This is basically the Hunger Games, but in space. A bunch of desperate teenagers are recruited by an unscrupulous corporation to mine nyxia, a magical substance on an alien planet whose properties stretch the limits of credulity; during the space journey over, they are subjected to deadly competition with one another for the limited number of spaces available. I almost put this down quite a few times because the corporate overlords were so evil, the teens so tortured, and the magical nyxia so nonsensical that I couldn’t keep from rolling my eyes at everything. Still, the writing and characterization were just good enough that I made it to the end, where of course even more plot twists left plenty of issues for the sequel.