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The Tabit Genesis
They left Sol in two great ships, carrying with them the last hope for humankind. Destined for different stars, their mission was to ensure the survival of our species. One ship was never heard from again. Decades later, the other arrived at a lifeless world, where the survivors learned that Earth was lost not to famine, but to an alien species determined to eradicate humans from existence.
Man is not alone in the universe, and the last of us are hunted. Driven by strong characters facing tremendous odds, Tony Gonzales delivers SF in the grandest an epic adventure full of colossal ships, vast battles and unimaginable challenges.
Man is not alone in the universe, and the last of us are hunted. Driven by strong characters facing tremendous odds, Tony Gonzales delivers SF in the grandest an epic adventure full of colossal ships, vast battles and unimaginable challenges.
416 pages, Paperback
First published May 21, 2015
6 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Tony Gonzales
6 books25 followersUS author and games designer working for CCP Games in Reykjavik, Iceland, creators of the EVE Online (2003) multi-player Space Sim game. Having written two on-line novellas using the game's far-future galactic background, Gonzalez made his novel debut with EVE: The Empyrean Age (2008), vigorously deploying many stock sf devices (including Amnesia) in its depiction of the brewing and waging of Future War between the four major game factions. Set in an independent universe, The Tabit Genesis (2015) depicts, in a narrative shot through with action-oriented set pieces, a fight for survival by Homo sapiens on several colonized planets long after Earth itself has died.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 23, 2016
Warning: Unannounced book one of a series with no indication of when/if there will be more books or how many in the series. The author has no recent web presence either. This book does reach a climax, but many of the story-lines in it just reach a good stepping off point for the next book.
The Tabit Genesis was one of two huge ark-ships sent out from Earth to find and colonize a new home for humanity because of Earth's failing environment. As it turns out, this was extremely timely because five years after the ark-ships left the Earth and solar system were invaded by incredibly advanced aliens. But that was hundreds of years ago, and now there's a thriving civilization around the solar system where the Tabit Genesis ended up, albeit a space-based one, because the planet they were targeting turns out to have been uninhabitable.
In the Tabit system there are "firstborns", an overall minority of people that are direct descendants of the settlers from Earth and "ghosts", an overall majority descended from amniosynthesis, an artificial gestation process. There are also the Houseworlders, so genetically engineered that they may no longer be considered human.
The system consists of three major societies: the inner system, which is dominated by firstborns with ghosts as second class citizens, the belt and outer rim which is ghost-peopled and controlled and the far outer planets or Houseworlds which are very separate cultures created from early breakaways of the Tabit colony.
The story follows people from all three societies as well as some interludes from a human intelligence that has direct experience of the alien Raothri invaders. It's a time of upheaval as the inner system nears completion of a massive advanced starship that ostensibly will continue the original mission of the Tabit Genesis but actually presents as an enormous next-level weapon to bring the entire system under inner-system and firstborn control. It is inevitable that the outer rim will respond, and the Houseworlds get drawn into the conflict. Meanwhile, people mining the system's largest gas giant discover that the life forms that exist in the atmosphere there may be much more than they appear.
This is an intricate book with a huge amount of world-building. Comparisons to other huge space opera writers is apt (Peter F. Hamilton leaps to mind), but Gonzales seems to have forgotten to make many of his characters likable. For instance, two of his main characters have significant drug problems and mental health issues accordingly, and another of his characters seems hell-bent on self-sabotage even when given an obvious out. Hell-bent on self-sabotage describes pretty much the whole human race in this book though and it does cast a pall over proceedings. While humanity is obsessed with class-conflicts and petty grasps for power without compromise the Raothri are an inevitable, if not immediate, threat.
I enjoyed this in the end, and the last half flew by, but if you're interested I would suggest you hold off until more information is forthcoming about whether there will be more books in the series.
The Tabit Genesis was one of two huge ark-ships sent out from Earth to find and colonize a new home for humanity because of Earth's failing environment. As it turns out, this was extremely timely because five years after the ark-ships left the Earth and solar system were invaded by incredibly advanced aliens. But that was hundreds of years ago, and now there's a thriving civilization around the solar system where the Tabit Genesis ended up, albeit a space-based one, because the planet they were targeting turns out to have been uninhabitable.
In the Tabit system there are "firstborns", an overall minority of people that are direct descendants of the settlers from Earth and "ghosts", an overall majority descended from amniosynthesis, an artificial gestation process. There are also the Houseworlders, so genetically engineered that they may no longer be considered human.
