the end, she is willing to sacrifice both her career and her life to save her children. Although only a teenager himself, Miguel is an ambassador to the Delonese.
Although God’s name is not used, the euphemism Gad is used alone and with good and sake. H— is used with the word bent. The euphemisms heck, darn, crud and cripe are used along with the profane British term bloody.
Sofi remembers being taken by the Delonese as a child. They put a bag over her head. She kicked them in her attempt to get away. While not violent, the graphic descriptions of human body parts suspended in vats of clear liquid are disturbing. As is the notion that human children are being harvested to provide organs and tissue for the Delonese. Miguel remembers coming home to find his family dead, their bodies blown apart by a bomb.
A beast attacks a participant in the Fantasy Fan Games. His blood stains the ground as medics try to save him from bleeding out. A giant spider stabs another player with a poisonous stinger and kills him. Sofi stabs the spider as it attacks Nadine. Ms. Gaines has assassins shooting arrows at the game contestants, killing one and wounding several others. Lord Ethos aims a spear at Sofi, but Inola steps in front of it, receiving a mortal wound. Sofi kills Lord Ethos with a spear.
Inola’s chauffer is shot and killed by rioters. His blood spatters to the back seat. The rioters throw bombs into shops.
Miguel remembers his first kiss with a girl whose name he cannot recall, as well as his last kiss with Sofi, before he originally broke up with her. They sat on the roof of his car at a drive-in while couples around them kissed.
Miguel is appalled at images he sees of children in the black market. Although not described, it is intimated that they are being used sexually and that Miguel had been abused this way after his parents were killed.
Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books.
Slavery: The sale of human beings, especially children, is a prevalent business exchange on the black market. They are used primarily for sex, but also to fight each other and animals for entertainment and gambling.
Alcohol: Several characters consume unnamed alcoholic drinks. Inola drinks a glass of wine.
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