The Million

by Karl Schroeder

Futurist Karl Schroeder imagines infiltrating the elite of a marginal society in The Million

Every thirty years, ten billion visitors overrun Earth during one month of partying, polluting, and brawling. In between, the world is ruled by the Million; the inheritors and custodians of all of humanity’s wealth and history, they lead unimaginable lives of privilege and wealth, and they see it as their due.

Gavin Penn-of-Chaffee is an illegal child—a visitor hidden among the Million. When the family that raised him in secret is torn apart, Gavin must impersonate a dead boy to survive. What he doesn’t know is that his new identity is expected at the School of Auditors—the Million’s feared police force, sworn to find and capture outcasts like him to keep the peace. In order to solve the murder of his adoptive father, Gavin must keep his disguise and his wits intact within the stronghold of those threatened by his very existence.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction, Novella, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Short Stories, Dystopia

160 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2018

About the author

Karl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality and interstellar travel, and have a deeply philosophical streak. One of his concepts, known as thalience, has gained some currency in the artificial intelligence and computer networking communities.

Reviews

[Evelina | AvalinahsBooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Million was a really quick read that seemed to be promising, but sort of burned up before it got anywhere. I would certainly enjoy seeing sequels and finding out more about this world though!

The biggest problem it has is that it's incredibly slow moving and info-dumpy at first, and then super fast-paced by the end. I remember reading it and seeing that it's almost finished, but the main plot hasn't even come close to getting resolved! I think this book would have benefited from choosing a different format – had the author opted to go for a full-length book, the story could have kept a more even pace. If the whole story was longer, there would have been no problem with the info dumps – that could have worked as a means of world-building. Meanwhile, with The Million turning out to be so short, it just sort of gives you all of this information about the world, and then nothing really happens. It was slightly disappointing that way.


A GIF of Joey from Friends shrugging

Like I said – had it been a full-length book, it could have been great. The world was truly interesting! The idea that families have their own armies to defend each other, and treaties amongst themselves is pretty interesting, as well as the 'lock-steppers', who are actually a pretty interesting concept too – living in suspended animation for thirty years, to be awoken for only a month – they are sort of like time travelers. The Earth is described in great detail, as well as how the cities have been preserved and what's important to the people of the current time. I am not sure if this book will have sequels – but it might, and I'd be curious to read them to learn more about this world.


A GIF of a scifi world with a forest, a waterfall and a castle-like building in the middle of it

Overall, I would love to read the sequels, but this book remains a three star for me. I wish I could write a longer review, but that's literally all I've got! There could have just been so much more in it. If a reviewer walks away from a book without really knowing what to say in the review, that probably tells you enough. I wish there was just more!

I thank Tor.com for giving me a free copy of the book in exchange to my honest opinion. Receiving the book for free does not affect my opinion.

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[netjeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a Karl Shroeder fan like me, this was a solid short novel at a good price.

For those interested in this novel but new to Shroeder, I recommend starting with Lockstep which is set in the same universe as The Million.

The beginning of The Million may be a bit challenging, unless you've read Lockstep or other Shroeder. But the pace picks up nicely and was a solid page-turner at the end for me. This is Schroeder's third entry in the Lockstep series counting his short story Jubilee , and it's clear from the ending of The Million that Schroeder has plans for more books in this series.

For those familiar with Schroeder's Virga series (book #1 is Sun of Suns ) I think Virga is stronger than Lockstep so far. But I'm excited to read more in the Lockstep series, because at the end of The Million, the "About the Author" section says that the Lockstep series and the Virga series are set in the same universe, but it's not yet obvious how.

[Lianne Pheno · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://delivreenlivres.blogspot.com/2...

Malgré le fait que j'ai été vraiment étonné que cette novella ne soit pas un oneshot je l'ai trouvé bien intéressante. Il me manquait cependant pas mal d'explications sur l'univers pour être totalement satisfaite.

Gavin est un "visiteur", un enfant illégal. Un mois tous les 30 ans les 50 milliards d'habitants de la Terre se réveillent et profitent de leur environnement, puis ils se rendorment et rendent la planète à ses gardiens, héritiers chargés de l'entretenir en leur absence.
Ces hommes la sont appelés le Million car ils sont ce nombre et n'ont pas le droit d'augmenter leur population suite au pacte qu'ils ont signés avec les autorités des vrai habitants endormis.

Mais évidemment à chaque fois que le réveil à eu lieu, des personnes cherchent à gruger le système pour faire parti des millions, considérés comme chanceux de pouvoir profiter de la terre quasiment vide et non surpeuplée comme elle l'est quand les habitants se réveillent. Ces personnes la sont surnommés des visiteurs, ils sont chassés par les Auditeurs, la police en quelque sorte.

Gavin a été récupéré et élevé par son père adoptif, il n'est en effet pas difficile de se cacher si on a de l'aide quand il y a autant de place et si peu de monde répartis équitablement sur toute la surface de la planète. Mais un jour une force d'invasion arrive dans la zone de sa famille et tue son père. Gavin est obligé de fuir et ne doit sa vie qu'au fait qu'il réussi à prendre la place d'une personne qu'il voit mourir sous ses yeux.

Cette personne sont il a prit l'identité était inscrite dans l'école des Auditeurs, et Gavin va devoir réussi à s'intégrer tout en ne se faisant pas repérer. En plus cette place lui permettra d'enquêter sur la mort mystérieuse de son père adoptif ...

Oula, il n'était pas facile d'expliquer ce monde en si peu de lignes. Et encore la je n'ai fais qu'effleurer les thématiques. On est dans un monde très riche et finalement très mystérieux. C'était une gageure d'arriver à nous rendre ça vivant en plus de raconter une histoire en si peu de pages.

J'ai bien aimé ma lecture. Ce monde fait vraiment une impression de "waou" quand on le découvre. Surtout que le million est vraiment maitre du monde, ils ont des bots pour les aider dans tout et leur vie est du coup extrêmement extravagantes, il peuvent faire tout ce qu'ils veulent.
On croise donc des vaisseau-ville, des bals costumés merveilleux,... J'ai trouvé cette atmosphère vraiment à la limite du gothique certaines voir par son coté très visuel.

Mais d'un autre coté tout cette technologie était un peu trop "parfaite" pour moi, pas du tout au niveau du crédible ou de l'expliqué. Les bots par exemple sont des boites noires capable de tout faire, ce qui donne une impression de magie plus que de technologie.

De même je reste à la fin avec de nombreuses questions sur l'ensemble du monde qui n'ont pas eu de réponses. Mais étant donné que cette novella se passe dans le même monde que d'autres textes de l'auteur, je trouverais peut être mes réponses dedans, ou simplement dans la suite de celui ci, vu que l'intrigue n'est clairement pas terminée.

Au final j'ai adoré le coté grandiose et extravagant du monde, ainsi que l'intrigue, mais j'ai tout de même été refroidie par un manque d'explications du monde qui m'ont laissé sur ma faim.

16/20

[Lucille · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5
At first this was a bit confusing, I like to go into a story without reading the description and for this one I had to go and read it to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding things. I didn't understand when and where this was happening, how I was supposed to picture the setting and everything.
But then around 20% info-dumps started to appear and while things became clearer for me I didn't like the way it was done: characters would tell each others things that they were supposed to already know, so this was just for the benefit of the reader, which I find a bit clumsy.
While the premise and the world here are really interesting I think it's a missed opportunity, the novella format might not have been optimal.

I liked the friendship, I was pleasantly surprised that there were two POV and not just Gavin like the description made me belive. Elana is really great, though Gavin still is the main character here. I also liked that there was no romance.
The school and Venice setting were really cool, it must have been my favourite thing here, but everything school related was rushed and I would have liked to feel the friendship and the classes more.
The mystery and conspiracy wasn't bad, but I didn't felt really captivated.

I'm really curious about a possible sequel, while I didn't love The Million the world was original and I feel like the most interesting could be to come.

A review copy (e-galley) of this book was provided by the publisher. Some things might change in the final copy.

