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Arrokoth
The Earth is dying.
A generation of geniuses born to it might be its only hope. They have been chosen. They have been shunned. Loathed and praised. But the people who save you aren't always as you'd imagined.
It's time for the new kind of superheroes. The ones smart enough, driven enough, and daring enough to take us to the farthest reaches of the outer space.
A generation of geniuses born to it might be its only hope. They have been chosen. They have been shunned. Loathed and praised. But the people who save you aren't always as you'd imagined.
It's time for the new kind of superheroes. The ones smart enough, driven enough, and daring enough to take us to the farthest reaches of the outer space.
145 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2023
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Mia Dalia
45 books61 followersMia Dalia is an internationally published, Crime Writers Association-nominated author of all things fantastic, thrilling, scary, and strange. Her short stories of horror, noir, science fiction, mystery, crime, humor, and more have been featured in a variety of anthologies, magazines, literary journals, online, and adapted for narrative podcasts.
Featured publications:
Estate Sale (Lethe Press)
Tell Me a Story (Anuci Press)
Discordant (Anuci Press)
Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness (Brigids Gate Press)
Arrakoth (Spaceboy Books)
Haven (CamCat Books)
Do You Know The Muffin Man? (Spaceboy Books)
Alakazam (PS Publishing)
Mia's work has been selected as Tales to Terrify's top ten best stories of 2023, shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association's Daggers Award 2024, and praised by authors and editors such as Michael Marshall Smith - "One of the best novels I've read in years", Stephen Jones - "tour-de-force", Clay McLeod Chapman - "every flip of the page leads its readers deeper into uneasy dream", Neil Sharpson, M.R. Carey, A.C. Wise, Edward Ashton, Christopher Barzak, Ian Rogers, and more.
Mia Dalia is represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency. https://www.johnjarrold.co.uk/
Find her at
Twitter: @ Dalia_Verse
FB: Mia DaliaVerse
Instagram: daliaverse
https://linktr.ee/daliaverse
Featured publications:
Estate Sale (Lethe Press)
Tell Me a Story (Anuci Press)
Discordant (Anuci Press)
Smile So Red and Other Tales of Madness (Brigids Gate Press)
Arrakoth (Spaceboy Books)
Haven (CamCat Books)
Do You Know The Muffin Man? (Spaceboy Books)
Alakazam (PS Publishing)
Mia's work has been selected as Tales to Terrify's top ten best stories of 2023, shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association's Daggers Award 2024, and praised by authors and editors such as Michael Marshall Smith - "One of the best novels I've read in years", Stephen Jones - "tour-de-force", Clay McLeod Chapman - "every flip of the page leads its readers deeper into uneasy dream", Neil Sharpson, M.R. Carey, A.C. Wise, Edward Ashton, Christopher Barzak, Ian Rogers, and more.
Mia Dalia is represented by the John Jarrold Literary Agency. https://www.johnjarrold.co.uk/
Find her at
Twitter: @ Dalia_Verse
FB: Mia DaliaVerse
Instagram: daliaverse
https://linktr.ee/daliaverse
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 22, 2023
The best sci-fi is still at its core about people. If you’re a sci-fi fan, I’m sure you’ve heard that before. I’m certainly not going to take credit for that observation.
Arrokoth is sci-fi the way sci-fi should be with a touch of dystopia and the underlying question of whether people/humanity is gonna make it. People and the human condition feature front and center in Arrokoth. It tells a tale of what people are like. What their lives are like. People who fall in love, have daily pressures, and feelings. People who suffer losses and how they contend with them. It also tells a meaningful story involving moral quandaries. How they react to challenges. Conceptions of heroism. And coming to grips with realism when idealism falls just a bit short. This novella has all this, just tweaked a little bit to include some fantastical and futuristic stuff to make it more interesting.
Told from the alternating points of view of Dar, and his father, Daryl, Arrokoth offers different perspectives on the same issue—a dying planet (ours) and the last-ditch efforts to somehow save humanity from its own excesses and consumption.
Dar, the product of a genetic accident affecting lots of other kids, has hugely impressive intelligence and a desperate society thrust upon him of being one of several brain-child saviors, who is simultaneously misunderstood. Dar and the other mutant-smart kids are collected into sort of boarding school on steroids where their every need is attended to so they can focus on un-effing-up the world. Dalia creates a credible world with its own new updated slang and vernacular like “normis.” Lots of others.
