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.

I’m hoping that the sequel to this novel, After Atlas, is much better than this one because it comes recommended by Adrian Tchaikovsky and he’s always been right so far and I’d hate to lose faith in his recommendations moving forward.

More thoughts:

People follow a prophet to a planet with alien life on it. Things quickly go wrong and everyone who’s left on the planet is stuck dealing with the consequences of their actions. Our protagonist Renata Ghali in particular is suffering through her existence on the planet and trying to come to terms with her role during Planetfall and the years that followed.

A lot of callbacks to the Planetfall event (when the colonists initially landed on the surface of the planet) without revealing the events specifically. This withholding of critical knowledge is the carrot on the stick that’s being used to pull you to the end of the novel but this sort of storytelling is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It is “explained” by the narrator’s trauma related to these events but explaining a storytelling device in-universe is not good enough for me to enjoy it.

Other than that, I’m in love with this novel and world. The depiction of someone suffering from a trauma induced hoarding issue is compelling. I’ve never seen a hoarder depicted in fiction before and I think it’s done well here. Having to live with someone with a hoarding issue is something I’ve experienced and it’s nice to see an author attempt, and mostly succeed, at depicting it well from the perspective of the hoarder.

The alien life is alien but the revellation of what it really is and what it’s doing is not delivered to the reader in a satisfying way. It’s a little too slow and I don’t care about it all that much. Knowing what it is lessens my interest in it.