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Areta
“Laudable worldbuilding...the prose impeccable...sublime denouement [ending]... —Kirkus Reviews
The star in the night sky isn't moving. They are.
As one star blazes ever brighter in the night sky, Sargon—a former millwright who renounced invention—and Angora—a brilliant scholar—dig into the depths of their seemingly natural world and delve into ancient texts in search of answers. They deduce the shocking their cylindrical world, Areta, is a gargantuan vessel that has been sailing through the cosmos for countless generations. And it is on a collision course with a sun.
The only hope for survival lies with Sargon and a small team of millwrights he assembles. As time runs short, they must construct the seemingly impossible—while flouting norms and risking exile of the ruling council.
Set in a society rooted in the ancient Near East and Greece, Areta’s culture contains ingenious, handcrafted technology. In this world, where women may tower over men and reproduction is divorced from pair-bonding, young sirenas prowl moonlit streets to claim their genetic futures, leaving tokens for the men they’ve chosen. But when Lilit’s awakening powers blur the line between seduction and coercion, desire itself becomes dangerous.
What if these psionic powers are not a flaw in humanity’s design but its future?
The star in the night sky isn't moving. They are.
As one star blazes ever brighter in the night sky, Sargon—a former millwright who renounced invention—and Angora—a brilliant scholar—dig into the depths of their seemingly natural world and delve into ancient texts in search of answers. They deduce the shocking their cylindrical world, Areta, is a gargantuan vessel that has been sailing through the cosmos for countless generations. And it is on a collision course with a sun.
The only hope for survival lies with Sargon and a small team of millwrights he assembles. As time runs short, they must construct the seemingly impossible—while flouting norms and risking exile of the ruling council.
Set in a society rooted in the ancient Near East and Greece, Areta’s culture contains ingenious, handcrafted technology. In this world, where women may tower over men and reproduction is divorced from pair-bonding, young sirenas prowl moonlit streets to claim their genetic futures, leaving tokens for the men they’ve chosen. But when Lilit’s awakening powers blur the line between seduction and coercion, desire itself becomes dangerous.
What if these psionic powers are not a flaw in humanity’s design but its future?
431 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2026
About the author
Daniel Rirdan
6 books6 followersAmerican novelist Daniel Rirdan wrote Interstellar Crew longhand at thirteen, becoming Israel’s youngest published novelist. After military service and a move to Australia, he mastered English one word-list at a time. A year later, the peer-reviewed journal Foundation featured his essay on William Gibson.
Decades of detours, dead ends, and one PW starred-review environmental tome later, he returned to speculative fiction at fifty and hasn’t looked back.
Now based in the American Southwest, Daniel writes stories driven by wonder and no patience for literary fashion. As he sees it, what is possible—or can be imagined—is a wide-open country.
Decades of detours, dead ends, and one PW starred-review environmental tome later, he returned to speculative fiction at fifty and hasn’t looked back.
Now based in the American Southwest, Daniel writes stories driven by wonder and no patience for literary fashion. As he sees it, what is possible—or can be imagined—is a wide-open country.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 27, 2026
There is something agreeably old-fashioned about Areta, a story about a generation ship that no-one on it knows is a generation ship. That's not a particularly original idea, but plunging us almost two thousand years into launch, into a mild utopia where the biggest problem is the ruling classes fear of technology. As you can imagine, this technophobia becomes a bit of a problem when it comes to realising they are on a spaceship, and that they have to disembark, though it seems the creators of the ship had at least partially planned for the complete destruction of their society and something else rising in its place. Nevertheless, there is a strain of Panglossian plotting where luckily everything here turns out, against the odds, alright. It is definitely the book for you if you don't like too much death.
The book follows Angora, an archologist and scholar who hires millwright Sargon to help her fix and improve a temple clock. He had previously been punished for inventing items, so there is some tension when he invents a minute hand for the clock, and the rulers do wonder if this will usher in a dangerous phase of punctuality. Sargon and Angora get romantically involved, which is when he shares his discovery that if you dig down far enough, you hit metal, and they might be on a ship (very little is said about the lack of space on the world). Angora then follows up some ancient books and prophecies, which suggest that they are not only on a spaceship, but it might be nearing its terminus, which looks like a divebomb into a sun. At the same time, and admittedly somewhat out of the blue in the book, Sargon discovers that his daughters are actually just one daughter with two bodies and prodigious mental powers. This feels like its own book in itself, and does whip up a whole new conversation about Meta-powered teens. There is also much discussion of the sexual politics in the world, where women now dwarf men at well over seven feet tall.
