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Persephone
The immense ark-ship Odyssey and its ten thousand hibernating settlers have left behind a dying Earth—journeying for fifty years to the nearest star and its lone habitable planet, Proxima-b.
This new home for humanity is perpetually bombarded by deadly solar flares on its dayside, while the icy wasteland on its opposite hemisphere freezes in endless darkness. When the battered Odyssey arrives, its crew discovers the automated radiation shield has failed. Something appears to have damaged or perhaps even sabotaged their technology on a world where humans have yet to set foot.
Astronaut Darcy Clarke, a young pilot born aboard the Odyssey, teams up with recently awakened engineer Tanya Baxter to repair the failing shield in hopes of allowing the colonists to land before their vessel falls apart. Waiting for the two explorers on the surface of Proxima-b is the geoglyph—a continent-sized landform that resembles a giant metallic work of art.
Is it a massive ore deposit, an alien message, or something far stranger and vastly more dangerous? Or perhaps even sabotage for their technology on a world where humans have yet to set foot?
This new home for humanity is perpetually bombarded by deadly solar flares on its dayside, while the icy wasteland on its opposite hemisphere freezes in endless darkness. When the battered Odyssey arrives, its crew discovers the automated radiation shield has failed. Something appears to have damaged or perhaps even sabotaged their technology on a world where humans have yet to set foot.
Astronaut Darcy Clarke, a young pilot born aboard the Odyssey, teams up with recently awakened engineer Tanya Baxter to repair the failing shield in hopes of allowing the colonists to land before their vessel falls apart. Waiting for the two explorers on the surface of Proxima-b is the geoglyph—a continent-sized landform that resembles a giant metallic work of art.
Is it a massive ore deposit, an alien message, or something far stranger and vastly more dangerous? Or perhaps even sabotage for their technology on a world where humans have yet to set foot?
294 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 20, 2024
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Kevin J. Anderson
1,038 books3,105 followersYes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. I love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.
I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.
I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.
I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.
I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 18, 2024
Last hope of the survival of humanity rests upon the crew and passengers of giant arc-ship Odyssey. Its long and hard journey is now coming to an end. But the situation is dire on two counts.
The planet supposed to host the colonisers have not been prepared by the automated modules sent earlier, due to unknown reasons.
The arc-ship wouldn’t survive any more journey, or even much longer.
To solve these two problems, by making the shield against radiation and flares and thus preparing the day-side of the planet ready for landing, three skilled and competent persons born during the journey, and one veteran engineer get sent down.
What can go wrong, right?
Various colours of disaster— trials, surprise, anger, pain, death, and joy of accomplishment in the face of extremely adverse situation— paint this novel brightly.
The writing is very lucid. Back-stories and too much of dialogue had made the book clunky and slow. But once the action began, there was NO letdown.
Since the epilogue casts some seriously ominous shadows for the future, we can definitely expect a sequel.
Meanwhile, this novel is recommended.
The planet supposed to host the colonisers have not been prepared by the automated modules sent earlier, due to unknown reasons.
The arc-ship wouldn’t survive any more journey, or even much longer.
To solve these two problems, by making the shield against radiation and flares and thus preparing the day-side of the planet ready for landing, three skilled and competent persons born during the journey, and one veteran engineer get sent down.
What can go wrong, right?
Various colours of disaster— trials, surprise, anger, pain, death, and joy of accomplishment in the face of extremely adverse situation— paint this novel brightly.
The writing is very lucid. Back-stories and too much of dialogue had made the book clunky and slow. But once the action began, there was NO letdown.
Since the epilogue casts some seriously ominous shadows for the future, we can definitely expect a sequel.
Meanwhile, this novel is recommended.
July 31, 2025
Genre: hard SF
Description: The book opens as the arkship Odyssey, containing the last ten thousand humans from a ruined Earth, approaches her designated new home, Proxima B, dubbed Persephone (for reasons which remained opaque to this reader). Very soon it will be time to thaw the hibernating passengers (‘popsicles’), transfer down to the planet and being settling in. It has been a tough 50 year journey. Odyssey is blowing fuses all over. It becomes a race against time to offload the popsicles before the starship disintegrates.
Persephone is a hostile planet, with a beautiful geoglyph running across much of it. The geoglyph looks a little like the Nasca lines on Earth. But nobody knows what it is yet. It will be exciting to find out. So much awaits them!