[Alvaro Zinos-Amaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the future of Karl Schroeder's latest short novel, which shares a universe with his book Lockstep (2014), the problem of non-FTL travel to other star systems has been "solved" in the following manner. Ten billion humans, whose primary base is Earth, but who also travel to other solar systems as their fancy strikes, have chosen to adapt their lives to a 360/1 lockstep: that is to say, they spend the majority of time in cryo-suspension, emerging for one month of wakefulness every thirty years (or three-hundred and sixty months) of inactivity. Thus, a seventeen-year-old teen born into lockstep, for instance, will have experienced seventeen years of life but will be over six thousand years old compared to the standard passage of time on Earth. That's a lot of nap time, even for the rich and infamous, and they need someone to tend the civilizational fires while they're dreaming the millennia away: hence, the eponymous Million. One view of this group is that they are essentially the glorified groundskeepers--"janitors," as an Auditing student complains about two-thirds in--of the ten Billion, the Earth's real owners. Another view, decidedly more romantic, holds that "all of civilization rested on their shoulders." The truth, as our protagonist, the illegally-conceived orphan Gavin Penn-of-Chaffee, discovers, is considerably more entangled and nettlesome.

Part of the complications arise structurally. The Million's basic system is a compound of neatly stacked asymmetries: three-hundred and sixty years to one year, ten billion people to one million. From these follow all sorts of cultural, socio-economic and philosophical implications, including an apparently utopian array of material resources for the Million, who are simultaneously ensnared in a constrictive dynamic regarding population growth and information control. Suspended animation, as a Draconian solution to baser Malthusian instincts, was famously and irreverently proposed by Philip José Farmer in his story "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World" (1971) and its latter Dayworld trilogy expansion. Schroeder's rationale neatly decouples this application of temporal suspension from its original gloomy over-population forecasts, and instead positively reconceives it for space travel. Interestingly, Petter Watts did something similar in his excellent recent novel, The Freeze-Frame Revolution, which I covered in these pages. Enhancing these inequities of design, Schroeder gives us two main characters, the aforementioned Gavin, and the teen Elana, who in their separate ways must overcome challenging psychological and relational barriers.

Gavin, in particular, must don a new identity in an effort not only to protect himself but also to try and help clear his adoptive brother Bernie of patricide charges. As part of this identity, he has to train to be an Auditor, thus preparing to join forces with the very contingent that killed his adoptive father. This plot strand is filigreed with some nicely baroque touches, as when Gavin, pretending to be Neal Makhav-of-Winter-Park, in turn borrows Elana's costume at an elaborate party, so as to lose his own shadow bot. The ages of the protagonists, their various assignments and reversals of fortune, the elite school setting, and the uncovering of deep conspiracies, all lend The Million a somewhat-YA sensibility. The prose is mostly effective at explaining the narrative world and giving us the character insights we need to follow the story, with occasionally inspired stage-setting such as: "Every few hundred kilometers, a bot would announce which Great Family's province they were passing over. The names were ancient: Cumbria, Leeds, Norwich. Brussels, Luxembourg, Bavaria. There were no settlements. Elephants, boars, lions, and the ancient bull of legend, the aurochs, wandered at will. Now and then the zeppelin would pass one of the museum cities--and then, despite his misery, Gavin would walk to one of the open galleries to watch it pass underneath as the headwind tore at his hair." Dialogue, on the other hand, fares less well, often of flat or stilted affect, or anti-climactic (after a major revelation near the story's end, for example, Gavin's response is: "Oh.") The plot itself also feels oddly lopsided, almost truncated: the engines are revving up just as we reach the final pages, with a clear tease of exciting developments ahead, but no real sense of resolution in this particular tale.

Part of Schroeder's dedication of The Million reads, "Not everything's a dystopia," and it's worth evaluating this work in those terms. The first third of the novel introduces us to an apparently utopian world, where people live in vast tracts ("Six thousand square kilometers of land, and just the two of them to take care of it?") and possess enormous resources ("Everybody had armies and air forces, or if you lived on the coast, a navy or two. Why not? They were fun toys."). At one point, a group decides to experience "an ancient historical epic"--Star Wars--and they proceed in the only fashion that makes sense to them, by instantly assembling storm-troopers, full-scale X-wings and TIE fighters, by erecting sets, lighting gear, and even an orchestra of bots for the score. But as the story progresses, this veneer of utopianism is gradually stripped off. In the way the novel's youthful, plucky characters manage to lop through swaths of conspiracies, and if not necessarily disrupt the status quo at least gain new insights into its terms and conditions, The Million is essentially hopeful in a manner akin to many dystopian narratives.

