Planetfall

3.5 stars.

This is the first book in Emma Newman's Planetfall series and the first book by this author that I have read. It's an interesting slice of science fiction about a colony established on a distant planet by a group of scientists following a woman called Sun-Mi who, after waking from a coma, believes she has a vision of where God resides. It's a book about faith, betrayal, mental illness and how something built on a lie cannot last.

Renata Ghali, sometime lover of Sun-Mi, and an engineer specialising in 3D printing, has spent 22 years in the colony they established at the base of an alien structure they call “God's city”. Suh-Mi is, everyone believes, residing at the top of the city, communing with god. This is the faith that holds the colony together. That at some point Suh-Mi, the Pathfinder, will descend and reveal some kind of truth.

But all is not as it seems, and the secret that Ren and Mack, head of the colony, hide from the others threatens to send Ren off the rails. Especially when a young man (Sung-Soo) suddenly appears from the wilderness, who appears to be the grandson of Sun-Mi, lone survivor/descendant of a group whose planet fall did not go well, as their pods veered off course and crash landed. Is he who he says he is? How has he survived all these years? Will his presence make the whole carefully maintained edifice crumble?

The progression of this story is slow and careful, interspersed with flashbacks that fill in the back story of why these people left Earth of a potential wild goose chase. Newman creates an enclosed community, all quite comfortable on this alien world thanks to their technology and the ability to “print” whatever they need using the raw material around them, or recycling what is no longer needed. Ren's gradual descent into mental illness is handled well, her anxiety and OCD slowly building as Sung-Soo's presence pushes her to the limit.

It's only at the end that there is a burst of action and although some might feel the ending is rushed, leaving unanswered questions, Newman does finish Ren's story in a moving, revelatory way.

Planetfall is a good, solid slice of SF and I'm intrigued to see where Newman takes the story in the books that follow.