An automated mission – Forerunner – was sent ahead to Persephone to put a radiation shield grid in place and set up habs for the colonists. This was successfully done, but now it is not functioning. And without the radiation shield no human can survive down there. The mission to fix the shield grid is where the story really starts.
Author: joint authorship, you will note. This is particularly interesting as Kevin J Anderson is one of those authors whose work you will definitely have read if you are remotely interested in SF in book, TV or movie forms but have probably never heard of. Jeffrey Morris is variously a writer, director and production designer mainly of hard SF films, graphic novels and educational science curricula.
Appraisal: There is an IMDb entry for this book, where it is described as ‘the forthcoming deep-space adventure Persephone’ with some luscious pre-production CGI ‘photographs’ of what’s supposedly coming. There, Morris is listed as Director and Anderson as writer. This novel has been ‘inspired by‘ that screenplay. Readers of SF (self included) tend to do well with (and, indeed, almost expect) a cinematic approach to this sort of fiction. The novel is, of course, laid out as a movie, in scenes. The action is intercut with flashbacks. Nothing unusual there, you will say – fiction is full of ‘em. But the book’s Big Reveals tend to happen this way. I found it disconcerting at times to have so much of the action happen offstage. And even then, from time to time a significant info-dump was necessary.
The science is internally consistent and plausible. Characters are well drawn. Human interactions are well thought through. The authors are not afraid to make you care about a character and then kill them off. The book is more vinegar than sugar for sure. But there is so much going on that – like the colonists – the reader takes it on the chin and moves on to the next problem which has to be solved, or else the last of humanity is toast.
Quite a lot is made of the death of Earth, how it became uninhabitable, how a point of no return was reached and this last Hail Mary planned and executed, and how the death of Earth was absolutely down to human beings. There is much in these fictional musings on Earth’s last days which should give us all pause for thought.
And a great hook into a sequel closes the novel.
If you like hard SF I recommend this to you.
(This review originally prepared for Big Al’s Book and Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy for the purpose.)
Description: The book opens as the arkship Odyssey, containing the last ten thousand humans from a ruined Earth, approaches her designated new home, Proxima B, dubbed Persephone (for reasons which remained opaque to this reader). Very soon it will be time to thaw the hibernating passengers (‘popsicles’), transfer down to the planet and being settling in. It has been a tough 50 year journey. Odyssey is blowing fuses all over. It becomes a race against time to offload the popsicles before the starship disintegrates.
Persephone is a hostile planet, with a beautiful geoglyph running across much of it. The geoglyph looks a little like the Nasca lines on Earth. But nobody knows what it is yet. It will be exciting to find out. So much awaits them!
An automated mission – Forerunner – was sent ahead to Persephone to put a radiation shield grid in place and set up habs for the colonists. This was successfully done, but now it is not functioning. And without the radiation shield no human can survive down there. The mission to fix the shield grid is where the story really starts.
Author: joint authorship, you will note. This is particularly interesting as Kevin J Anderson is one of those authors whose work you will definitely have read if you are remotely interested in SF in book, TV or movie forms but have probably never heard of. Jeffrey Morris is variously a writer, director and production designer mainly of hard SF films, graphic novels and educational science curricula.
Appraisal: There is an IMDb entry for this book, where it is described as ‘the forthcoming deep-space adventure Persephone’ with some luscious pre-production CGI ‘photographs’ of what’s supposedly coming. There, Morris is listed as Director and Anderson as writer. This novel has been ‘inspired by‘ that screenplay. Readers of SF (self included) tend to do well with (and, indeed, almost expect) a cinematic approach to this sort of fiction. The novel is, of course, laid out as a movie, in scenes. The action is intercut with flashbacks. Nothing unusual there, you will say – fiction is full of ‘em. But the book’s Big Reveals tend to happen this way. I found it disconcerting at times to have so much of the action happen offstage. And even then, from time to time a significant info-dump was necessary.
The science is internally consistent and plausible. Characters are well drawn. Human interactions are well thought through. The authors are not afraid to make you care about a character and then kill them off. The book is more vinegar than sugar for sure. But there is so much going on that – like the colonists – the reader takes it on the chin and moves on to the next problem which has to be solved, or else the last of humanity is toast.
Quite a lot is made of the death of Earth, how it became uninhabitable, how a point of no return was reached and this last Hail Mary planned and executed, and how the death of Earth was absolutely down to human beings. There is much in these fictional musings on Earth’s last days which should give us all pause for thought.
