As a prequel to the Meredith Sue Willis's acclaimed sci-fi novel THE CITY BUILT OF STARSHIPS, this tale relates the adventures of a girl reaching womanhood while living in "the world with two suns." Soledad, intelligent and strong-willed, must make sense of life and love in a stark quasi-Buddhist community attempting to survive on an alien planet. She succeeds -- but just barely.

Soledad faces multiple challenges in The Encampment, the isolated, cult-like group of refugees who fled The City Built of Starships years ago. The larger community -- the result of earthlings having emigrated from the home planet several generations earlier -- started out as an organized effort to colonize what they call the Second World. But the new settlement quickly degenerated into a brutal class system: dominant Officers holding sway over subordinate Hands. Resisting this hierarchy, a band of rebels sought desert solitude to escape tyranny and to follow a meditative Path. Young Soledad, growing up in this community and now approaching adulthood, must make sense of herself and her place in a dangerous world. She finds solace in friendships with a few peers and, especially, in her interactions with bizarre pterodactyl-like creatures called yaegers. Little by little she understands both the limits to her freedom and a way to follow her own path.

SOLEDAD IN THE DESERT presents both a fully realized alternate reality and a thoughtful, observant protagonist intent on finding her place in a world that often makes no sense but nonetheless presents an intelligent young woman with opportunities to find meaning.