"AN OTHERWORLDLY ROMP WITH A DELIGHTFUL CAST AND A VIVIDLY IMAGINED INTERPLANETARY SETTING."
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Kirkus Reviews
By 2052 a one-world government is being sought with the leadership of the United Nations. The U.N. learns of advanced technology being used by The Pystead Group located on the West Indies island of Nevis, and becomes willing to kill for it. The Pystead community, which had plans to escape the world's oppression by seasteading is now forced to Plan B. Their nine huge ships on the oceans were secretly designed as spaceships.
The group fights its way off the Earth and departs for a temporary stay on Mars, even though the hostile U.N. has an outpost on Mars.
The crewmembers and their families experience life aboard ship as living strange new variations on life. Those variations are most challenging for the protagonists Alice and Philip and their close social circle of relatives and friends. Alice is the granddaughter of Pystead's founder, Comte Saint Germaine, and feels honor and duty bound to mentor and help protect the crew.
Her role leads to jealousy of Philip's female friends and ultimately to a death-defying rescue of crewmembers held aboard one of their ships that has been hijacked by personnel from the U.N.'s outpost station on Mars.
Finally, after two years, all Pystead's pilgrims are free on Mars and ready for the next phase of Plan B.