The system consists of three major societies: the inner system, which is dominated by firstborns with ghosts as second class citizens, the belt and outer rim which is ghost-peopled and controlled and the far outer planets or Houseworlds which are very separate cultures created from early breakaways of the Tabit colony.
The story follows people from all three societies as well as some interludes from a human intelligence that has direct experience of the alien Raothri invaders. It's a time of upheaval as the inner system nears completion of a massive advanced starship that ostensibly will continue the original mission of the Tabit Genesis but actually presents as an enormous next-level weapon to bring the entire system under inner-system and firstborn control. It is inevitable that the outer rim will respond, and the Houseworlds get drawn into the conflict. Meanwhile, people mining the system's largest gas giant discover that the life forms that exist in the atmosphere there may be much more than they appear.
This is an intricate book with a huge amount of world-building. Comparisons to other huge space opera writers is apt (Peter F. Hamilton leaps to mind), but Gonzales seems to have forgotten to make many of his characters likable. For instance, two of his main characters have significant drug problems and mental health issues accordingly, and another of his characters seems hell-bent on self-sabotage even when given an obvious out. Hell-bent on self-sabotage describes pretty much the whole human race in this book though and it does cast a pall over proceedings. While humanity is obsessed with class-conflicts and petty grasps for power without compromise the Raothri are an inevitable, if not immediate, threat.
I enjoyed this in the end, and the last half flew by, but if you're interested I would suggest you hold off until more information is forthcoming about whether there will be more books in the series.
August 21, 2016
A low 3.
A bit too sciencey for me, not enough story. I also got fed up with switching between so many POVs, I didn't like them all. That said, the idea was interesting enough and some characters quite fascinating.
A bit too sciencey for me, not enough story. I also got fed up with switching between so many POVs, I didn't like them all. That said, the idea was interesting enough and some characters quite fascinating.
September 14, 2015
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"They left Sol in two great ships, carrying with them the last hope for humankind. Destined for different stars, their mission was to ensure the survival of our species. One ship was never heard from again. Decades later, the other arrived at a lifeless world, where the survivors learned that Earth was lost not to famine, but to an alien species determined to eradicate humans from existence.
Man is not alone in the universe, and the last of us are hunted. Driven by strong characters facing tremendous odds, Tony Gonzales delivers SF in the grandest tradition: an epic adventure full of colossal ships, vast battles and unimaginable challenges.
The Tabit Genesis was one of the Gollancz titles that was available as an ebook for £1.99 as a pre-order so I took a chance on it and snapped it up at a fairly cheap price and when it was released I’m really glad that I gave it a shot, because Tony Gonzalez’s space opera novel was a really solid read, offering a welcome surprise from the author’s first non tie-in book, with Gonzalez having a couple of EVE novels available to buy now. This book though, I had lots of fun with it, with echoes of James SA Corey’s Expanse series (soon to be adapted for a SyFy show) and what Battlestar Galactica might have looked like with aliens involved. There’s lots of good stuff going on here set against an intruging backdrop and a fascinating universe to explore.
Two great ships departed the solar system in the future in search of a new home. One of these ships was called the Tabit Genesis, hence the novel’s title, but also, Tau Ceti, the other. Whilst Tau Ceti was never heard of again, the other, decades later, arrived at a bleak world only to learn that Earth was destroyed not, as they previously thought, by famine, but by aliens, species that are determined to wipe out humanity from existence. Is there any hope for mankind in a universe when they are now the hunted? Just because they may have spread out through the universe again, does not mean that the aliens have not gone away quietly, and they still happen to be out there in the darkness.
The book itself is a riveting read, full of multiple characters that work together well and we follow their journeys through multiple POVs, with unique enough voices to make them feel like distinctively different characters. Whilst it’s a struggle to get a hold on who everybody is at first as there’s quite a lot of cast members introduced, Gonzalez handles their development mostly well even if we do not perhaps spend enough time with them as I would have liked. Take Jake and Adam for example, the former an undercover agent who has experienced past traumas when he was younger, and the latter a miner on the planet Zeus. They’re interesting enough characters and there’s enough development there to make them different from the others, but I would have liked a bit more focus on them to flesh out their stories a bit more. It’s just a minor compliant but it almost feels like Gonzalez is trying to do too much, too quickly in places.
