It is not often that I fully get hooked into a four-volume book series, even resorting to phone tethering at the airport to buy the next e-book volume before departure, but the Planetfall series did that for me. (Sorry, book shops – I bought the first book on paper, but then couldn’t wait to get the next books…)
The full Planetfall series was published from 2015-19, so I am late to the game, but there is room for at least one more book and I will definitely queue up to get an early copy if and when another instalment is ever released.
In Planetfall, Emma Newman takes us to a far away planet. Set in the not too distant future, a group of settlers (pilgrims?) left earth following a vision their “Pathfinder”, a Korean woman named Lee Suh-Mi, had while in a coma from eating a poisonous seed from an unknown plant on earth.
The book opens 20 years after the group’s arrival on their target planet, their “planetfall”, where many of the group expect to find god, and is set in a small colony the settlers have built near an organic, shape-shifting mountain the group refers to as “God’s City”. While much is left unsaid, it quickly becomes clear that not everything has gone according to plan: The Pathfinder is gone, a group of settlers appears to have died during planetfall, and the book’s main character, a 3D printer engineer named Ren, appears to be deeply troubled by past events while working in secret to explore the disturbing nature of “God’s City” (and missing her friend and lover Lee Suh-Mi).
The colony appears to live in stability until one day a young man turns up at its perimeter claiming to be both the grandson of Lee Suh-Mi and the sole survivor of the group that crashed and went missing during planetfall. As his appearance threatens to unravel the secrets that Ren has been successfully hiding, we learn more about what really happened during planetfall and get a glimpse into the true nature of God’s City.
While there is a space story and a lot of tech in this book (food printers, brain-embedded chips), at its core, Planetfall is a story about guilt and deception. It is clear almost from page one that Ren is deeply troubled by past events both on earth and around God’s City and the book is largely an exploration of how she deals (and does not deal) with a troubling past. Emma Newman has done a great job capturing Ren’s confusion and anxiety and has written a fascinating novel that superbly packages a space colony/alien planet story with Ren’s personal struggles.
Planetfall’s ending is not the end of it, however: Emma Newman has expanded the Planetfall universe into three more books: After Atlas, Before Mars, and Atlas Alone. None of these books solves the ultimate question of what God’s City really is, but they nicely complement the first book:
After Atlas plays on earth, long after the departure of the first colony ship. While nothing is known about the fate of the colonists, earth is eagerly waiting for the release of a recorded message from the original pathfinder. Against this backdrop, Carlos Morenos, an indentured detective in today’s UK and son of one of the pilgrims on route to God’s City is trying to investigate the murder of an American cult leader.
Before Mars is set shortly after the events in After Atlas. Set on Mars, the book follows a group of scientists on a Mars base as they struggle to understand what is really happening around them.
Lastly, Atlas Alone is set on a second spaceship on the way to God’s City, where we re-connect with Carlos Moreno and other characters from After Atlas as they struggle with a terrible secret.
After Atlas and Before Mars can be read in any order (and possibly even before Planetfall) – only Atlas Alone clearly follows the other books and should be read after “After Atlas” at the very least.
As much as they are very different (After Atlas a murder mystery, Before Mars a somewhat typical Mars adventure, and Atlas Alone largely set in virtual reality), the three books follow a pattern Newman has first established in Planetfall: Set in a futuristic world, they all explore how deeply conflicted people deal with a web of secrets, lies and guilts.
If there is any downside to the series, it is that there is no final conclusion to the story (yet). Having read all four books, the series appears primed for a fifth book, bringing together the events around God’s City with the people we meet in books two to four – fingers crossed for a final book to the series.
But: Well worth reading.