Glow, Amy Kathleen Ryan

Not really sure about how I feel on this one.

First off: (I'm going to try and start keeping these for help in tracking down books later)
Glow, Amy Kathleen Ryan
Notes: first of a series "The Sky Chasers"
ISBN: 9780312590567, 2011, St Martins Press

Generation ships Empyrean and New Horizon (roughly agnostic and religiously oriented) are swimming through a messy nebula en route to their new planet.  Empyrean has met and overcome their fertility crisis, but (unbeknownst to the colonists at large on the Empyrean (our narrator-focus-ship) the New Horizon hasn't.  Now they're aiming for desperate measures.

First off, I'm going to explain the TMG tag: It's a new one specifically thought up for this book (and I imagine other ones will be getting it also) Too Much God.  While I'm up for deep philosophical meditations on the use and abuse of religion and religious impulses and the charismatic draw of people who see themselves as prophets, divine leaders, or mouthpieces of the gods, I really really really want a bit of warning before we go there!  It's a touchy subject for me, and I have to be in a specific frame of mind to appreciate it - and I'll note, it's not a frame of mind that I really think extends to "space opera about generation ship colonists."

Maybe that makes me a bad person that I want my sci-fi to be agnostic or atheistic (or religious, just not in my face about it) and focusing on battles or culture shocks due to aspects beyond religious belief and practice.  I don't know, and I don't really care.  All I know is that that topic and the way it was handled in this particular book made me quite uncomfortable, took me completely out of the story, baffled me as to where the author was wanting my sympthy to lie (and don't give me crap about not wanting to lead the reader - I want good guys and bad guys, and I want to know who they are.  If they redeem themselves or move to the dark side, that's peachy, but they have to have an alignment beforehand.  The author's job is to provide that reference to the reader)  AND - most importantly - I don't know if I'll read the sequels because of that discomfort.  And that's a shame, because I really could see myself getting behind the whole political struggles between these two ships, and the conflicts between characters with different strengths and abilities and opinions on how to lead people.  Darnit all. 

Anyway.  Interesting, thought-provoking, just plain provoking, and strange addition to the generation-ship fold.