Reaper, by Becca C. Smith, is the second book in a continuing series chronicling the adventures of teenager Chelsan Durée. In Smith’s first book, Riser, we met average teenager Chelsan who has the not-so-average ability to control dead things. Chelsan soon found herself the target of a corrupt government, where she had to save herself and her friends from their evil clutches. The events of Reaper take place directly after those of Riser. Just as Chelsan thinks she is going to settle back into school and have time with her boyfriend Ryan, she is once again targeted for her powers. This time Chelsan doesn’t know who is a friend and who is an enemy while she once again embarks on a quest to save the world from a massive threat.
In the futuristic world Chelsan lives in nearly everyone takes Age-Pro, an anti-aging drug that allows people to live forever. While on the surface staying young and beautiful sounds like a utopia, there are serious implications to this ageless hedonism. Though people can stay of child-bearing age for an eternity, they cannot use the drug while pregnant, creating a conundrum that is solved by the use of surrogates and the unsavory term “baby-centers.” Though religion has largely died out those that still are believers don’t appreciate the concept of immortality and not moving on to the afterlife. And of course the biggest problem of them all is overpopulation. What do you do when no one dies but they continue to procreate? All of these questions serve as the backdrop to Chelsan’s adventures in the year 2320 on planet Earth.
As Chelsan is recovering from the events of Riser, her mind is invaded via astral projection by a seven-year old girl named Elisha. Elisha, it seems, is trapped in one of Chelsan’s grandfather’s IQ farms and is scheduled for termination. Chelsan is eager to help since she has a very unfavorable view of the IQ farms, a place where children are kept in preadolescence forever and forced into a kind of mental slavery. The difficulty is that Chelsan’s grandfather is the Vice-President of Population Control, the most powerful position in the world, and he has no love for Chelsan. In fact he’d be happy to see her dead. Nonetheless, Chelsan prepares herself to head back into the lion’s den to save the doomed Elisha.
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