And a great hook into a sequel closes the novel.
If you like hard SF I recommend this to you.
(This review originally prepared for Big Al’s Book and Pals. Received a complimentary soft copy for the purpose.)
April 30, 2024
This book comes from the first ever Kickstarter that I've backed. I'm a big fan of Kevin J. Anderson, and when I learned that he was teaming up with Jeffrey Morris to write this novelization of Morris' movie script, I was really intrigued. When you add that this is a hard-science fiction story about exploration, I was especially hooked!
This story deals with some pretty big themes about humanity and survival and the consequences of actions made. I thought that Anderson and Morris did an admirable job tackling these issues.
There were some decisions in the writing process that I thoguht could have been handled better, specifically with certain characters who died that I thought should have lived for story purposes and characters that lived that should have died.
The book really has that exploration quality that I love in science fiction books, and I really enjoyed the flashback sequences that showed the difficulties of the 50 year journey to Proxima B.
I can understand why this movie hasn't yet been greenlit by the major studios, as it is not particularly action packed and the climax is a more cerebral ending than epic sci-fi. But I think it could get picked up by a smaller distributor if they can find ways to cut costs (thankfully, this would probably be a small cast so not as many actors to pay).
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Kevin just has a good writing style. Its nowhere near his best, but it was interesting and thought provoking and worth a read. 8 out of 10!
This story deals with some pretty big themes about humanity and survival and the consequences of actions made. I thought that Anderson and Morris did an admirable job tackling these issues.
There were some decisions in the writing process that I thoguht could have been handled better, specifically with certain characters who died that I thought should have lived for story purposes and characters that lived that should have died.
The book really has that exploration quality that I love in science fiction books, and I really enjoyed the flashback sequences that showed the difficulties of the 50 year journey to Proxima B.
I can understand why this movie hasn't yet been greenlit by the major studios, as it is not particularly action packed and the climax is a more cerebral ending than epic sci-fi. But I think it could get picked up by a smaller distributor if they can find ways to cut costs (thankfully, this would probably be a small cast so not as many actors to pay).
Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Kevin just has a good writing style. Its nowhere near his best, but it was interesting and thought provoking and worth a read. 8 out of 10!
September 27, 2024
I developed an interest in stories about generation ships after reading Heinlein's Orphans in the Sky when I was in high school. Persephone is the story of the generation ship Odyssey, which has fled a dead earth, to take the final 10,000 surviving humans to a new home in a new galaxy. Sadly, this book is a poor entry into this genre of science fiction.
I now understand why Kevin J. Anderson provokes polarized responses from readers. He is a absolute hack with no discerible skills as a writer. This book is objectively terrible. The characters are paper thin, and the dialogue is almost laughably bad, and defined by more corny cliches per line than any book ever published in the entire history of humankind. Only Z Grade film maker Edward J. Wood could write dialogue of this mind numbing terribleness, but Wood's bad movies have the benefit of being funny and entertaining. Persephone, in contrast, is a lifeless, interminable, slog. Avoid like the plague.
I now understand why Kevin J. Anderson provokes polarized responses from readers. He is a absolute hack with no discerible skills as a writer. This book is objectively terrible. The characters are paper thin, and the dialogue is almost laughably bad, and defined by more corny cliches per line than any book ever published in the entire history of humankind. Only Z Grade film maker Edward J. Wood could write dialogue of this mind numbing terribleness, but Wood's bad movies have the benefit of being funny and entertaining. Persephone, in contrast, is a lifeless, interminable, slog. Avoid like the plague.
August 31, 2024
3.5 stars. Earth’s atmosphere is ravaged from Global warming and pollution and 3 giant Ark ships are readied to head to Proxima b, a journey that will take 50 years to reach what is believed to be a habitable planet. Nuclear breaks out after the first ship sets out and there is no further communication from Earth. The story centers around 3 children, now adults, born to the skeleton crew running the ship. The science was thin and the main characters were underdeveloped; making it all the way to the epilogue it read like the start of a television series that was unlikely to be renewed.
November 20, 2024
I'm a sci-fi fan, and while there were some cool elements to this story, I did not really dig it, though I did force myself to finish it. There was some suspense, waiting to find out if the colony ship would finish its journey, but one of the main characters was the stupidest, whiniest lady to ever lady. No, thanks. This is set up for an obvious sequel, but it will not be for me.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews