It’s Old School SF, and sufficiently complex not to bore me… in fact, it’s on the level of many older SF written for adults, like Rendezvous with Rama, for example.
The story gets going when one of the peacekeepers, a young man named Donovan, goes to arrest a group of human anti-alien terrorists and instead gets captured by them. The exoskeletons are not rigid, but something like a thin, transparent web that flows over the wearer’s skin. The chosen humans receive the alien exoskeleton that the zhree invented for their own soldiers which makes them faster, stronger, and more able to absorb damage. However, the zhree are more kindly colonizers than despots, and certain humans they choose adopt into their “tribe” as liaisons, diplomats, and peacekeepers for zhree rule.
Naturally, humankind fought back, but lost because of the zhree’s superior weaponry. Their occupation of Earth came about because they needed an outpost against the Rii, a rival race. The zhree resemble stubby mushrooms walking on six tentacles, like a shorter, friendlier version of H. The setting is about 100 years into the future, after Earth has been conquered by an alien race called the zhree. Instead of doing this Lee demonstrates her worldbuilding logic continuously in the story, and in fact it helps shape the story. It’s a tough order, and some YA authors choose not to do it, using robots, starships, and aliens as the Star Wars universe uses them… as elements of fantasy. That is, an out-there premise is given and the author extrapolates from it, showing us the effects it has on science, the environment, human society, and human relationships, all of which are worked seamlessly into the story so the panty lines of extrapolation do not show. Of all the YA science fiction I’ve read so far (and keep in mind it hasn’t been a lot) Fonda Lee’s Exo is the only one I’d call true SF.
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