Congratulations to the DMLA authors on Barnes & Noble’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of 2015 List!
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.
Tor.com: Beautifully and heartbreakingly wrought, Planetfall is a genius novel that is far more than its exterior belies; a distressing, harrowing novel that left a deep mark on me. It isn’t an easy, cheerful read, but it is a captivating story that can be very aptly be described as a must read.
B&N SF&F: The mystery consumed me. I haven’t had this experience reading, really, ever. I somehow forced myself to bed when I was about halfway through. I woke up at three in the morning and read all the way to the end, even my sleeping mind absolutely dying to see what was hiding behind Ren’s teetering wall of deflection and denial. Then I was devastated, sitting alone in my dark house.
Publishers Weekly: Sometimes the most terrifying horrors are not those involving monsters out of fantasy but those taken straight from today’s headlines. Nijkamp’s debut follows four high school students on their first day of the spring semester in Opportunity, Ala. Over the course of 54 minutes—the amount of time a gunman holds their school hostage—their lives collide. Each of the four has an intimate connection to the shooter, and all must find a way to face the unfolding tragedy. While Claire views the event from outside the school, Autumn, Sylv, and Tomás are on the front lines. Love, loyalty, bravery, and loss meld into a chaotic, heart-wrenching mélange of issues that unite some and divide others. A highly diverse cast of characters, paired with vivid imagery and close attention to detail, set the stage for an engrossing, unrelenting tale. The starkly chilling realism and themes of abuse, death, and assault, among others, may prove too much for younger or sensitive readers, but the story unquestionably leaves an indelible mark.
Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi’s vision of a world far beyond Earth, calling to humanity. A planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.
More than twenty-two years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided, alone. All that time, Ren has worked hard as the colony’s 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment, and harboring a devastating secret.
Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony for the good of her fellow colonists, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.
The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden. And its revelation might tear the colony apart…
Publishers Weekly: 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.
Kirkus: A minute-by-minute account of mass murder at a high school by a former student. Four students from a range of different backgrounds at Alabama’s Opportunity High, all of whom have a history with Tyler, the gunman, take turns telling this harrowing story in the first person. They include his sister, Autumn, and her clandestine girlfriend, Sylv, who have only each other for solace as the home lives of both are in upheaval. Tomás, Sylv’s brother, recounts his and his friend Fareed’s desperate efforts to help from outside the school’s auditorium, where their fellow students and teachers are locked in with Tyler as he picks them off one by one. Finally, Claire, Tyler’s ex-girlfriend, realistically agonizes over what to do when she and a few others outside running track realize that the gunshots they hear are coming from inside the school. Grounded in the present, the story makes effective use of flashbacks that lay bare the pain and deception that have led up to the day’s horror. The language can occasionally feel a bit melodramatic, with lines like “we’re fighting for hope and a thousand tomorrows,” but this is a minor side note to this compelling story of terror, betrayal, and heroism. This brutal, emotionally charged novel will grip readers and leave them brokenhearted.
Suzanne Gates’ debut novel TINSEL, set in 1940 Hollywood, a young woman with dreams of movie stardom discovers her best friend’s body and must solve the murder with the help and hindrance of her new friend Barbara Stanwyck, plus one more to Peter Senftleben at Kensington Books by Jennifer Udden, for publication in 2017.
RT Book Reviews: Planetfall is a strange but mesmerizing book in which almost nothing is as it seems. The protagonist is… fascinating, and the book reads at once like a character study, a mystery, a hard science fiction tale about the survival of colonists on an alien world, and surrealist science fiction about alien life. Above all, this is a book about the price of secrets.