Taken as a standalone story, I'm not sure The Million does justice to its scope, which remains mostly implied. As the first entry (or second, if we take into account Lockstep) in an ongoing project, it's an intriguing work with the potential to thoughtfully complicate the utopia/dystopia dialectic via genuinely stirring sf-nal conceits. "Of course the Million weren't alone in the solar system," we're told. "There were other civilizations out there, some of them vast, not all of them human." Next stop, the stars.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 1 out of 5]

I like most of KS's work, but not this.
I might have liked it more if I'd read Lockstep, but I suspect I would not have finished that.

I didn't quite catch WHY 10 billion people are "sleeping."

In our world, Venice as much as anywhere is hard-pressed to handle the visitors it gets now. What will it do when 10 billion people flood the world and a certain number of them come to Venice?

How many people does it take to look after 10 billion when they're asleep? Which ones do it?
Surely not just the bots, and it seems that the Auditors are after people trying to break the system, so it isn't them. How many Auditors are there?

Who created the omnipresent and omnicapable bots? Bots that can fly, go underwater, create entire Star Wars scenarios in a few minutes, yet can be fooled by teenagers' simple ruses. Feh.

If they could make the bots, couldn't they have come up with a better solution to their problems than having 10 billion people asleep?

How does the economy work? Is there so much supply > demand that everything's free?

Are there ANY auditors who are actually what they seem, and not lockstep reps or secret schemers?

There may be room to build from the essence of this; imagine a world where almost everyone is working a scam, and everyone KNOWS it. They'll support or oppose you depending on whether that would help their scam. Hmm. now that I write it, that sounds like our world's politics ...

In that vein, I give one star for the idea that Gavin's ridiculous scheme could indeed work if the right people are ALL in on it, each for different reasons.

And yes, it is a bit disturbing to read about the Auditors while Trump's ICE is doing horrible things. I'm off to Schroeder's website to see if that was deliberate.

[Tyrannosaurus regina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conceptually I was interested in this, but the execution was unfortunately lacking. Both the plot and the characters were slight, the infodump was intrusive, and I found the naming of things oddly unimaginative. I didn't realise when I started it that it was related to an earlier novel, but I suspected as much partway in largely because it seemed like more time went into the worldbuilding aspect than anything else.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great worldbuilding, fun caper romp, suffers a bit from trying to cram a novel's worth of plot & characters into a novella, but still a lot of fun.

[Julie Capell · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first I couldn't believe that Karl Schroeder, one of my favorite authors, wrote this. The plot was meandering, the characters uninteresting, and, strangest of all, the world building was clumsy and unbelievable. Then I got to the part where one of the characters justifies hunting down children born "illegally" by saying their parents procreated specifically in order to subvert the established order of things. And I understood. This novella is a hastily published apologia for the actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policy of separating children from their parents in the name of "national security." The implied sequel to this novella will have our "heroes" tracking down the villainous illegal aliens and their equally evil children before they can destroy our Way of Life As We Know It. Count me out.

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gavin, is facing the reality that he and his brother will be separated. His brother will be sentenced to the life that he once had. As I've shown with other narratives where siblings are separated (or killed), the surviving sibling receives the power of orphan magic. He essentially returns to his status as an orphan but now gains the privilege of the Million.


CCCCFF. Siblings. Uhoria. Cornfield. Venice as Cornfield.


Also... I want more from this world.


http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comm...

[Trash Panzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that, for seemingly no reason, has a cover and synopses that appear to go out of their way to hide the fact that it's part of a series or is set in the same universe as prior books by the same author, when this is absolutely knowledge the reader should have going into the story. Nowhere on the cover does it mention this, nor on the Goodreads page. It's a decent story, but I felt my enjoyment of it was negatively affected by not having read the other book(s) related to this one beforehand. Parts of it, especially towards the end, felt rushed because the book seemed to just assume I had already read some of the in-universe history that I had not. I'm not gonna blame this on the author or the book itself, but I do not understand why some publishers do this. It's been an ongoing problem for as long as I can remember. Is it really so hard to just put on the cover or in the synopsis in clear language that a book is part of a series or an already-existing canon? Do they gain something out of not doing this, that I just don't understand as a mere reader and customer?

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can definitely understand the complaints of some of the other reviewers on Goodreads. There is a lot of world here in a short amount of pages. Towards the beginning of the book, I felt lost and totally confused. By the end, I understood enough of how the world worked that I could connect with the main characters and follow the politics. I still had questions, but it felt more like Schroeder did not want to share the answers yet, rather than that he did not know them.

In the end The Million introduces some cool concepts and sets up a grand conspiracy that I want to know more about. I look forward to diving in further.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate when books fail to have a real ending because they are setting you up for a sequel. Its especially bad when then book is short enough that the sequel could reasonably be merged in to make it one book. Perhaps because I didn't read Lockstep which is in the same world, but I didnt think there was enough worldbuilding for me to understand what was going on and why the characters reacted to it the way they did. The premise had the potential to be philosophically interesting but did not explore it thoroughly enough.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the central premise contrived and the deceit that drives the narrative unbelievable.

[Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

The overall concept was good here but the writing was messy and there were some glaring plot holes. This might have worked better as a longer story with more room to flesh out the details.

[Valerie 3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

What this book's about:
The million by Karl Schroeder is about a future in which only one million people are allowed to inhabit earth at a time. The main character, Gavin, is an illegal visitor to earth who has been living among the Million for years. Once his protection system falls apart, he must survive by impersonating a boy that he saw die. He must now attempt to keep his disguise intact for fear of what might happen if he was to be discovered.
What I thought about the book:
This book was super captivating and had me on the edge of my seat for majority of the story. I could not but cheer Gavin on throughout the entirety of the novel, whilst feeling for him when he faced danger. I really appreciated the writing style, and while it was not perfect it did an excellent job of pulling me in from the start. I cannot help but vent about how awesome and unique this premise was, seeing as I've never read anything like it in the past. This book makes me want to read more novels in the sci-fi genre, even though it is not usually my preferred reading choice.
Why I rated it how I did:
I think that this book is well deserving of four stars because the plot moved at a rapid pace, yet did not leave the reader falling behind. As I mentioned above, the writing was not perfect but I am willing to accept it because of the book's magnificent plot. I would recommend this novel for all the people out there who love sci-fi because it encompasses all of the genre's elements while not emitting a boring vibe. The concept The Million brings forth is unlike any other novel created in the past and I highly suggest it for anyone searching for a thrilling novel.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella turns out in the end notes to be set in the same universe as his novel Lockstep, and I’m a bit confused why they wouldn’t make that clear at the start. The Big Idea is that many civilisations in the universe are heading into the future via coldsleep, waking themselves up briefly at regular intervals in lockstep with each other to see what’s going on. Of course, they need some people to stick to regular time to look after them, and so the Earth has been inherited by The Million – they have all the world’s resources to share a mere million ways between them, just so long as they don’t muck the place up or overpopulate it. So the Million come over as like the gauchest possibly version of today’s billionaires, taking entire cities for one family, and they themselves need keeping under control by The Auditors in case the billions of sleepers wake up very angry with the state of the place.
It’s a pretty good Big Idea but the actual plot – several young people joining Auditor academy with ulterior motives, who Audits the Auditors eh? – wasn’t the best way to explore it. I was convinced it was going to run out of space to finish the plot, but instead it rushes to some sort of conclusion that probably needed a full novel to explore instead. A bit frustrating.

[Noarev · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book's blurb initially had me thinking back to Gattaca which isn't entirely correct. The story stands great on its own, but I feel like familiarity with Lockstep and some of Karl Schroeder's other works may help. That having been said, it does a great job of building an image of the society in which the action takes place even though that may cause pacing to seemingly suffer a bit at times. That having been said, I really enjoyed it and have found myself sucked into the story and warming up to the characters to the point where I would have eagerly jumped into a second volume since this story does set up a great potential storyline that I can only hope the author will follow up on in subsequent works. Guess I'll have to wait and see, and pick up some other Schroeder penned books in the meantime. It's a good sci-fi pick for a casual weekend where you want to sit back, read, and just drift into a story.

[Sebastian H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel which feels more like a novella, with an interesting plot set into the same world as the author's previous novel. Yet the plot of this one seems to go in fits and starts: where it should show, it plain tells; and where it should take its time, it rushes ahead with no half-measures. Almost felt like the heavy scissors of an editor (or maybe the author himself) took out a good chunk of plot from the middle of it, for no good reason.

Finally, it wasn't until the end that I realized this was meant as the first entry in a new saga, which kinda bummed me out as there were no signs pointing to it, and I'm not a fan of starting new reads when there's not an ending in sight for the foreseeable future.

In short: started out great, rushed way too much, and whiffed out by the end with a blatant "to be continued".

[Rudi Dewilde · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Million is a fast-paced story about a dystopian world, too densely populated to remain viable. Most people are kept in lock-step, frozen under the earth, to be awakened once every thirty years for a month. The Million are those living above ground and maintaining the world in the meantime.

It's a good story, full of original ideas, but for me, there is a problem with the pace. It's too short for everything that happens in the 100+ pages. It feels like a lengthy synopsis for a work that should have been bigger. That's why the characters are somewhat shallow, as is the plot.

I enjoyed the read, and I hope you will too.
I keep hoping that Karl Schroeder one day fleshes this adventure out so it may become a masterpiece.

[Kristy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really great idea but poorly executed. Muddled world building confuse the actual plot, requiring readers to keep double checking or re-reading sections. Far too complicated world for such a short novel. It could have used about 10-15 more chapters to allow for better development and explanation of what the hell is going on this in the very complicated society. Hundred, Million, Billion, Locksteppers, Auditors, TONS of elite families with their own politics and economics, in-depth history, new technologies, new syntax.... Too much.

[John (JP) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is part of a series. Yet it doesn’t indicate that on the cover or anywhere else. Without that knowledge the book is a confusing piece of literature. I didn’t hate it so much as I was confused by it. There is no prologue telling me what came before or why I should be concerned but about the characters. When I found out it was part two of a series some of that made sense. The story reads partly like the movie the talented Mr. Ripley. Where the hero of the story must take on the identity of another character. I think you should the book Lockstep to make sense of this story.

[Jeanne Boyarsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun short read. "The Million" is the approximate number of humans on Earth. Well sort of. There are 10 billion humans that sleep for 30 years and wake for a month. The million are the well off. They preserve historical sites, interact with sims/bots and ensure the billions don't take over.

The "visitors" (children born out of tready, other planets, etc), and "auditors"(enforce laws) were also explored well.

The world of the million was well explored for a short book. And the end tied things up nicely. I just wish it was longer.

[Astrid Dupont]

Hey! I just wanted to say how much I loved your story, it was a truly amazing read. The visuals came so naturally that it felt like a cinematic experience.

I’m an artist who specializes in comic and webtoon commissions, and I couldn’t help but think of how amazing your work would look as a webtoon series. If that ever interests you, I’d be honored to bring it to life.

You can reach me on Discord (ava_crafts) or Instagram (@Evelyn) if you’d like to chat more or see examples of my work.

[Brian Gaston · Rating 2 out of 5]

Karl Schroeder is one of my favourite authors with his great world building and complex characters I care about. Unfortunately this was not one of those books. I guess it was written for those readers already familiar with his lockstep world (which I am) but the characters never grabbed my interest.

[Daniel Barton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book, but was disappointed by the length. I want more from this world and to understand more about what happens post this story.

The idea of a small number of people living on Earth as caretakers is fascinating, and I would have loved to have seen more focus on what happens during the periods when the visitors arrive. All in all a good book and hopefully the start of something more.

[Jamie Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Million (Kindle Edition) by Karl Schroeder

A prequel short story to The Lockstep

This novella doesn't set up Locktep so much as explores possible beginnings. In this story we have more of a mystery to solve, and test the waters about the whole Lockstep concept. Fun characters and a good, if brief, ride!

[Emalee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Someone recommended this book to me and even though the reviews were middling I went for it and I don't regret it. In this Corona time I am really looking for engaging escapist books and this fits the bill. I thought the plot was clever and the world building was good. I think I will check out "Lockstep" set in the same world by this author next.

[Shirley Cagle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept, for sure, but this story was all end-loaded and primed for a sequel, which is dissatisfying as a reader. A longer novel would have allowed for more fleshing out of the premise and more subtlety at the finish.

[Gary Bunker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too short to be considered a full novel in my opinion, the novella-length "The Million" was a great adventure, and an interesting look into some of the consequences of the post-scarcity universe of the Lockstep. I hope there are more stories in this series, because this definitely felt incomplete.