Another issue that I had with The Tabit Genesis s that it relies on exposition a fair amount, which can decrease the flow of the book a bit. But despite that, it mostly remains a fairly solid read, with some good development of the world and the story is a solid one as well, making good use of flashbacks to explore the novel’s antagonists well. The key highlight of the book is the carefully planned and well executed worldbuilding, which keeps the novel interesting with the fresh setting of The Tabit Genesis being a very interesting one indeed. This is one that space opera fans will certainly enjoy, and it turns out to be one of the more interesting science fiction reads of the year.
VERDICT: 8.5/10
"They left Sol in two great ships, carrying with them the last hope for humankind. Destined for different stars, their mission was to ensure the survival of our species. One ship was never heard from again. Decades later, the other arrived at a lifeless world, where the survivors learned that Earth was lost not to famine, but to an alien species determined to eradicate humans from existence.
Man is not alone in the universe, and the last of us are hunted. Driven by strong characters facing tremendous odds, Tony Gonzales delivers SF in the grandest tradition: an epic adventure full of colossal ships, vast battles and unimaginable challenges.
The Tabit Genesis was one of the Gollancz titles that was available as an ebook for £1.99 as a pre-order so I took a chance on it and snapped it up at a fairly cheap price and when it was released I’m really glad that I gave it a shot, because Tony Gonzalez’s space opera novel was a really solid read, offering a welcome surprise from the author’s first non tie-in book, with Gonzalez having a couple of EVE novels available to buy now. This book though, I had lots of fun with it, with echoes of James SA Corey’s Expanse series (soon to be adapted for a SyFy show) and what Battlestar Galactica might have looked like with aliens involved. There’s lots of good stuff going on here set against an intruging backdrop and a fascinating universe to explore.
Two great ships departed the solar system in the future in search of a new home. One of these ships was called the Tabit Genesis, hence the novel’s title, but also, Tau Ceti, the other. Whilst Tau Ceti was never heard of again, the other, decades later, arrived at a bleak world only to learn that Earth was destroyed not, as they previously thought, by famine, but by aliens, species that are determined to wipe out humanity from existence. Is there any hope for mankind in a universe when they are now the hunted? Just because they may have spread out through the universe again, does not mean that the aliens have not gone away quietly, and they still happen to be out there in the darkness.
The book itself is a riveting read, full of multiple characters that work together well and we follow their journeys through multiple POVs, with unique enough voices to make them feel like distinctively different characters. Whilst it’s a struggle to get a hold on who everybody is at first as there’s quite a lot of cast members introduced, Gonzalez handles their development mostly well even if we do not perhaps spend enough time with them as I would have liked. Take Jake and Adam for example, the former an undercover agent who has experienced past traumas when he was younger, and the latter a miner on the planet Zeus. They’re interesting enough characters and there’s enough development there to make them different from the others, but I would have liked a bit more focus on them to flesh out their stories a bit more. It’s just a minor compliant but it almost feels like Gonzalez is trying to do too much, too quickly in places.
Another issue that I had with The Tabit Genesis s that it relies on exposition a fair amount, which can decrease the flow of the book a bit. But despite that, it mostly remains a fairly solid read, with some good development of the world and the story is a solid one as well, making good use of flashbacks to explore the novel’s antagonists well. The key highlight of the book is the carefully planned and well executed worldbuilding, which keeps the novel interesting with the fresh setting of The Tabit Genesis being a very interesting one indeed. This is one that space opera fans will certainly enjoy, and it turns out to be one of the more interesting science fiction reads of the year.
VERDICT: 8.5/10
January 3, 2018
What a fabulous novel. Wonderful worldbuilding that gave me so much to explore.
January 9, 2017
I found that the constant change of perspective of so many different characters made the story run really slowly, and before I knew it the book was actually finished with most of the characters' individual storylines still hanging loose. This book is actually the first in a series, but with so many different character plots left completely unfinished and not rounded off in the slightest, I felt this was quite badly done considering it is "one book" in a series. I wouldn't recommend reading this until the next in the series has been released as it is barely enjoyable reading it as a single book.
February 27, 2018
So much promise, but the last 30 pages are a just huge "What The Hell"? Was the author trying to wrap this up quickly? How did that explain the mysterious hand weapons and mysterious way the Archangel was able to enter a short hyperspace jump, and WTF happened to the Arkady that the kid was trying to communicate with? It was an entire storyline with the Arkady hunters that went NOWHERE. On top of all that, there were way too many characters and too many with similar sounding names.
The book had some fun ideas, but it's almost reckless in the way it shifts around between all the characters, subplots, and unfinished ideas.
The book had some fun ideas, but it's almost reckless in the way it shifts around between all the characters, subplots, and unfinished ideas.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 17, 2020
Science fiction - too many characters with too many plot lines in too short a novel. Lots of interstellar political intrigue which peaked in the last 30 pages. I am still not sure who were the bad guys and who were the good guys. Maybe the message is that no one is one or the other.
No Canadian or pharmacy references.
No Canadian or pharmacy references.
March 27, 2022
I really got into the story, but Gonzales started multiple story lines and left most of the hanging at the end. I would read the sequel because it clearly needs one.
December 9, 2015
The first thing to know about the Tabit Genesis, which is not mentioned on the cover or in the blurb, is that is it not a stand alone book. It is part of series, and in fact has no real conclusion and is clearly set up to be a duology at least, if not a much longer series. Unlike some SF books which stand alone inside a universe shared across many books, this one does not.
I had a bit of a problem with this book in that it has a wide range of characters, but it takes a long time to figure out how these very different stories are connected. In fact, even at the end of the book, there was still no real connection between a couple of the story lines leaving you with at least two different arcs unresolved. Presumably these will come together in the next (or later) books, but given that I did not like any of characters very much I find it hard to really care. It further does not help that the styles from chapter to chapter change radically - even between first and third person - which further jars.
Readable, but not really very interesting. I doubt I will be in a hurry to read the second part of this.
I had a bit of a problem with this book in that it has a wide range of characters, but it takes a long time to figure out how these very different stories are connected. In fact, even at the end of the book, there was still no real connection between a couple of the story lines leaving you with at least two different arcs unresolved. Presumably these will come together in the next (or later) books, but given that I did not like any of characters very much I find it hard to really care. It further does not help that the styles from chapter to chapter change radically - even between first and third person - which further jars.
Readable, but not really very interesting. I doubt I will be in a hurry to read the second part of this.
June 21, 2015
Space Opera, that initially brings to mind James S.A Corey's Expanse series (harder sci fi take in terms of science, No FTL so all in one system, competing power blocks with the inner planets looking down on the outer) with just a dash of slightly less out there Hannu Rajaniemi style space feudalism. The book can be a bit exposition heavy at times (a lot of breaking away from the main action to provide historical context) which I generally do like. This might put some readers off but it does start occur less frequently as the book progresses. The plot is deceptively simple involving a fleet headed toward an apocalyptic showdown though more complicated strands become apparent before the end. There's some solid character work, the villains are suitably evil, but there are flashbacks that put their actions in context & add some shades of grey to things. Has it's flaws, the initial reliance exposition feels like a bit of a crutch, but it's a solid start to a potentially intriguing new universe.
abandonados
September 19, 2015Leídas poco más de 100 páginas y abandonado.
Las diferentes tramas no me enganchaban, ni por tramas ni por personajes.
Los personajes no me han resultado nada especial. No he empatizado con ellos, y al cambiar mucho de personaje y tan rápido tampoco terminada de cogerles el punto. Y las tramas no me han interesado. Básicamente me resultaban muy indiferentes a parte de una, la relacionada con los aliens pero tampoco me interesaba demasiado.
Es de estos libros que lees y es "por leer" que no hay mucho que te motive, asi que leer para nada es tontería. Y pro ello abandonado.
Las diferentes tramas no me enganchaban, ni por tramas ni por personajes.
Los personajes no me han resultado nada especial. No he empatizado con ellos, y al cambiar mucho de personaje y tan rápido tampoco terminada de cogerles el punto. Y las tramas no me han interesado. Básicamente me resultaban muy indiferentes a parte de una, la relacionada con los aliens pero tampoco me interesaba demasiado.
Es de estos libros que lees y es "por leer" que no hay mucho que te motive, asi que leer para nada es tontería. Y pro ello abandonado.
November 2, 2015
When you read a Peter Hamilton tome he takes the time to fully set the scene for his many characters and groups. Perhaps too much, but I appreciate that because in The Tabit Genesis I never felt that this style of writing was fully developed. I was struggling with the characters throughout, and it rushed through a number of strands that I found interesting. At the end it didn't feel finished. Too much was happening without enough brushstrokes for my satisfaction.
July 15, 2015
Good old fashioned space opera with a healthy dose of class warfare, aliens that feel alien, and humanity's unrelenting push to destroy itself.
December 18, 2016
Some good stories, difficult to follow, too many main characters
July 18, 2019
Interesting characters that all had their flaws.. let down by many story arcs remaining outstanding. What happened to... there are so many to list.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews