Query Letter for "City of Slaves"

Dear [insert an ideal LITERARY AGENT],

Thomas has always felt like an outsider, too brilliant for his youthful age, victimized by adults and unable to relate to other kids.  His handful of friends are all older than himself, teenagers and adults who also suffer as social outcasts.  But Thomas has a brighter future.  If he agrees to join the Torth Empire, he will win acceptance among the powerful mind readers who rule the known universe.  The only catch is that Thomas must abandon his human friends to slavery and death.

While Thomas navigates a world full of technological marvels, his friends survive in a brutal alien slave ghetto.  Their only hope for long-term survival is escape . . . but in city full of emotionless mind readers, secret plans are impossible.  Their slim hope hinges on Thomas.  If Thomas can't remember his human ethics in time, then his friends must rescue him from the monster he is becoming.

CITY OF SLAVES is complete at 105,000 words, the first in a dark science fiction novel series that explores what it means to be human.  I've completed three sequels, following Thomas and his friends as they lead a slave rebellion against the Torth Empire.  My writing credentials include stories and articles in Fantasy Magazine, Escape Pod, The Internet Review of Science Fiction, and other publications.  I'm a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and a member of Codex.

So that's my latest query letter.  I know I can tear it apart endlessly and always find flaws, but do you see anything that really turns you off?

I'll start contacting literary agents and editors this coming week. Possibly as soon as Tuesday.  Yikes!  This is a special kind of scary.