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Let love into your heart no matter what the rules say.

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The main character I have already physically described Durango but he has a pretty uneasy mental state as well he almost never sleeps and has to worry about his father every day that he is safe and well cared for in prison. also he likes Viene and is falling in love with her. he also has to keep a captain ranking and that means that anyone can challenge him for his position and he has gotten into many fights.

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Monday, night, our book club discussed David Macinnis Gill's science fiction, action-adventure story, Black Hole Sun.

On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders.

We started our discussion with some gripes, as many of our book clubbers felt it took too long for them to get invested in Durango and his world. As the story is set on Mars in the future, the characters used many slang words ( and other languages); however, almost none of the words were defined in the text, and there was no glossary to be found. It turns out, interestingly, that many of our teens (myself included) are fantasy readers, and we've grown accustomed to using included maps and glossaries to dissect an author's world.

We had a great time, though, talking about the characters (nearly everyone loved the creepy, crazy queen), the society (which seemed to have no middle class, unless you counted the military), and about the European and Asian feudal influences on Durango's military background. Most fascinating for us were the military regulations: they were almost religious in nature, and so strictly adhered to, it seemed as if the rigid honor code was in place to easily control the people who followed it unquestioningly...except for Durango, of course!

Overall, while the group gave the book an "okay" average of about 6 1/2 out of 10, we had a lively and fun discussion about Black Hole Sun.

As this is action-packed, with some awesomely intense battle scenes (with some wicked-sounding weaponry and armor that adapts to one's environment), a strong and snarky male point-of-view, this is a great read for guys and girls alike! But if you've already read it and its sequels, Invisible Sun and Shadow on the Sun, why not try one of these readalikes, chosen by our own teen readers?

If you like exciting science fiction/action:

The Last Thing I Remember (bk 1 in the Homelanders series) by Andrew Klaven. High school student Charlie West awakens bloody and bruised in a concrete bunker, only to discover that he has lost a year of his life and remembers nothing about escaping from prison after being convicted of murdering his former best friend, or why he is being pursued by both the law and a group of terrorists trying to bring down the government of the United States.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

If you're intrigued by children being trained by a shady military/government:

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. "An outstanding tale of the child-hero Ender Wiggin, who must fight a desperate battle against a deadly alien race if mankind is to survive."

Legend by Marie Lu. In a dark future, when North America has split into two warring nations, fifteen-year-olds Day, a famous criminal, and prodigy June, the brilliant soldier hired to capture him, discover that they have a common enemy.

If you wonder how outcasts can survive in a very rough world:

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. In a post-apocalyptic world where fences and border patrols guard the few people left from the zombies that have overtaken civilization, fifteen-year-old Benny Imura is finally convinced that he must follow in his older brother's footsteps and become a bounty hunter.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

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Kearsten's Book Club: Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill

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Monday, night, our book club discussed David Macinnis Gill's science fiction, action-adventure story, Black Hole Sun . On the planet Mars, sixteen-year-old Durango and his crew of mercenaries are hired by the settlers of a mining community to protect their most valuable resource from a feral band of marauders.

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How private armies, and the technology they use, are changing warfare

Rande Archer/Flickr

The use of mercenaries in warfare has a very long history-much longer, in fact, than the almost-exclusive deployment of national militaries to wage wars. Before the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended Europe's Thirty Years' War and marked the rise of the modern state system, medieval powers from kings to popes routinely hired private fighters to do battle for them. As state governments sought a monopoly on the use of force within their territories in the 17th century, however, they moved to stamp out violence by non-state actors, including mercenaries, driving the industry underground.

Private militaries never really went away, but according to Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and associate professor at National Defense University, they have experienced a resurgence in the past 25 years. McFate himself was a contractor with DynCorp International, one of the private military companies whose rise is the subject of his recent book, The Modern Mercenary. Companies like DynCorp-and, more infamously, Blackwater-were major players in the U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing logistics and other services, as well as armed guards and trainers for local armies. McFate draws a distinction between these types of support contractors, used for defense and training, and mercenaries, who stage offensive operations on behalf of a client. Nigeria has reportedly deployed mercenaries from South Africa and elsewhere in the fight against the militant Islamist group Boko Haram. In practice, however, that difference is not clear-cut. "If you can do one, you can do the other," McFate told me in a recent interview.

The elements of a changing world, from technology and business to politics and culture.
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America's reliance on private military companies in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade hasn't just expanded the industry; it's also started to change the conduct of international relations. In theory, armed forces for hire give private actors the option to wage wars where governments can't, or won't. In 2008, for example, actress and activist Mia Farrow explored hiring Blackwater to intervene in Darfur, telling ABC News at the time, "Blackwater has a much better idea of what an effective peace-keeping mission would look like than Western governments." Private military companies also allow governments to disclaim involvement in politically controversial activities. "Putin is using Chechen mercenaries in Ukraine, allegedly," McFate said. "Who's going to tell him you can't do that after 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan?"

What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of an interview I conducted with McFate who, as an employee of the Defense Department, wanted me to note that these are his views, not those of the U.S. government.

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How private armies, and the technology they use, are changing warfare The use of mercenaries in warfare has a very long history-much longer, in fact, than the almost-exclusive deployment of national militaries to wage wars.

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the main protagonist(s) in this story are the Dreau. They cause most of the evident conflict in the story and are the biggest adversary to the main character. In the end they end up turning back into normal humans because of the cure the main character creates to backfire the Dreau queens plot to rule mars.

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The main character Durango is a highly sophisticated biomechanical human. His father preformed many operations on him he has an AI telepathecaly mended to his brain a bionic eye and arm. He also has skin made of nanobots that protect him from any physical pain. Viene is Durangos second in command and is highly skilled in the martial arts. Fuse is the demolitionist as well as the engineer of the group. Jenks is the muscle of the group with his heavy laser cannon. Finally Aine is the miner who hea fallen in love with Durango but is too shy to tell him.

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There are two main conflicts in the story.  The first that is evident is the main character Durango is in love with Viene his second in command but they can't be together because of the regulator tenets. The tenets are a set of rules for the regulators who are organized vigilantes. One of the rules is that regulators must keep everything professional and can't have relations with other regulators. The second major conflict is the impending attack of the Dreau. Dreau are mutated ratlike people with super strength and loyalty to their queen. The Dreau want to attack this underground outpost for this "treasure" which is the original schematic of the martian cities. Which have air filtration systems and the Dreau queen wants to locate these air filtration systems to release her disease and infect everyone and turn them into Dreau.

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The story Black Hole Sun Takes place in the year 238 on mars in a futuristic society. At this point in time  mars is newly terraformed with oceans, rivers, and lakes that all stink of sulfuric gas; choking the population of clean oxygen.