A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil. The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that's sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June's best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.

Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Tres will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government's strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

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Product details

Listening Length	11 hours and 52 minutes
Author	Alaya Dawn Johnson
Narrator	Rebecca Mozo, Lincoln Hoppe
Audible.com.au Release Date	05 March 2013
Publisher	Scholastic Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B00O04T5Y4
Best Sellers Rank	181,269 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 298 in Coming of Age Fiction for Teens 393 in Science Fiction & Fantasy Romance for Teens 611 in Fiction About Being a Teen for Young Adults

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Top review from Australia

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Tez Miller

Memorable setting

Reviewed in Australia on 28 March 2018

June lives in futuristic Brazil, where she creates amazing art - including installing lights under her skin. But her best work is a secret project she's collaborating on with Enki. They've known from the start that their time together is fleeting, so their deadline is tight. Like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is scheduled to be sacrificed.

The vivid lights and imagery should inspire some awesome fan-art by readers. Art, life, death, and the future combine in this memorable setting, as their society grapples with deciding how far they should take technology...and how much they should pare it back.

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Top reviews from other countries

Catriona Easton

Confusing and Intriguing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 July 2013

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An amazing novel for young adults. It has a twisting plot that leaves you always wanting to find out what happens next. It is full of rich descriptions and tantalising tidbits of a history that is not fully resolved until the end.

2 people found this helpful

nadia

The kind of book that inspires you to create something

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 January 2015

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Beautifully written

Fraser Simons

Real, beautiful, and raw. Cyberpunk at its best

Reviewed in Canada on 22 November 2016

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This is a beautiful story. The protagonist is believable and complicated and deals with her emotions in a way that takes you along for the ride. This is cyberpunk at its best, a futuristic vision of a beautiful culture and a overlay of biotech that allows for the unoppresed to live both an opulent life, as well as unlock hidden organic potential already there.

Everything about this book was amazing to me, especially not being aware of any of the cultural aspects today. I finished it in a day and re read it only a month later, I consider this a must read for any sci fi and cyberpunk fan

Virditas

The author's love of Brazil!

Reviewed in the United States on 29 July 2016

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I grew up in Rio de Janeiro as a 1/2 Brazilian. The author's love of Brazil, her love of Brazilian culture and passion, injustice and anger is apparent in the book. All too often books about Other Cultures tend to exoticize the Other and parody or reflect a shallow understanding of the root drives of that Other. (Brasyl by Ian McDonald does this.) Alaya Dawn Johnson's deep compassion and understanding of the brutality, passion, and bright bright optimism of Brazilians reflects my own experience with my birth culture.

The book is classified as YA, but really could be enjoyed by anyone. A brilliant book. I am the richer for reading it, and it truly made me discover anew the vigor of my Brazilian childhood roots. Thank you, Alaya Dawn Johnson!

2 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Interesting, very emotional

Reviewed in the United States on 23 September 2013

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Some other reviewers say that this book is just another anti-utopia. I disagree, the world of Summer Prince (Palmares Três) is set in a post-Apocalyptic world but in itself is not an anti-utopia. Let's see: even the poorest people in Palmares Três have access to medical care and are able to move up in the society, there are no limitations of the freedom of speech and it looks like there's no ubiquitous surveillance. But neither is it an utopia (as some other reviewers say) - there are still poor and disadvantaged people, there's gang warfare (though it looks like it's not a really big deal) and politicians are still scheming left and right without much regard to human lives. So Palmares Três is just a city-state with its own set of problems.

Now to the bad side of the book - the world-building is distinctly weak. There are huge differences in tech levels between cities: people in Tokyo have mind uploads and people in Salvador have access to nano-machines capable of universal assembly. It's just not plausible that this sort of technology can not be smuggled into Palmares Três. And it's just not plausible that such a gap can be supported for 400 years.

Palmares Três itself is also weak. Citizens there have at least a limited access to nanotech and semi-sentient AIs, but people still work at menial jobs. Energy is produced by vats of algae in form of hydrogen gas (tip to the author: it's NOT poisonous) with the side-effect of making the lowest levels of the city incredibly smelly. It would have been trivial to switch to solar panels or isolate the vats from the atmosphere properly even without the wonder-tech of the future.

No, what makes this book interesting are characters and social commentary. Society in Palmares Três is really an inversion of our society. Women are in charge and men are considered to be the gentler sex (so it's considered OK for boys to cry but not for girls) and there are no men in the power structure (Aunties, but not Uncles) apart from the Kings. Bisexuality is considered so normal that there are no comments about it at all (which is a comment in itself, of course). Assisted suicides are OK. And so on...

And then there's the central theme of the book - of a society built on a ritual human sacrifice (even voluntary one). It's brilliantly written, go and read it.

Oh, and then there's a link to the Epic of Gilgamesh - Enki and Gil are partially inspired by Enkidu and Gilgamesh. I wonder why no other reviewers caught this link...

3 people found this helpful

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