The Tenth Planet

The Tenth Planet #1

by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

A science fiction saga set on near-future Earth,  The Tenth Planet  challenges our basic beliefs about the solar system and ultimately our place in the universe with cutting-edge astronomy, blockbuster action, and high drama.

After a deep-space satellite mysteriously stops transmitting, the Hubble III telescope picks up a startling image. Astronomers don't know what the strange object is—only that it orbits past Earth every two millennia.
 
Meanwhile, archaeologist Leo Cross has discovered peculiar layers of black residue at dig sites around the globe. Stranger still, these thin bands occur like clockwork every 2,006 years, coinciding with some of the world's darkest moments in history.
 
We have six months to prepare for the next arrival. This time we know something is coming. This time we have weapons to defend us.
 
This time we'll be wrong . . . again.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Pen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.

With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.

Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.

Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.

Reviews

[Gilbert Stack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith and Rusch are two accomplished science fiction writers who have joined forces in a new trilogy about a mysterious tenth planet in our solar system and the periodic destruction it brings to the earth. The book opens with an excellent scene revolving around an archaeological dig and a mysterious soot level that occurred some 2000 years ago. The reader soon discovers that similar soot levels have been occurring every 2006 years for many thousands (perhaps much longer) years. And for the reader it is not a hard leap to thinking about planetary orbits (the book is called The Tenth Planet after all).

The tension grows substantially as we also follow people trying to figure out what happened to a satellite they had sent to Uranus that has stopped working. Key government figures begin to become involved as connections are made between the soot layers and something approaching the earth from outer space. Each scene continues a countdown to the “arrival” which also adds a lot of suspense to the story. It’s very clear that slow moving government bureaucracies are going to have a hard time moving quickly enough to accomplish anything. (Just to turn the Hubble telescope the authorities want an application and are warning that it will take years to get our heroes their turn at the giant space lens.)

As the countdown to continues, we start to see the aliens up close and learn a little bit about their backstory. Without giving anything away, it is very clear that nothing can stop the collision of the two species and for one (or both) it’s likely to be an extinction level event. Sadly, it really can’t be any other way.

This book is apparently based on a video game, but don’t let that dissuade you from reading the book. I don’t know if the game is any good, but Smith and Rusch work magic on this plot just as they have when they have taken on characters from other franchises such as Star Trek. They just can’t write a two-dimensional character or story. They enrich every plot they touch and turn this idea into a full-fledged adventure.

If you liked this review, you can find more at www.gilbertstack.com/reviews.

[Tony Bittner-Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story. It gave me the creeps all the way through to the end. I got this book as a birthday present two years ago and I'm very looking forward to finding and reading the next ones of the trilogy: Oblivion and Final Assault

Update: I've just reread this 1st book and I really I think it should be turned into a TV series or a film. It's very well-written and the story's gets more and more interesting. I managed to find the other two books on Amazon and finally have them.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good trilogy: The Tenth Planet, The Tenth Planet Oblivion, and The Tenth Planet Final Assault. Unlike most series I read, where the books are independent, this is one continuous story put in three books.

It allows you into the minds of both sides of the story (human and alien).

From the back of the first book:

After a deep-space satellite mysteriously stops transmitting, the Hubble III telescope picks up a startling image. Astronomers don't know what the strange object is--only that it orbits past Earth every two millennia.

Meanwhile, archaeologist Leo Cross has discovered peculiar layers of black residue at dig sites around the globe. Stranger still, these thin bands occur like clockwork every 2006 years, coinciding with some of the world's darkest moments in history.

We have six months to prepare for the next arrival. This time we know something is coming. This time we have weapons to defend ourselves.

This time we'll be wrong . . . again.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

After two archaeologists independently discover a thin black layer of soot buried underground at a level that suggests an age of approximately 2,000 years, they combine their knowledge and figure out that there are events that happen every 2,006 years that wipe out all organic material in specific locations around the earth. They soon figure out that it is an alien "planet" that orbits back past us once every and uses our living matter as food. This cycle goes back at least 20,000 years. And guess what? It's been 2,006 years since their last visit.

I was surprised (and encouraged) by how much I enjoyed the book. There were issues with how it was written in terms of seeming inconsistencies and my fervent dislike of authors trying to write from an alien culture's perspective that made me give it a three-star rating. But my enjoyment of the overall story brought it closer to 3.5 but I can't do that here.

As a note, this is book 1 of 3.

[Omar Iquira · Rating 4 out of 5]