I rather enjoyed Areta's naivety, and its soft utopia, albeit one that happily banned scientific progress. In the course of about three months, the society goes from having almost no technology, to inventing flying machines, and there certainly isn't much of the error part of trial and error going on. But once the dislocated parts of the storyline gel, it is a rather exciting final stretch (one that also includes first contact with an alien race). Don't come looking for cynicism, and you'll probably enjoy it.
The book follows Angora, an archologist and scholar who hires millwright Sargon to help her fix and improve a temple clock. He had previously been punished for inventing items, so there is some tension when he invents a minute hand for the clock, and the rulers do wonder if this will usher in a dangerous phase of punctuality. Sargon and Angora get romantically involved, which is when he shares his discovery that if you dig down far enough, you hit metal, and they might be on a ship (very little is said about the lack of space on the world). Angora then follows up some ancient books and prophecies, which suggest that they are not only on a spaceship, but it might be nearing its terminus, which looks like a divebomb into a sun. At the same time, and admittedly somewhat out of the blue in the book, Sargon discovers that his daughters are actually just one daughter with two bodies and prodigious mental powers. This feels like its own book in itself, and does whip up a whole new conversation about Meta-powered teens. There is also much discussion of the sexual politics in the world, where women now dwarf men at well over seven feet tall.
I rather enjoyed Areta's naivety, and its soft utopia, albeit one that happily banned scientific progress. In the course of about three months, the society goes from having almost no technology, to inventing flying machines, and there certainly isn't much of the error part of trial and error going on. But once the dislocated parts of the storyline gel, it is a rather exciting final stretch (one that also includes first contact with an alien race). Don't come looking for cynicism, and you'll probably enjoy it.
May 26, 2026
Genre: SF
Description: a small, isolated community – in some ways idyllic, in others quite the opposite – discovers things about itself which it has suppressed for millennia. The exciting story concerns what they do about what they find out.
Mention of ‘the Shoah’ early in the book gives a good clue that this society is rooted in a fictionalised, ancient Judaism. Other Middle Eastern elements are in the mix, as is a bit of Ancient Greece. There is also mention of African and Aboriginal music. But the Sanhedrin controls Areta, under the aegis of Their Wisdoms, the Iskandars.
The book has echoes of work like Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, and Persephone by Kevin J Anderson & Jeffrey Morris (which I reviewed for Big Al and Pals in 2025).
Author: Daniel Rirdan has returned to speculative, world-building, fiction in his fifties and this year is releasing two books he has been working on for a decade. The first, Republic of Forge and Grace (325pp) was released in January. This one will be available from 28 April. (It is always nice to be favoured with pre-release material.) Already he is deep into the writing of more novels.
Rirdan’s life has taken him from Israel to the south west USA via Australia, and military service (among other life events). From hand-writing novels as a teenager (and publishing several) he has returned to his early love of writing.
Appraisal: this is a big book, in length and in ideas. There is much to enjoy here. The plotting is complex and braids satisfactorily together, to increase intrigue and pace as matters develop.
The book is long. That is partly because of those several, braided, plots which are introduced sequentially.
The reader is shown a small, agrarian, society in detail. It is a refreshing change from our own hurry-scurry world. The ruling council takes care to keep the world in balance, putting back as much as is taken out: pollution appears unknown. The population is not permitted to fluctuate: 50,000 souls only inhabit Areta. It has been so for millennia. This is Areta before Stuff happens.
The characters are a logical product of their formal society and culture. Innovation and spontaneity are punished. Flouting the rules is punished. Because of this it took almost half the book for this reader to warm to the main characters. Indeed, even during the denouement, when I understood why certain important characters had behaved in what I felt was a truly reprehensible way, I could not warm to them. An element of this is, of course, not unusual in fiction. But perhaps finding so few of the major players agreeable as companions on one’s reading journey is.
There is some repetition, and (later on) explanations of things the reader maybe doesn’t need to know in the level of detail provided. The first 20% of the book is, frankly, slow. Its purpose appears to be twofold: to get the two primary characters to meet, and to show how hidebound their society is. There is a quantity of coy flirting and inevitable misunderstandings before the primary relationship stabilises. Thereafter the book begins to take off.
One thing I found disquieting has happened to the society on Areta. Relationships and breeding have become divorced. The catalyst for this appears to have been ‘The Shoah’, when unspeakable cruelties were visited upon women by men. The solution (as you will quickly discover) is that the society has bred for giantesses who undergo martial arts training from a young age and now completely control sex. The way the men still think about these, now enormous, voluptuous women makes it clear why matters needed to change. But the solution, of having such women roaming the streets after dark and taking their pleasure from men, doesn’t seem (to this reader) to have solved the problem. There is nothing in the plot which seems to require this. As a result, a lot of people’s soft-porn fantasies may be gratified within the pages of this book. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I leave to other readers to decide.
