Clouds of Phoenix by Michèle Laframboise

A threat written in the sky. A budding colony marked for death. A girl no one takes seriously.

Blanche, a paraplegic girl walking in a cobbled-up exoskeleton, spends long hours watching the strange clouds dancing in the Phoenix sky. She soon realizes that their coordinated figures signal a threat. Alas, the adults building their city discard her concerns. Even her shy sister Lupianne worries more about the oxygen plant’s dropping quotas and her similarly failing social life...

Then, as the cloud dances grow more complex and the temperatures rise to never-seen-before levels, the sisters must join forces with a despised artist to save their budding settlement from total eradication.

If you like stories featuring a disabled heroine and her much put-upon sister going against family and dangers, you'll love this clever planet-opera.

Get Clouds of Phoenix to discover the strangest alien contact ever described in science fiction!

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The French version of this novel received the 2001 Cecile Gagnon Award for best first YA novel.

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"We can only be fascinated by the powerful images
 born from the descriptions, by the originality
 and coherence of her universe (...)"
 
-- Le Devoir

«An excellent introduction to science fiction
 and to a number of questions about the environment, 
social relations and communication.»

--Hélène Marchetto, 
Les vagabonds du rêve