Please note that this book is not for me - I have read the book, However I had to DNF and because i do not like to give negative reviews I will not review this book fully - there is no specific reason for not liking this book. I found it a struggle to read and did not enjoy trying to force myself to read this book.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused and thank you for the opportunity to read this book

What a fantastic book! This book is so well written, the mysteries and the worldbuilding were spectacular. Finally finding out what was going on was such an amazing moment!

I found Planetfall to be a confounding read. At first, I struggled to get into it and had some issues with the prose. Then I found I loved it, but still questioned the pacing. Leading up to the ending, I could not put it down. But then, everything went wrong with that ending. Through the reading experience, I managed to have almost every possible critical opinion of the book at one point or another.

Is it worth reading? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Far from it.

The novel follows a group of colonists attempting to survive on a faraway planet. They’ve been settled for over twenty years when a survivor of a presumed lost group of original colonists appears. The newcomer begins to uncover dark secrets underpinning the seemingly perfect colony beneath God’s City, where nothing is as it seems.

I think ‘majority’ is one of my least favorite words. It’s so often used to justify bad decisions.

Of the technical issues with the book, the pacing is one of the biggest. The novel took a long time to truly grab my attention and there were long lulls between moments of building tension. Part of this comes from the nature of conspiracies and mysteries – Newman withholds a lot of information from the reader, keeping them guessing about what really happened all those years ago. Trouble is, by a certain point, the withholding feels too deliberate, frustratingly so. And while the payoff is fantastic, not all readers will be patient enough to stick with it to reach that point.

My other major technical issue was with the prose style. Newman swings between nuanced, accomplished prose and lapsing into journalistic ‘tell’ style. When these passages occur, the actions of the protagonist are simply reported as they happen, one thing after another. It quickly becomes tedious and detracts from the quality of the rest. Here is a passage that I found particularly irritating in it’s reported style:

I click the button at the side and the needle goes in, filling the internal vial with his blood. When it’s full, the needle withdraws and the device deposits a tiny bit of skin sealant. When the display goes green, I lift it off his skin and place a pen into the analyzer as part of the case.

The novel follows colonists who are, for the most part, driven by faith. I often struggle with novels using religion at the core of the narrative, and this was no exception. I find them uncomfortable, but I do try to push past my prejudices and assess the stories on their own merits. Once I found the groove of the book, the faith element didn’t bother me much… until the ending. Not only is the ending entirely unsatisfying (it leaves quite a few strands simply abandoned), I found that it relied too heavily on the religious aspect in terms of an ‘unexplainable’ get-out clause.

While all that might sound very negative, they only stood out so much because the majority of the novel is so good. Planetfall is original and fascinating, with interesting characters, a unique setting, and subtle sources of tension. What you think is a strange b-plot turns out to be crucial to the core narrative – and it is revealed in extraordinary fashion. This is the kind of ambitious storytelling that I love so much about science fiction as a genre.

Verdict: Planetfall is an enjoyable and intriguing science fiction story with an awful lot going for it. If you’re a fan of the genre, I do recommend reading it, despite its flaws.

Emma Newman's Planetfall (newly republished by Gollancz, who provided a review copy) is a brilliant SF psychological thriller. Renata Ghali is an engineer on a high-tech extra-terrestrial colony founded by the visionary Lee Suh-Mi who brought together a group of colonists to flee Earth and travel to a new planet. The colony is small, but stable, living around the base of an alien structure part plant, part animal and part city. Suh-Mi is inside, communing with an alien civilisation, and the colonists have been awaiting her return for more than 20 years. But the colony's peace is over-turned when Suh-Mi's grandson walks out of the grassland and into their lives, claiming to be the only survivor of a group of colonists believed to have crashed on landing.

Renata is a troubled protagonist, and the novel slowly reveals both her mental illness and the likely cause of it. She suffers from anxiety, struggles to connect with other people and hoards goods. She fell for Suh-Mi, her former flatmate, and followed her across the stars to escape a troubled relationship with her parents, and an increasingly dystopian Europe of scarcity, diminishing opportunity and encroachment on freedom. The colony project is a grand vision of escape she can throw herself behind, running away from the challenges of Earth. Newman's depiction of Renata famously draws on some of her own personal history of anxiety, and is one of the best and most sympathetic portrayals of a complex and flawed character I've come across recently.