The reader learns what various bastardised and misunderstood rituals and festivals practiced by the society may actually mean at the same time as these realisations occur to the characters. Discoveries are made which I wouldn’t dream of giving away here. But they add up to a fascinating discovery. And a terrible problem in the offing. The bulk of this 450pp or so book is taken up with solving this problem – and when the denouement finally approaches, the pages do just turn themselves. This is a clever book.
**review originally prepared for Big Al's Books and Pals: received a complimentary soft copy in exchange for an honest review**
Description: a small, isolated community – in some ways idyllic, in others quite the opposite – discovers things about itself which it has suppressed for millennia. The exciting story concerns what they do about what they find out.
Mention of ‘the Shoah’ early in the book gives a good clue that this society is rooted in a fictionalised, ancient Judaism. Other Middle Eastern elements are in the mix, as is a bit of Ancient Greece. There is also mention of African and Aboriginal music. But the Sanhedrin controls Areta, under the aegis of Their Wisdoms, the Iskandars.
The book has echoes of work like Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke, and Persephone by Kevin J Anderson & Jeffrey Morris (which I reviewed for Big Al and Pals in 2025).
Author: Daniel Rirdan has returned to speculative, world-building, fiction in his fifties and this year is releasing two books he has been working on for a decade. The first, Republic of Forge and Grace (325pp) was released in January. This one will be available from 28 April. (It is always nice to be favoured with pre-release material.) Already he is deep into the writing of more novels.
Rirdan’s life has taken him from Israel to the south west USA via Australia, and military service (among other life events). From hand-writing novels as a teenager (and publishing several) he has returned to his early love of writing.
Appraisal: this is a big book, in length and in ideas. There is much to enjoy here. The plotting is complex and braids satisfactorily together, to increase intrigue and pace as matters develop.
The book is long. That is partly because of those several, braided, plots which are introduced sequentially.
The reader is shown a small, agrarian, society in detail. It is a refreshing change from our own hurry-scurry world. The ruling council takes care to keep the world in balance, putting back as much as is taken out: pollution appears unknown. The population is not permitted to fluctuate: 50,000 souls only inhabit Areta. It has been so for millennia. This is Areta before Stuff happens.
The characters are a logical product of their formal society and culture. Innovation and spontaneity are punished. Flouting the rules is punished. Because of this it took almost half the book for this reader to warm to the main characters. Indeed, even during the denouement, when I understood why certain important characters had behaved in what I felt was a truly reprehensible way, I could not warm to them. An element of this is, of course, not unusual in fiction. But perhaps finding so few of the major players agreeable as companions on one’s reading journey is.
There is some repetition, and (later on) explanations of things the reader maybe doesn’t need to know in the level of detail provided. The first 20% of the book is, frankly, slow. Its purpose appears to be twofold: to get the two primary characters to meet, and to show how hidebound their society is. There is a quantity of coy flirting and inevitable misunderstandings before the primary relationship stabilises. Thereafter the book begins to take off.
One thing I found disquieting has happened to the society on Areta. Relationships and breeding have become divorced. The catalyst for this appears to have been ‘The Shoah’, when unspeakable cruelties were visited upon women by men. The solution (as you will quickly discover) is that the society has bred for giantesses who undergo martial arts training from a young age and now completely control sex. The way the men still think about these, now enormous, voluptuous women makes it clear why matters needed to change. But the solution, of having such women roaming the streets after dark and taking their pleasure from men, doesn’t seem (to this reader) to have solved the problem. There is nothing in the plot which seems to require this. As a result, a lot of people’s soft-porn fantasies may be gratified within the pages of this book. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing I leave to other readers to decide.
The reader learns what various bastardised and misunderstood rituals and festivals practiced by the society may actually mean at the same time as these realisations occur to the characters. Discoveries are made which I wouldn’t dream of giving away here. But they add up to a fascinating discovery. And a terrible problem in the offing. The bulk of this 450pp or so book is taken up with solving this problem – and when the denouement finally approaches, the pages do just turn themselves. This is a clever book.
**review originally prepared for Big Al's Books and Pals: received a complimentary soft copy in exchange for an honest review**
Review of advance copy received from Author
“Life on Areta was pleasant and peaceful, following the same rhythm for years. For decades. For centuries. And the star Thalith Na’amat…blazed ever brighter in the night sky.” In 300 BCE, a journey aboard a celestial ark was undertaken. It would take 2,000 years to transport the humans through space to their destination. The populace was unaware that they were barreling toward a fiery demise.
In the Age of Shoah, everyone on Areta belonged to one of seven lineages. Rivalries had morphed into all-out intertribal war. Areta was now ruled by the Sanhedrin, seven revered Iskandars. These “Wisdoms” found technological innovation to be distasteful. Some truths were better left buried. Discovery might disturb their complacency and understanding of their world.
In ancient times, a balance existed between men and women. Women now were genetically engineered. They towered over men and were combat trained. They engaged in hand-talk, a way to gossip in real time about would-be sires. There was “the decoupling of siring from fatherhood.” Actual fatherhood was of an adoptive nature.
Angora, a prominent scholar, was director of antiquities in the Mouseion Pavilion. She was the daughter of the Iskandar of Maradam. “Nearly all of Maradam’s intellectually inclined residents and families clustered in a “labyrinth of limestone-block alleys…where weathered stone walls reflected the lamplight seeping from houses set for learning, discussion and contemplation.”
Sargon, a millwright, lived in a commissioning house with three housemates. He kept “a low profile and burnished metal artifacts, lest he be declared an outcast…cling(ing) to the fantasy that his adopted daughters were still alive.” He used to run a “millforge renowned for crafting intricate devices from concept to completion”. Why did he have a small tattoo below his ribcage marking him a lawbreaker/rebel and thereby rendered infertile?
“In possibility, I find opportunity.” Sargon noticed an ancient water clock in the Mouseion Pavilion. Impulsively, he decided to restore the clock, in secret, to get Angora’s attention. The water clock could only be displayed to the public with the approval of the Sanhedrin governing body. Sargon believed answers to the ancient past might be discovered with the help of Angora, Maradam’s foremost scholar of antiquity. Would Angora have “the courage to unearth unsettling truths from the past and the integrity to keep his secrets? How could he trust the daughter of the Iskandar not to betray him? With a leap of faith, he took her to the site where he had dug deep underground and discovered a hidden lake floating on a metal foundation. Attached to the side of the foundation were metal rivets. A secret trapdoor…a borehole wide enough for a person to enter…the realization that their world was an artificial environment. A scholarly search for scrolls produced written revelations of why the architektons created the construct of Areta.
A cylindrical colossal ship sailing through the cosmos with the permanent destination of Elysium. Here was the rub. One thousand years ago, all out war during The Age of Shoah destroyed the Bridge of Heaven, the segway to Kadesh Barnea where the humans would board a ship for the short trip to Elysium. With the destruction of the Bridge of Heaven their destination seemed unreachable. Time was running out. Areta was on a collision course to its fiery destruction. But what if—
Author Daniel Rirdan’s worldbuilding was wonderful. A plethora of characters were thoroughly detailed and came to life for this reader. The counsel of custodians of Areta were understandably afraid of change after finally determining the formula for peace and harmony. It would take innovation and technological advances to promote safety and sanctuary.
A stellar read I highly recommend.
Thank you Daniel Rirdan and Corino Press for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
In the Age of Shoah, everyone on Areta belonged to one of seven lineages. Rivalries had morphed into all-out intertribal war. Areta was now ruled by the Sanhedrin, seven revered Iskandars. These “Wisdoms” found technological innovation to be distasteful. Some truths were better left buried. Discovery might disturb their complacency and understanding of their world.
In ancient times, a balance existed between men and women. Women now were genetically engineered. They towered over men and were combat trained. They engaged in hand-talk, a way to gossip in real time about would-be sires. There was “the decoupling of siring from fatherhood.” Actual fatherhood was of an adoptive nature.
Angora, a prominent scholar, was director of antiquities in the Mouseion Pavilion. She was the daughter of the Iskandar of Maradam. “Nearly all of Maradam’s intellectually inclined residents and families clustered in a “labyrinth of limestone-block alleys…where weathered stone walls reflected the lamplight seeping from houses set for learning, discussion and contemplation.”
Sargon, a millwright, lived in a commissioning house with three housemates. He kept “a low profile and burnished metal artifacts, lest he be declared an outcast…cling(ing) to the fantasy that his adopted daughters were still alive.” He used to run a “millforge renowned for crafting intricate devices from concept to completion”. Why did he have a small tattoo below his ribcage marking him a lawbreaker/rebel and thereby rendered infertile?
