Maura is doomed to starve. Her space station has no further use for her.

New York Times bestselling author and ALA Alex Award winner Gail Carriger brings you a fast-paced young adult scifi adventure featuring a capable heroine, her adorable pet, and the alien they accidentally rescue.

Abandoned

Outcast

Crudrat

With only her crud-eating murmel and a fuzzy alien stranger to help, Maura must find a way to survive, before they catch her and blow what's left of her life into space.

In the far future, on a space-port the size of a city, crudrats scrape out a meager living cleaning the great machines that generate usable power. Only children can safely traverse the cramped tunnels and the massive blades that harvest crud. But one misstep and a crudrat gets caught on a blade edge and killed. Like rats, they scurry through the bulkheads, duty-bound to clean the air ducts so everyone else can breathe.

But, when they grow too big to be useful, they become outcasts. Now one of the forgotten, Maura might just be able to turn rejection into escape – if she's resourceful enough.

"Of course, as with much YA fiction these days, the book's appeal crosses generations; Carriger's whimsical sense of humor and lightness of touch is entertaining regardless of age." ~ Tor.com (Etiquette & Espionage)

In this classic YA adventure about finding one's place in the universe, Gail Carriger brings golden age-style science fiction into the 21st century, stuffs it full of heart, and gives it a finely polished, gleaming edge.

Also by Gail Carriger

Tinkered Starsong (set in the same universe, also features a crudrat, start with Divinity 36)

The Finishing School series (start with Etiquette & Espionage)

The Delightfully Deadly stories

The Parasol Protectorate series (start with Soulless)

The Supernatural Society stories

The Custard Protocol series (start with Prudence)

The Claw & Courtship stories

As G L Carriger

The 5th Gender (also scifi set in the same universe)