LE DOY 4 ESTRELLAS PORQUE LA TRAMA ES BASTANTE SIMPLE, PERO DE VERDAD TE CAPTURA

Siendo sincero me encontré por casualidad con el primer libro de esta trilogía de Dean Wesley Smith y Kristine Kathryn Rusch. No muchos la conocen, pero de verdad puedo decir que es del tipo de lectura que te capturan. Y lo mejor de todo, es bastante fácil de leer.
En primer lugar debo decir que la historia no es para todos los amantes del género, ya que no puedo decir que caiga en la categoría de grandes epopeyas galácticas ni nada parecido. Pero lo que si puedo confirmar es que presenta un escenario bastante original desde el punto de vista de la historia de la humanidad y su lugar en lo que consideramos "nuestro" sistema solar.
La trama nos presenta una hipótesis bastante interesante: Nuestra especie siempre ha tenido una tendencia y talento únicos en lo que se refiere a pelear y matarnos entre nosotros. Pero que pasaría si apareciera un enemigo tan poderoso, que no nos quedará otra opción más que unirnos para combatirlo? Y si lo hiciéramos, que tanto podríamos hacer? Y hasta que extremos llegaríamos para sobrevivir? La sociedad humana está siquiera lista para coexistir y unirse contra un enemigo común? O seguiremos siendo quienes siempre hemos sido... humanos.
Lo que tenemos aquí es una historia de ciencia ficción sencilla pero atractiva. Que nos presenta personajes quizás un poco unidimensionales, pero que de alguna forma logran atraerte y capturarte en una trama que tiene un poco de todo. No me malentiendan, esta es definitivamente una historia de ciencia ficción, pero tiene también características de drama político, militar, existencialista, científico, cultural, social, etc. etc. etc... Pero todo presentado de una forma simple, concisa y lo mejor de todo, sin rodeos o florituras innecesarias.
Esta es la clase de trilogía que empieza simple y acaba simple. Pero manteniéndote siempre interesado en la historia. Lo cual desde mi punto de vista es algo bastante refrescante.
Los tres libros de la trilogía forman sin duda lo que calificaría como una lectura ligera pero bonita. Así que es ampliamente recomendable si estas buscando algo del genero ciencia ficción que te entretenga y con lo que busques "desestresarte".

[SamB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent, after a slow start - which makes sense now knowing that this 'Book 1 of a three-part saga' is more or less just the first 250 pages of a 750-page book. By the end of this first instalment I was engaged enough to actively want to pick up the book every evening, and I have the other two, so I'll be continuing after a short break.

[E.R. Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. I’m a sucker for first contact novels. Throw in archaeology and I’m hooked! This one didn’t disappoint though you’re pretty much forced to read the next two books in the trilogy to find out how things actually turn out (hence -1 star). Shoulda been all in one book since all three—or at least the first and second books—deal with the same situation and characters.

[Paul Darcy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll review all three books here since I think they most likely should have been one large book instead of chopped into three anyhow.

Marketing ploy, and a good one. Co-written by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch (What’s with the three name author titles?) The Tenth Planet trilogy is a science fiction action thriller and does quite well to follow the genre.

The premise of the books is that a tenth planet, in a highly elliptical orbit, sustains and alien race which harvests the Earth of organic materials every 2006 years, the time it takes the tenth planet to do one orbit around the sun. A pretty good what if scenario.

My only qualm with it is this. The planet is covered with photon absorbers (solar panels if you will) and is virtually invisible to telescopes. But, if there really was a large planet sized object orbiting our solar system we would know about it long before it was found with a telescope. Minor, and I mean minor (like milii-arc-seconds) of displacement of other planets would have, by the time these books take place, have proven another large planet sized object shares our solar system. You may be able to mask the planet visually, but it would have considerable mass.

For the sake of these books, that method of detection was completely not explored. So, we are left with an archeologist finding proof (every 2006 years) that something is devastating the Earth, but not the entire Earth, and it is set to come again. So book one then deals with the alien’s first pass by Earth and their sending down harvester ships. A battle ensues, but Earth gets its resources sucked and the Tenth Planet moves on.

But the Tenth Planet will pass the Earth again on its return to deep space. Book two then deals with Earth building defenses and making strategies to deal with the alien’s second pass. Throw in some nukes and nanotech and you have the end of book two.

Book three is the showdown between Earth and the aliens. Big battles, twists and turns and I won’t spoil the ending since you might want to read them. They are not long books so you don’t need to invest a lot of time in reading them. And, overall, they are fun. If you like science fiction action films, you will most likely enjoy these novels.

So here they are in case you want to hunt them down:

The Tenth Planet
The Tenth Planet (Oblivion)
The Tenth Planet (Final Assault)

[Kivrin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun little old-time sci-fi book. "Something" is coming toward the Earth through space, and apparently, it's been here before bringing destruction along with it.

I liked the science--a little archaeology, a little archaeoastronomy. The characters were well drawn and likeable with nice personality quirks. I thought the "aliens" were very well-conceived and really alien, as opposed to funny-looking humans. The opposing mindsets of "us" and "them" are well developed and intriguing.

My only quibble--I thought Earth's defensive forces were a little slow to "get" the alien technology. No one could figure out what would happen? Really? No one?

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was super-cheezy! An archaeologist notices a pattern of every 2006 years, a layer of black dust covers large swashes of the planet. What could it be?! Aliens, of course! And they are on schedule for another pass at the planet. How can we combat them? Stay tuned for book 2...

[Tristan Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun short read with a great idea but less than spectacular execution. The sequels are worth it if you feel you want the whole story, though there is nothing new discovered after about midway through the second one. From there it's all just trying up the various story threads.

[Cam · Rating 2 out of 5]

good ideas, poor writing

[Foggygirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a decent read but I found my attention wandering a bit near the end of the book.

[Mary Graybeal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it very much. Not much character development but it is based on a neat idea. Reminded me of Inherit the Stars.

[Howard]

10

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book, have the other 2 so will read them in the near future

[Alla · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed the whole trilogy including this book. It's not the world's greatest literature but very solid science fiction.

[Jacquie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly good junk sf. Sort of the science fiction equivalent to Harlequin Romance. Nothing innovative or special, but satisfying and quick.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reread 9/5/24