Library Journal: 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. 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.
Nov 162015