Planetfall

Starred review from October 5, 2015
This heartbreaking adventure is a tragedy of science and faith. Renata “Ren” Ghali followed her lover, Lee Suh-Mi, on a voyage to the stars with 1,000 other colonists. They found a new world, but Suh-Mi went into the alien structure known as God’s City, and she never came back. In the 22 years since, Ren has contented herself with her work as a technician. She lives at the foot of God’s City and seeks balance between her secret torments and the colony’s needs. That delicate collection of compromises is shattered by the arrival of Suh-Mi’s grandson, whose existence could reveal the web of lies that has held the colony together. Newman (The Split Worlds) begins with the high stakes of a new colony and raises the risk to every human life as events unfold. She carefully manages her pacing until events make each revelation as inevitable as it is destructive. The unfurling of God’s City’s reason for summoning the interstellar travelers is heightened by the illogic and desperation that threatens the colonists from the start. Ren is obsessed with repairing every broken object. The first thing God’s City breaks is promises, leaving Ren responsible for solving a mystery that has only borne regret and death as its alien fruit. Agent: Jennifer Udden, Donald Maass Literary.

November 15, 2015

Decades after landing on an alien planet, the colonists who live at the foot of the jungle structure they call God's city maintain a yearly ritual. Only Mack, their leader, and engineer Ren know that this ritual is a sham. The colonists had followed the dream of the woman they call the Pathfinder, who was exposed to a spore while hiking with Ren and received a vision that drew her into spaceflight and to the alien planet. Things didn't go exactly as planned, and now years later the stress of maintaining both this myth and the secret of what really happened at Planetfall will culminate in conflict. VERDICT Fans of unusual colony fiction such as Chris Beckett's Dark Eden will enjoy the slightly surreal alien world Newman (Between Two Thorns) creates. Whereas many hard sf novels would wallow in the nature of the aliens and the process of getting to the planet, the real draw here is the character of Ren and the cost that keeping the colony's secrets has on her mental health.--MM

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