The reader quickly realises that all is not as it seems within the colony. The Machiavellian and manipulative figure of Mack looms large within the novel. Known as the Ringmaster, his job was to bring the colonists together and help broker their departure from Earth, using his charisma and influencing skills to create a shared vision and manage the people dynamics. After landing, he has turned those skills to keeping the colony going while it awaits Suh-Mi's return. Superficially jovial, charming and caring, the reader soon realises there is a much more sinister undercurrent.

Newman is an accomplished novelist, though Planetfall is her first foray into SF. The plot unravels with a beautiful balance of twists, reveals and insights that never once feels like Newman is artificially witholding information from the reader for plot purposes. We travel with Renata as she revisits traumatic events of the past that she has tried to bury and forget. And Newman gives us a brilliantly diverse cast of all races, genders and sexualities.

I am delighted that Gollancz has picked up this series of books, enabling Newman to finish writing and publishing the sequels. This is exciting and fresh fiction.

Goodreads rating: 4*

Science fiction that is more of the social kind than hard, as in, while it was easy to imagine how the colony ran, the story focuses on the main character and her relationships with other people, rather than on a lot of technology. In a way, I liked this aspect, but on the other hand, with Ren being pretty much a recluse, her interactions weren’t always so developed; in the end, I’m not exactly sure what to think of it.

The storuy revolves around Ren, and in a certain measure Mack and Sung-Soo. More than 20 years ago, Ren and Mack embarked on an expedition throughout the stars to find another planet, guided by Lee Suh-Mi, who determined that planet’s location after waking up from a coma. After landfall, they found a strange structure they quickly nicknamed God’s city, into which Suh-Mi walked in, never to come out. Since that time, every year sees a ritual, almost religious ceremony take place, which will last until the day Suh comes out again. Only it quickly becomes apparent that this is all based on lies crafted by Mack and upheld by Ren, for fear that without it, the community’s union and focus will collapse, and the colony will be destroyed.

I spent most of my reading torn when it came to Ren as a character and narrator. It’s obvious that while she’s competent in her job, she’s also broken in quite a few ways (her reclusiveness, the reason why she never lets anyone into her home, the mental disorder she’s been developing due to all the stress and lies piling up), and this made her touching; you can tell from the early chapters on that she’d endured trauma and has been coping and suffering all by herself, ashamed of her choices, then refusing to look at them, then not even realising anymore that she had a problem (one that is all the more important that all the things she hoards are materials that can’t get recycled to fuel the colony). Yet at the same time, it was difficult to relate to her and to really care about her, probably she keeps people at a distance. Also, due to the latter, the other characters never really came into focus: Nick remains ‘the guy who’s in because he had money’, Carmen is ‘that annoying religion-obsessed woman’, and so on.

The foundations of the colony, too, were of a kind that made me cringe. Let’s be honest, I’m not a religious person, and basing such a whole expedition on ‘finding God’ (with the potential consequence that, if the religious aspect is destroyed, everything else is, too) seemed, I don’t know, flimsy. Deeply, I believe that what a society needs is ethics, and not religion: the latter can too quickly devolve. Which makes Mack’s lies and fears sort of understandable, if not justified, considering all everything goes to the dogs when the lies are revealed (because they will be, that’s half the plot, after all). In the end, I found myself not caring whether the colony collapsed or not.

Still, I enjoyed the world-building: the author didn’t need to explain a lot for me to picture this world, with its self-sufficient, half-living houses, built at the foot of that bizarre organic city that will kill whoever gets too deep inside. And while I kind of guessed quickly what the big secret was (it got dragged for a little too long as well), trying to imagine what happened to the people in the other pods was also enjoyable. The writing style itself was pleasant, and I never struggled with it. Besides, it looks like there’s much diversity in that colony, but it’s never presented in a heavy-handed way (‘oh, look, people of colour!’). Ren as I perceive her is likely black or close to, the founder/pathfinder is Korean, several other are probably of Indian or Pakistani origin, it’s not ye olde average colony full of white men only, and it’s also not emphasised: these people all come from different backgrounds and areas of the world, and it’s normal, and it’s normal that it’s normal because why would you ever expect anything else? In other words, the book doesn’t feel the need to justify anything about it, which is great.

The ending is somewhat controversial. I think I liked it, in general; it feels like giving up, and it leaves quite a few things unexplained when it comes to God’s city, but it was strangely fitting (with Ren having to first strip herself of everything that was dragging her down, in order to understand what they had refused or been unable to see in the beginning). However, I also think that some parts of the plot were not sufficiently explained, or dealt with too quickly, especially the part about Sung-Soo; had this been better strung into the narrative, its impact would have been different.

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Planetfall is a science-fiction novel about a colony of people who have travelled to another planet to find a God prophesied by their leader. Years later, the people are settled above ‘God City’ but when a newcomer - related to others they believed lost in transit- arrives, he shakes things up in more ways than one and secrets are revealed.

This book is really intriguing, and it’s quite simply written and explained. There were a lot of things I really liked about it, such as the way the people lived in this interesting no-waste environment and how everything appeared to be 3D-printed and almost made of some kind of living, organic material.

Renata is a character who has a lot of different aspects to her, and I loved how she was slowly revealed. She’s a diverse character as well - she appears to be either gay or bisexual - and also suffers from some mental health issues such as extreme hoarding which appears to be related to anxiety and memories she wants to forget.

The mystery around Suh-Me, and how they came upon Atlas and found God City and the colony was really interesting, I just wish we got a bit more from it. I could have dealt with some more world building - I feel like I did have an idea of what God City and the colony looked like but I also felt like my imagining of it was probably wrong, and bit surreal. I also would have liked to know more about how the people came together to follow Suh-Me in the first place, how they were able to just get on a massive ship like the Atlas as well and find some random planet. It was all a bit weird.

There were parts of this that I enjoyed, but in the end it left me feeling fairly neutral and I’m not sure if I’ll read the sequel.

https://lynns-books.com/2018/03/19/planetfall-planetfall-1-by-emma-newman/
Planetfall is a book that I’m late to the party of which seems to be a recurring theme for me lately. But, late or not, I can say that I’m very glad I eventually arrived- I may have missed the speeches and the gift unwrapping but I managed to arrive in time for the cake. And wow, what a cake. It’s got multiple layers, the filling is character rich and the cherry on top of all of this is the emotional impact that the story delivered. To be honest this book hit me with all the feelings, which was as extraordinary as it was unexpected and certainly not something I anticipated.

The story takes place on a far away planet where a small colony of people seem to have finally established themselves a lifestyle that on the face of things seems perfect. A utopia. Their knowledge and creativity has taken them forward in leaps and bounds and they live in a self sustaining community that is environmentally friendly and has a low carbon footprint. But. Of course there’s a but. Below the surface the little community is built on a foundation of lies, lies that are finally threatening to break through the surface in the most dramatic way.

Renata Ghali (Ren) is the main protagonist of the piece and as the story starts she is called to a situation by the Ringmaster of the community to help with a possible problem. A lone traveller is approaching the colony. How he’s managed to survive by himself is a mystery in itself but also the fact that this stranger could reveal secrets about the community and the deceits that help to prop up their world is the real fear. Basically this stranger bears an uncanny resemblance to Suh-Mi – the person with the original vision about the planet and the one who created such strength of faith that people were prepared to brave the unknown to follow her. Suh-Mi has been, well, not really missing, absent, for many years. She is believed to be communing with God and each year she sends the residents a message through a seed pod within the walls of ‘God City’ – an alien structure that sits next to the colony and is something of an enigma to them all even now.

So, briefly. The sci-fi in the book is really pretty cool. I’m not really going to explain it in great detail, the people live in pods that are printed (using 3D printers). They’re covered in moss and have highly technical functions all connected to the technological advances of the time (you’ll have to forgive me but I couldn’t help but picture hobbit holes!). 3D printers help to maintain the lifestyle of the colony and a constant cycle of recycling to help reprint more necessities. It’s only very briefly explored. Basically, the people have lived here for many years and there way of life is now established. It’s not the main focus of the story, just like the space travel also isn’t involved. It’s only relevance is in the everyday lives of the people within the community. I like this. It’s an established place, Newman doesn’t try to explain nor does she over simplify – it just is what it is.

Then we have the community themselves and this for me is the winning element of the story because you can take a bunch of people off the planet earth in search of bliss but basically they’re still people, warts and all. That’s the beauty of this book. It’s character driven and the characters are flawed, not always likable but understandable. You also have to bear in mind that this is a small, close knit community. It feels like everyone is living on top of each other and to an extent they are. It’s the sort of small community where fear lives with the residents daily and anything that threatens their lifestyle could be the tipping point for the ‘mob’ to break out, pitchforks, torches and all.

The other winning element to this story is the mystery. Which is two fold – in fact threefold. There’s the mystery of what happened when everyone originally arrived on the planet. Only Ren and the ‘Ringmaster’ know of this secret and it’s becoming more and more difficult to keep under wraps. On top of that Ren seems to have other secrets of her own and the pressure of keeping so many things hidden is beginning to take its toll and finally there’s the mystery of the lone stranger. What is he planning? Is he friend or foe?

Underlying all of this is a really powerful look at mental health issues which escalate in a very dramatic way. Ren herself is suffering from a condition that she’s managed to keep hidden but her own paranoia, her almost ‘teetering on the edge of a panic attack’ and her privacy and self driven loneliness are all there for people to see. On a regular basis though people just don’t take the time to look. It takes the arrival of a stranger to drum up new tensions and act as a catalyst for exposure. And, wow, when that eventually happens it really does pack a punch. Oh Ren! I wanted to help her, I wanted to shout at the rest of the community to leave her alone. I just so felt for her. Such a powerfully written scene.

The only criticism I really have is the ending. It felt a little bit rushed and almost, well, it didn’t feel like the rest of the story. I can’t really describe why. And, I’m not entirely sure that I understand what really happened – or if I’m totally happy with it.

In spite of that one blip – and I can genuinely say it hasn’t spoiled the book for me at all – I thoroughly enjoyed this and was totally absorbed. I can’t wait to read more.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy received through Netgalley. The above is my own opinion.

I have come to expect certain things from science fiction literature, certain tropes that reoccur that act as a safety blanket, allowing the reader to slip seamlessly into the world created due to its similarities with other examples of the genre. Planetfall pulled this blanket out from under me as, instead of focusing on the more fantastical elements of the Science Fiction classification, it treated me to one of the most human novels I have read for a long time.

Humanity is flawed, I think we can all agree, but this is the first sci fi book I have read that explores a certain type of flaw within the human condition. Usually books of this ilk focus on greed, power, or even fear; yet Planetfall chooses something a lot more personal, and a lot more realistic.
The idea of secrets is a main plot thread throughout yet this is not what fascinated me about this book; the secrets aren't the flaw in the human condition, but the results caused by their psychological toll are. By focusing on this specific attribute I became incredibly absorbed in the actions of the main character, Ren. In real life I know someone who suffers in a similar way to that of Ren, but seeing that most tragic of human conditions transported into such a genre was an unusual and ultimately welcomed surprise.
Author Emma Newman handles the subject manner with an honesty that lesser authors lack, showing it in a truthful light, allowing us to see how it can come about. Despite used as a plot element it is done with grace, giving us the full picture needed to understand why such a thing often occurs.

Now don't get me wrong, the things we have come to love with science fiction are ever present, however by placing them in the background it gives the book space to explore the humanity of its main character. Instead of a full explanation of this world we are shown little bits of it, the characters guilt offering us snapshots, puzzle pieces that we slowly collect and put together throughout the length of the book.
Despite not getting all of the answers by the last page I didn't feel shortchanged, this book is obviously a part of a series yet, unlike other novels that have tried such a thing, I can happily take this as a stand alone entry; the vagueness of the characters surroundings and her interpretation of them presented well enough that I wasn't frustrated by the last page, instead looking forward to the next instalment.

So, even though this book sits firmly within the realms of science fiction, Emma Newman has created a wonderfully human tale that shows the damage that secrets can have on the human condition in a manner that is truthful and graceful.

This is a difficult one to put into words. On one level it’s a very traditional sci-fi. But from another perspective it’s a character driven look at personal loss, the needs of the few versus the needs of the many. It looks at colonialism and societal deceit. It’s really an extraordinary novel. Perhaps a little slow for my taste but never dull. Definitely one to cogitate on.

I liked this one a lot. There's something in it that taps into the SF I loved when I was thirteen (which we all know is the real Golden Age of Science Fiction), but that's not to say it's old fashioned* or childish. It's more to do with a sense of wonder and exploration, mystery and revelation. There's a background which is filled in with little drips of information scattered throughout the book, and I wanted to keep reading to find out more about what was going on. The ending goes up and on and out like all the best ones do, leaving you on the brink of a sequel that I kind of hope is never written** (I mean, come on, who remembers any of the Heechee books after Gateway?). There's a kind of pure quality about it, where you can tell it was written by someone who really loves SF, and I can totally get behind that. A good book.


*the narrator is a) a woman and b) hmm...I don't want to say mentally ill, let's go with neurodiverse. Trust me, there was no one matching either description starring in any SF book in the St Budeaux library in the late seventies. Yes, it feels traditional, but let's remember that tradition is an evolving, changing thing. And I speak as someone who willingly listens to folk music, dig?

