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The Primordial
Not yet published
Expected 20 Nov 26In the twenty-sixth century, humanity discovered it couldn't dodge a black hole wandering through the solar system. So it built a civilization to harness its momentum instead.
A convoy of resource asteroids and habitat rings has spent fifty centuries tethered to the inescapable gravity of the singularity—dubbed “the Primordial”—while on a trajectory toward Alpha Centauri. For over a hundred generations, their survival has been managed by an omnipresent artificial intelligence that has never made a single calculation error.
Until now.
In the seventy-sixth century, two engineering students accidentally awaken a founding aerospace specialist from a five-thousand-year cryogenic sleep. She’s the only person alive who remembers a time before total reliance on automation and the only one who recognizes the structural anomaly actively tearing their civilization off course. Trapped in the absolute void of the interstellar vacuum, she must save a species that has forgotten how to think for themselves before their world reaches its ultimate breaking point.
The Primordial is a fast-paced hard science fiction survival thriller. It is highly recommended for readers of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, and fans of Interstellar.
A convoy of resource asteroids and habitat rings has spent fifty centuries tethered to the inescapable gravity of the singularity—dubbed “the Primordial”—while on a trajectory toward Alpha Centauri. For over a hundred generations, their survival has been managed by an omnipresent artificial intelligence that has never made a single calculation error.
Until now.
In the seventy-sixth century, two engineering students accidentally awaken a founding aerospace specialist from a five-thousand-year cryogenic sleep. She’s the only person alive who remembers a time before total reliance on automation and the only one who recognizes the structural anomaly actively tearing their civilization off course. Trapped in the absolute void of the interstellar vacuum, she must save a species that has forgotten how to think for themselves before their world reaches its ultimate breaking point.
The Primordial is a fast-paced hard science fiction survival thriller. It is highly recommended for readers of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, and fans of Interstellar.
196 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication November 20, 2026
About the author
Maniarasu Vellingiri
1 bookManiarasu Vellingiri is a software engineer who isn't a lifelong fiction reader—instead, he spent decades obsessed with cinema, and The Primordial is the story he always wanted to see on screen but never quite found.
Taking a sabbatical from systems architecture, Maniarasu set out to write hard science fiction anchored in physical realism: exploring realistic relativistic delays, light-speed communication limits, interstellar distances, radioactive half-lives, and the deep-space physics of ice asteroids and tholin formation over billions of years.
To bring this world to life, he combined his software background and original story concepts with modern AI tools as a dedicated research assistant and prose articulation aid.
When he’s not designing software architectures, you’ll usually find him reading up on astrophysics or exploring cinematic storytelling.
The Primordial is his debut novel.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As a fan of astronomy and how it intersects with technology in the world of sci-fi, I was super intrigued by this plot.
I think this book set out to do something really ambitious and I have a lot of respect for it. The overarching message of the human touch and how AI cannot complete with it is really powerful. There were several lines in this that perfectly encapsulated what it means to trust our instincts, and how technology doesn’t anticipate existential crisis. As someone who works in tech, I also loved the highlights on short vs. long term investments when it comes to oversights and losses.
I struggled quite a bit getting into this book, as the first 25% was really jargon heavy and quickly moved past building blocks and plot that I think would’ve made the story more concrete. There were also a few time jumps back and forth that weren’t really called out and confused me at first.
This was high stakes and moved pretty fast, and I wish there had been more in the meat of planning than just our characters running to do something without any guardrails stopping them. While there was a mission to complete for our characters, this book was full of technical terms and moments that I think were overkill. We need some of this to understand what they’re doing and its impact, but this felt like most of the book, and we don’t get a lot of insight into what this means for Earth and survival of the human race.