His pops, Daryl, is just your average guy just trying to get through life, which has been complicated by the fact that Dar’s mum walked out on them. He is a sort of “everyperson,” but also extraordinary in rising to the challenge in giving Dar the childhood (of sorts) that he needed while also growing as he comes to grips with his “parent-of-a-savior” identity. Dar and Daryl have clearly distinct voices, personalities, and perspectives.
Though written as science fiction and has fantastical elements, Arrokoth is well written and conceived and, from what I can tell, seems well-researched and grounded in scientific principles. This is not the “phasers-on-stun-what-do-we-do-about-the-Klingons-this-week” or “oh-hey-cool-this-dude-is-fighting-that-dude-with-their-wild-new-lasersword-in-this-installment” kind of sci-fi. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I also liked the personal development we see Dar undergoes as his young life develops from the brilliant, but socially awkward kid, to someone forced to come to grips with his global importance. The story clipped along without getting bogged down with technobabble or fantasy. That being said, there were a few places where I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the events unfold, but that’s a pretty small issue and one probably subjective to my own expectations.
Dalia put clever little plot hints and Easter eggs in there which I always love. So that’s a 5/5 for me.
Arrokoth is sci-fi the way sci-fi should be with a touch of dystopia and the underlying question of whether people/humanity is gonna make it. People and the human condition feature front and center in Arrokoth. It tells a tale of what people are like. What their lives are like. People who fall in love, have daily pressures, and feelings. People who suffer losses and how they contend with them. It also tells a meaningful story involving moral quandaries. How they react to challenges. Conceptions of heroism. And coming to grips with realism when idealism falls just a bit short. This novella has all this, just tweaked a little bit to include some fantastical and futuristic stuff to make it more interesting.
Told from the alternating points of view of Dar, and his father, Daryl, Arrokoth offers different perspectives on the same issue—a dying planet (ours) and the last-ditch efforts to somehow save humanity from its own excesses and consumption.
Dar, the product of a genetic accident affecting lots of other kids, has hugely impressive intelligence and a desperate society thrust upon him of being one of several brain-child saviors, who is simultaneously misunderstood. Dar and the other mutant-smart kids are collected into sort of boarding school on steroids where their every need is attended to so they can focus on un-effing-up the world. Dalia creates a credible world with its own new updated slang and vernacular like “normis.” Lots of others.
His pops, Daryl, is just your average guy just trying to get through life, which has been complicated by the fact that Dar’s mum walked out on them. He is a sort of “everyperson,” but also extraordinary in rising to the challenge in giving Dar the childhood (of sorts) that he needed while also growing as he comes to grips with his “parent-of-a-savior” identity. Dar and Daryl have clearly distinct voices, personalities, and perspectives.
Though written as science fiction and has fantastical elements, Arrokoth is well written and conceived and, from what I can tell, seems well-researched and grounded in scientific principles. This is not the “phasers-on-stun-what-do-we-do-about-the-Klingons-this-week” or “oh-hey-cool-this-dude-is-fighting-that-dude-with-their-wild-new-lasersword-in-this-installment” kind of sci-fi. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I also liked the personal development we see Dar undergoes as his young life develops from the brilliant, but socially awkward kid, to someone forced to come to grips with his global importance. The story clipped along without getting bogged down with technobabble or fantasy. That being said, there were a few places where I would have liked to have seen a bit more of the events unfold, but that’s a pretty small issue and one probably subjective to my own expectations.
Dalia put clever little plot hints and Easter eggs in there which I always love. So that’s a 5/5 for me.
Want to read
February 14, 2024Novella, good early reviews here. Check back later.
2/13/24: OOP! No ebook. Later?
2/13/24: OOP! No ebook. Later?
July 19, 2023
Terrific novella from Dalia about a group of young geniuses traveling in space to find a new planet to save mankind. I’m not a sci fi fan and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.
December 23, 2023
A terrific story of science fiction. Geniuses are born into families that may not even want them. Kids full of promise, tasked with saving humanity from itself, i.e. save the Earth. Everything has its cost, even high intelligence, but this does not seem to be Dalia's point. I'd say it has more to do with the lack of perfect solutions: they just don't fit the human condition. That said, I'd have to point out that the science in the second part of the story is a bit suspect: travelling to another galaxy within the kids' lifetime, really? Perhaps I got something wrong, but this seems utterly implausible to me. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story; the writing, the dialogue, the pace, they add up to something truly insightful.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 18, 2023
A group of children that are super smart are born. These children are the key to earth's survival. They look to the stars for a new home. They may discover something far worse than they were expecting.
August 2, 2023
Full disclosure: The author sent me this novella to see if I’d give a blurb for its cover — with the understanding that I’d only say what I really thought, and if I didn’t like it, she’d get nothing from me. But I couldn’t put it down. Here’s my blurb:
A story of hope, betrayal, and love with the intensity only science fiction can deliver.
I want to explain what I mean by “only science fiction can deliver.” Only science fiction can deal with enormous questions such as the survival of humankind, which this story is about, but that’s not the core of the story. At its core are a father and son. By an accident of science fictional fate, the father is pretty average and the son is a super-genius. They struggle to respect and love each other despite the divide between them. At times they can barely speak simply because they aren’t on the same level and have little in common, which they understand, yet they never give up trying to connect with each other.
Add to that, the Earth is in deep ecological trouble, and the son might be able to save humanity — another big strain on their relationship. In the face of adversity and betrayal, they are there for each other, aware of how little they can truly share besides mutual honest respect.
Arrayed against a life-and-death science fiction struggle, this is a story about abiding hope and love.
A story of hope, betrayal, and love with the intensity only science fiction can deliver.
I want to explain what I mean by “only science fiction can deliver.” Only science fiction can deal with enormous questions such as the survival of humankind, which this story is about, but that’s not the core of the story. At its core are a father and son. By an accident of science fictional fate, the father is pretty average and the son is a super-genius. They struggle to respect and love each other despite the divide between them. At times they can barely speak simply because they aren’t on the same level and have little in common, which they understand, yet they never give up trying to connect with each other.
Add to that, the Earth is in deep ecological trouble, and the son might be able to save humanity — another big strain on their relationship. In the face of adversity and betrayal, they are there for each other, aware of how little they can truly share besides mutual honest respect.
Arrayed against a life-and-death science fiction struggle, this is a story about abiding hope and love.
August 28, 2023
It has been a real pleasure following Mia Dalia's writing career. The lady puts out well-written, thoughtful, and engaging works like no one else, and Arrokoth is no exception.
What we have here is hard science fiction about a group of young people who may be Humanity's only hope, which is really close to our current situation.
These kids are geniuses, born with mental capacities far beyond anyone else. And what Dalia does well is helping us empathise with them.
We get to know them and want them to succeed, not because of the stakes of Humanity's future, but because we like these people.
One of the best parts of the book is early on when we get the relationship between one of the geniuses and his dad. It is wonderfully tender and subtle, with both of them doing their best to connect over what seems like the inescapably vast gap between the two of them.
This humanisation of people who would otherwise be unknowable to us is what grounds the novel going forward. It is what keeps us invested.
As with the best science fiction, this work is very human. Even when the novel deals with tech and calculations beyond the ken of most of us, we are invested enough to care about it all.
That, along with the grander themes at play, make this a must read.
You won't be able to put it down, and once you're done, you won't be able to stop thinking about it.
What we have here is hard science fiction about a group of young people who may be Humanity's only hope, which is really close to our current situation.
These kids are geniuses, born with mental capacities far beyond anyone else. And what Dalia does well is helping us empathise with them.
We get to know them and want them to succeed, not because of the stakes of Humanity's future, but because we like these people.
One of the best parts of the book is early on when we get the relationship between one of the geniuses and his dad. It is wonderfully tender and subtle, with both of them doing their best to connect over what seems like the inescapably vast gap between the two of them.
This humanisation of people who would otherwise be unknowable to us is what grounds the novel going forward. It is what keeps us invested.
As with the best science fiction, this work is very human. Even when the novel deals with tech and calculations beyond the ken of most of us, we are invested enough to care about it all.
That, along with the grander themes at play, make this a must read.
You won't be able to put it down, and once you're done, you won't be able to stop thinking about it.
June 7, 2024
Arrokoth is a riveting science fiction novella that delves into the complexities of human nature through the lens of a group of genius children. These young people, as young adults, each possessing extraordinary intellectual abilities, embark on a mission to save humanity by colonizing a newly discovered potentially habitable planet. The narrative builds with views of the Earth society left behind and the unexpected encounters on the new planet. Mia Dalia, the author , always produces a sting in the tail, and uses this story to introduce broader themes of morality, ethics, and the cyclical nature of human behavior. The novella poses thought-provoking questions about whether humanity can ever truly escape its darker tendencies, even in the face of a fresh start. My only regret about this book is that it was not written as a much longer novel as the characters and worlds the author has created have the potential to be classics of science fiction and psychological drama. While brilliantly capturing the tension between humanity's potential for greatness and its propensity for destruction, it reinforces the idea that humanity's ability to build a utopia based on fairness and respect for all will always remain just out of reach.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews