Ceres

Nominee for the 2010 Prometheus Award

In the 22nd century people have spread into the Solar System. Born and raised in a twentieth of Earth's gravity on the asteroid Pallas, young skater Llyra Ngu is grimly determined to compete and win on mankind's homeworld—an ambition that many say will cripple or kill her.

Her older brother Wilson is equally set on quitting his job as a surveyor's apprentice to become an asteroid hunter, a calling fraught with the promise of fabulous riches and the danger of sudden death. He will find a full share of romance and disappointment, love and loss, and pursue the asteroid hunter's holy grail, the legendary Diamond Rogue.

Llyra's training will require years, and a journey that will take her to Ceres, at one tenth Earth's gravity, where her father bosses the Ceres Terraformation Project, to the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, to Mars and one third gravity, and finally to Earth. Along the way, she will survive jealous rivals, a hostile press, terrorist attacks, and the hijacking of a spaceliner in order to achieve her goal.

In the end, Llyra and Wilson will hear the call of the stars, themselves.