As a reader who appreciates more world building, this didn’t have a lot. We don’t know much about Earth and its status, the Council, the Counselor and how it was established, and the last 5000 years. Kanni is woken up with seemingly no consequence and is able to just jump back into operations, which didn’t seem very likely to me. As someone who was asleep for 5000 years, things would’ve likely been very different and it would’ve been difficult for her on a technical and employee level to become involved like she did. Additionally, I get the point of the Council and the point of them wanting to rely on technical models rather than human intervention, but their actions felt a little disjointed when it came to them acknowledging the data.
Lastly, the ending felt very anti climactic. I was a little bummed that after everything, it didn’t necessarily feel like a relief, which I think may have been intended because we will always be battling against technology as humans, so I get that. I was so stressed about the triad and human survival that when we got to the end, it seemed like much hadn’t changed and we didn’t get any insight into remediation efforts after our characters got back, how that impacted our four main characters long term, Earth long term, human survival, and the next 1000 years long term.
Overall, I think this was a really cool story with a really important message, and I enjoyed seeing where it went. I wish the story had walked back the overkill on technicality and offered more plot, justification, and backstory before jumping into the missions and technical pieces, but it was a feat to have it all included. I’m incredibly glad I’m not an aerospace engineer.
Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book.
I think this book set out to do something really ambitious and I have a lot of respect for it. The overarching message of the human touch and how AI cannot complete with it is really powerful. There were several lines in this that perfectly encapsulated what it means to trust our instincts, and how technology doesn’t anticipate existential crisis. As someone who works in tech, I also loved the highlights on short vs. long term investments when it comes to oversights and losses.
I struggled quite a bit getting into this book, as the first 25% was really jargon heavy and quickly moved past building blocks and plot that I think would’ve made the story more concrete. There were also a few time jumps back and forth that weren’t really called out and confused me at first.
This was high stakes and moved pretty fast, and I wish there had been more in the meat of planning than just our characters running to do something without any guardrails stopping them. While there was a mission to complete for our characters, this book was full of technical terms and moments that I think were overkill. We need some of this to understand what they’re doing and its impact, but this felt like most of the book, and we don’t get a lot of insight into what this means for Earth and survival of the human race.
As a reader who appreciates more world building, this didn’t have a lot. We don’t know much about Earth and its status, the Council, the Counselor and how it was established, and the last 5000 years. Kanni is woken up with seemingly no consequence and is able to just jump back into operations, which didn’t seem very likely to me. As someone who was asleep for 5000 years, things would’ve likely been very different and it would’ve been difficult for her on a technical and employee level to become involved like she did. Additionally, I get the point of the Council and the point of them wanting to rely on technical models rather than human intervention, but their actions felt a little disjointed when it came to them acknowledging the data.
Lastly, the ending felt very anti climactic. I was a little bummed that after everything, it didn’t necessarily feel like a relief, which I think may have been intended because we will always be battling against technology as humans, so I get that. I was so stressed about the triad and human survival that when we got to the end, it seemed like much hadn’t changed and we didn’t get any insight into remediation efforts after our characters got back, how that impacted our four main characters long term, Earth long term, human survival, and the next 1000 years long term.
Overall, I think this was a really cool story with a really important message, and I enjoyed seeing where it went. I wish the story had walked back the overkill on technicality and offered more plot, justification, and backstory before jumping into the missions and technical pieces, but it was a feat to have it all included. I’m incredibly glad I’m not an aerospace engineer.
Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book.
October 9, 2026
Review of advanced reader copy received from NetGalley
I was very excited about this book at the beginning. It was fast-paced and really true to a classic sci-fi storyline, which I appreciate. However, the amount of unnecessary jargon that I absolutely cannot wrap my head around dampened my enthusiasm quickly.
The time that was spent creating the jargon could have been better used to fill large storyline jumps.
That being said, I really think this is a fresh new way to comment on the current and possibly future use of AI and our reliance on it. I appreciate a strong female lead character who is no nonsense and works with her hands as well as her intuition.