“In possibility, I find opportunity.” Sargon noticed an ancient water clock in the Mouseion Pavilion. Impulsively, he decided to restore the clock, in secret, to get Angora’s attention. The water clock could only be displayed to the public with the approval of the Sanhedrin governing body. Sargon believed answers to the ancient past might be discovered with the help of Angora, Maradam’s foremost scholar of antiquity. Would Angora have “the courage to unearth unsettling truths from the past and the integrity to keep his secrets? How could he trust the daughter of the Iskandar not to betray him? With a leap of faith, he took her to the site where he had dug deep underground and discovered a hidden lake floating on a metal foundation. Attached to the side of the foundation were metal rivets. A secret trapdoor…a borehole wide enough for a person to enter…the realization that their world was an artificial environment. A scholarly search for scrolls produced written revelations of why the architektons created the construct of Areta.
A cylindrical colossal ship sailing through the cosmos with the permanent destination of Elysium. Here was the rub. One thousand years ago, all out war during The Age of Shoah destroyed the Bridge of Heaven, the segway to Kadesh Barnea where the humans would board a ship for the short trip to Elysium. With the destruction of the Bridge of Heaven their destination seemed unreachable. Time was running out. Areta was on a collision course to its fiery destruction. But what if—
Author Daniel Rirdan’s worldbuilding was wonderful. A plethora of characters were thoroughly detailed and came to life for this reader. The counsel of custodians of Areta were understandably afraid of change after finally determining the formula for peace and harmony. It would take innovation and technological advances to promote safety and sanctuary.
A stellar read I highly recommend.
Thank you Daniel Rirdan and Corino Press for the gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Areta is an idea-driven generational science fiction novel that explores what happens when a civilization survives not through technological acceleration or conflict, but through deliberate social harmony and biological adaptation.
The story unfolds within what initially appears to be a cooperative agrarian society governed by ritual, communal labor, and cultural restraint toward technological progress. Over time, it becomes clear that this civilization exists aboard a massive generational starship nearing the end of a multi-millennia journey to a new world. The tension of the novel lies not in villainy or rebellion, but in the gradual rediscovery of purpose: how does a society respond when it realizes it has inherited an intricate survival system without the instruction manual?
Rirdan’s strongest achievement is the consistency of his thematic vision. The novel asks whether progress must always be measured through power, expansion, or industrial advancement. Instead, Areta presents survival as an exercise in cohesion. Biological evolution, reproductive norms, and even cultural regression appear to have been shaped to prepare humanity for life on an unknown planet. Harmony — not dominance — becomes the defining strategy.
Characters are largely likable and cooperative, serving as agents of inquiry rather than drivers of dramatic conflict. This lends the book a reflective tone that will appeal to readers who enjoy speculative fiction centered on civilizational design, long-range planning, and philosophical questions about human adaptation. At times, the emphasis on concept over emotional depth or narrative urgency may make the pacing feel subdued, and certain portrayals of sexuality and social engineering can feel more functional than intimate.
Ultimately, Areta offers a thoughtful alternative vision of humanity’s future: one where survival depends less on conquering the unknown and more on learning how to live together within it.
The story unfolds within what initially appears to be a cooperative agrarian society governed by ritual, communal labor, and cultural restraint toward technological progress. Over time, it becomes clear that this civilization exists aboard a massive generational starship nearing the end of a multi-millennia journey to a new world. The tension of the novel lies not in villainy or rebellion, but in the gradual rediscovery of purpose: how does a society respond when it realizes it has inherited an intricate survival system without the instruction manual?
Rirdan’s strongest achievement is the consistency of his thematic vision. The novel asks whether progress must always be measured through power, expansion, or industrial advancement. Instead, Areta presents survival as an exercise in cohesion. Biological evolution, reproductive norms, and even cultural regression appear to have been shaped to prepare humanity for life on an unknown planet. Harmony — not dominance — becomes the defining strategy.
Characters are largely likable and cooperative, serving as agents of inquiry rather than drivers of dramatic conflict. This lends the book a reflective tone that will appeal to readers who enjoy speculative fiction centered on civilizational design, long-range planning, and philosophical questions about human adaptation. At times, the emphasis on concept over emotional depth or narrative urgency may make the pacing feel subdued, and certain portrayals of sexuality and social engineering can feel more functional than intimate.
Ultimately, Areta offers a thoughtful alternative vision of humanity’s future: one where survival depends less on conquering the unknown and more on learning how to live together within it.
May 5, 2026
Unique, interestingly-written book with some unique vibes from the start to the end. the plotting was somewhat meditative, with a unique sci-fi agrarian setting. 4 stars. tysm for the E-ARC.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews