I didn’t know this was a detective mystery novel (not my favorite). At least you can see this in the first few pages unlike in Emma Newman’s previous novel in her Planetfall series, which isn’t a mystery detective novel but wants to be one.

Compared to its predecessor, After Atlas is way more polished and mostly focuses on developing the interesting parts of the universe but surprisingly retains a super rushed ending that doesn’t exactly come out of nowhere but it feels like it.

Constant “mystery cucking” for 95% of the novel, a super rushed ending and paper-thin antagonists heavily detract from the interesting POV and the “promised land” religious/scientific colonial premise and setting, which is sadly a little underdeveloped.

Meh.