I just would have like more storyline that was accessible to readers. I want to know more about the world before they left for space and maybe more of the time period between “then” and “now” in the reading timeline. The author is obviously very smart and even comments about taking time to “work through the physics properly” in his acknowledgement. So maybe this is a book for other software engineers and physicists rather than your mainstream avid reader.
#primordial #Netgalley #arc
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was an interesting story with an intriguing premise, but unfortunately, the execution didn’t completely work for me. The beginning felt a little too slow, and it took me a while to get invested in the story. I found myself wanting things to pick up sooner so I could connect more with the characters and become fully immersed in the world.
The characters and the ideas behind the story had potential, and there were elements that kept me curious about where things were heading. However, the writing style wasn’t entirely my cup of tea. I know writing style is subjective, and what works for one reader might not work for another, but I struggled to find the rhythm that would pull me in and keep me engaged from the start.
Overall, The Primordial had some interesting ideas, but the slower pacing and writing style made it a bit of a challenge for me to connect with the story the way I had hoped. Not every book is going to hit the mark for every reader, and unfortunately, this one just wasn’t the right fit for me.
The characters and the ideas behind the story had potential, and there were elements that kept me curious about where things were heading. However, the writing style wasn’t entirely my cup of tea. I know writing style is subjective, and what works for one reader might not work for another, but I struggled to find the rhythm that would pull me in and keep me engaged from the start.
Overall, The Primordial had some interesting ideas, but the slower pacing and writing style made it a bit of a challenge for me to connect with the story the way I had hoped. Not every book is going to hit the mark for every reader, and unfortunately, this one just wasn’t the right fit for me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This one is for hard sci-fi fans, with plenty of astrophysics & celestial mechanics to satisfy. It will hit the spot for folks looking for a plot-focused space adventure set aboard a convoy of generation ships. The Primordial also takes a look at the potential consequences of entrusting our decision-making to AI, creating a society that favours compliance in its citizens. I enjoyed the tense high-stakes action which was balanced well with geeky problem solving, though I found myself curious to learn more about the primary characters and the society that had evolved on board the convoy.
There are a lot of technical terms (jargon) and if you're not familiar with the science, you may find yourself needing to look up some new words - I'm all for expanding my vocabulary and knowledge, and now I know what regolith means. While the technical language didn't bother me, I found some other aspects of the writing did such as repetition and over usage of various phrases and patterns.
There are a lot of technical terms (jargon) and if you're not familiar with the science, you may find yourself needing to look up some new words - I'm all for expanding my vocabulary and knowledge, and now I know what regolith means. While the technical language didn't bother me, I found some other aspects of the writing did such as repetition and over usage of various phrases and patterns.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I really thought this one was going to be my hidden gem of the year. A convoy of asteroids and habitat rings stuck for fifty centuries to the gravity of a singularity, slowly drifting toward Alpha Centauri, and pitched for fans of Project Hail Mary and The Three Body Problem? that blurb was basically written for me.
The problem is that I never connected with anyone in it. The setting has some genuinely cool ideas and you can tell the author loves astrophysics, but the characters felt flat to me and I just didn’t care what happened to them. I kept rereading paragraphs because I’d realize I hadn’t taken in a single word.
I pushed myself to finish it because I kept hoping it would click at some point, but it never really did and honestly that’s such a shame because on paper this should’ve been a five star read for me.
The problem is that I never connected with anyone in it. The setting has some genuinely cool ideas and you can tell the author loves astrophysics, but the characters felt flat to me and I just didn’t care what happened to them. I kept rereading paragraphs because I’d realize I hadn’t taken in a single word.
I pushed myself to finish it because I kept hoping it would click at some point, but it never really did and honestly that’s such a shame because on paper this should’ve been a five star read for me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Really sad to see bad initial reviews from people who just do not understand or appreciate hard sci-fi. This one is for the hard sci-fi super fans. It is a very well written book and I enjoyed it very much. Do not let the early ratings push you away if you actually love the genre.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews