Commencement

The Sting was what made Ronica McBride special—that, and the years the interstellar government called the Com had invested in teaching her how to use it. Class C talents could use the power called gathering to control their own bodies; the less common Class Bs used pathfinding to alter the inner workings of mechanical things; but only the rare Class A could use the Sting—and it was that unparalleled power over other minds that made Ronica the most valuable resource in the Com.

Newly graduated and ready to use her Class A talent, Ronica McBride should have had the worlds at her fingertips. But instead she was lost on an unknown planet, hurt, alone, with no memory of how she had gotten there—and she had lost her Sting.

Gathering and pathfinding were tools, not weapons. Without her Sting, Ronica could not stop the Stonehouse dwellers who rescued her from promptly trading her away to the chief of a primitive tribe. And as Ronica struggled to find a place for herself on the wilderworld, accept her loss of talent, and regain her missing memories, she began to discover that everything the Com had taught her was a lie...

"Commencement... fits into the established niches while at the same time ringing new changes on what readers might think are standard themes."
—New York Review of Science Fiction

"Roby James writes with passion and intelligence."
—Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award Winner

"Look out, Robert Jordan!"
—Barnes & Noble Booksellers Newsletter