**yeah, I know there are other books in this universe, but as far as I know they don't directly follow this one

Part exploration of mental illness, part mystery/thriller, all in a science fiction setting of an alien planet humanity travelled to and settled on. The novel relies on the device of a narrator who hides things from the reader and from herself, and that's a difficult feat to pull off. I'm not certain all the elements of the plot worked for me, or would hold up to closer scrutiny; some subplots appear to be abandoned, or at least not fully resolved (and I'm quite sad to see the sequels don't pick up where Planetfall leaves off). But that mattered very little to me while I was reading: it was one of the most unputdownable novels I've read in ages: I read it in two days, which is rare for me these days. I found the ending both breathlessly fascinating and a little disappointing (though not thematically; it works very well thematically), but the character exploration and the gripping plot were amazing.

I'll keep an eye out for more from Newman.

If you like your science fiction with a lot of character development, then you'll like this. Renata Ghali joins a space voyage with best friend lee Suh-Mi, who believes she has been sent a message from God that will lead humanity to him (in person, I assume). So they manage to find a multi-millionaire to finance the voyage, a ship and a ship full of people who want to come on the voyage (all with valuable skills, of course). Of course something goes wrong, and a big secret is covered up. Half of the passengers are lost during Planetfall, and even though they look for them, they can't be found. Until one of them, the last survivor, wanders up to their front door (so to speak).
We learn a lot about the main character, Ren: about the reasons why she has become the person she is (OCD is involved). There's also lots of world building and descriptions of the daily lives of the inhabitants of the colony. I don't know as the main character was particularly likeable - in fact I don't think any of them were really, but they were compelling. I honestly read this every chance I had. I was a little disappointed with the abrupt end, and I'm sure more could have been described and written here, but it seemed really rushed.
I will be looking out for the second in this series though. It isn't a sequel as such - they're separate stories, but I like Newman's style.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my copy of the book!

Planetfall is a sci-fi novel from Emma Newman, looking at the human colonisers of a new world, the public motives and private shames which brought them there, and what happens when submerged sins are brought up into the light.

Renata Ghalis is our protagonist in what, at first glance, appears to be a utopian world. Each of the inhabitants of this, the first human colony, live in balance with their environment. All of their collective and individual needs are met by a printer, which takes in raw material and dispenses whatever is required. Though the planet remains somewhat hostile – with flora and fauna hostile to the colonists – it seems mostly quiescent. It’s a place seemingly in harmony with itself. It’s also a settlement founded on faith; the expedition pathfinder, Suh-Mi, received the location of the planet in what she chose to see as a divine inspiration. Arriving, seeing that the planet exists and is safe for humanity seems to vindicate that faith. The colony is one of true believers, whose presence is itself a marker and a confirmation of what they believe. Though it’s not overly explicit, it’s interesting to see how the currents of realised faith move this community of scientists and explorers.

That said, there’s suggestion of a secret at the heart of the colony, something which may change the way that they think of themselves. Renata has some understanding of this, and she’s a fascinating protagonist – torn apart by the need to discuss the truth, for altruistic and selfish reasons, and the need to contain it in the spirit of maintaining the balance of the colony.

If this secret isn’t the centre of Renata’s being, it’s at least part of the core.Still, we’re shown other sides to her. There’s the genuinely imaginative, inspirational engineer, a woman who could end plagues, or solve hunger – but whose faith and love brought her to the stars instead. There’s love – and the delicate tracery of old feelings is alive and well here, a passion which mimics Abelard and Heloise in its transcendence and its prosaic nature. Rentata had a great love, to be sure, and one she was defined by – but the pain has been occluded, if not faded, and Renata has, if not moved on, at least moved sideways. She has, of course, also got her own problems – managing the waste that people discard, assessing what can be fixed and what should go into the printer. There’s an edge there, and a genuinely affecting exploration of obsession and its effects – romantic and practical , Renata had her romance, and it shaped her life for good or ill – and what she does as a consequence is itself an obsession of sorts, her character a portrayal of someone functioning in a society in which she exists with an incredible secret pain.

Renata is damaged and vulnerable, but also incisive, intelligent and pragmatic. That these characteristics balance out, and shape a sympathetic protagonist, one we can both sympathise and empathise with, is part of what makes Planetfall such a triumph.

Because it is, let’s be clear, a thoughtful, well characterised, high concept sci-fi novel. When something arrives to disrupt the carefully maintained stasis of the system Ren and her people inhabit, it very quickly spills out of control. There’s examination of the small community dynamics – as the village of civilised colonists becomes ever-more a Salem of the future. But it’s matched by a genuine and affecting search for truth That this search runs into the central mystery of the founding of the colony though, and there’s a dichotomy between the need for clarity and the requirement, in an environment which can kill, for stability. It’s one the text approaches carefully, and in a nuanced fashion, letting the reader make up their own mind – as much as Renata does.

Is it any good? Absolutely. If it isn’t full of laser-swords or rampaging alien hordes, it’s bursting with quietly affecting human moments, and some interesting discussions on the concepts of faith and the alien. This is a book which is prepared to tell you a story, and one which has its share of tension – but also one which wants you engaged, thinking through the dilemmas and struggles of its actors. If you’re in the mood for some uncompromisingly intelligent, highly engaging sci-fi, give it a whirl.

I'm going to start with talking about the setting, this story takes place in a colony built on another planet. What was interesting for me, was that the focus was far more on what the humans had built on the planet as opposed to the 'alien' landscape (with the exception of 'God's City' which is a kind of creepy semi-alive structure that features too heavily in the plot for me to explain it without spoiling anything). I liked the idea of a colony that relies on 3D printing everything, recycling the things they no longer need to be reprinted into other items. I thought this was a glimpse into what life on another planet might resemble, without going fully into the pages of description and degree level science that often turns me off a science fiction novel. 

But this book is not so much about what holds a group of people together on another planet as it is about the things that have the potential to drive them apart. It's there that the different levels of 'mystery' come in. There is Ren's personal life, as a character suffering from mental illness her struggle to conceal her problems from the rest of the colony was, in my opinion, well told. The mystery element as to 'devastating secrets' about the colony itself interested me less but was still a powerful plot device. 

I was fully on board with this book until the end. It's always difficult in this kind of book as, to be honest, the resolution of the story is far less important than everything that comes before. I won't spoil anything, but I will say that I was left feeling a little flat. Partly, I think, because it wasn't the ending that I was expecting, but also because it came seemingly out of the blue? It is foreshadowed a little throughout the book but not enough that you are fully anticipating that being even a potential ending. 

Should you read this? If you enjoy a bit of a weird science fiction book (this brought Our Memory Like Dust to mind) then I think this is worth a read. Equally, if you're thinking of writing something set in a colony on another world, this is a cool way to do it. 

My rating: 3.5 stars (rounded down to 3) 

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exhange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Very impressive and refreshing.. Ren lives with a secret that's gradually undermining her emotional stability and the arrival of a stranger triggers it's revelation, and disruption of new coming. built on cousin of a woman now trapped in a kind of limbo. Best friend Mac is clamping down on past secrets add we learn this group has escaped earth leaving everything behind to found this new colony .. it all goes wrong. Ren is fascinating, smart and self controlled until it all unravels. The author has created an entirely plausible world, that is imploding. The last section is almost poetic as she encounters levels never before achieved. Really stunning

This review will be posted on my blog, Foxes and Fairy Tales on 10 Feb 2018.
https://foxesfairytale.wordpress.com/2018/02/10/review-planetfall

Planetfall was absolutely nothing like I was expecting. Yes, it's set in a future where colonists have uncovered a new planet and 3D printing is a way of life, but this is the kind of science fiction which adds depth to the story rather than being the focal point of it.

Planetfall is actually equal parts psychological thriller -- the kind of film where there are lots of close-ups of the heroine's eyes and sudden camera angle twists -- and character study. It's a great thriller -- I read the whole thing with a gradually increasing sense of unease. As the story goes on we become less and less sure whether Renata Ghali, our heroine, is the real danger or if it's the people or world around her where the problem lies. The claustrophobic atmosphere is brilliantly captured by Newman. Planetfall is also a book about loss. Ren has lost a lot, we find out as the story progresses: her parents, planet, girlfriend, daughter and -- best friend and the love of her life -- Suh-Mi, the Pathfinder. Planetfall is a beautiful study of grief, grieving and denial.

The book has a wonderfully diverse cast. Ren herself is a British-Ghanan bisexual and mental health issues (which to my eyes, appeared to be anxiety and OCD, but I could be wrong). All of which seemed well handled.

The last 10% (or so) -- after the unveiling of Ren's secrets and the mysterious past -- takes a slightly strange turn which didn't really feel like it fit with the rest of the story. All in all, though, Planetfall had me hooked throughout and is the kind of story I think will stay with you.

Loved it! sci-fi that's not really about sci-fi at all. A brilliantly written examination of group dynamics, religious belief, the need for hope, and mental illness.

Planetfall – Emma Newman ***

It involves space travel to a distant habitable planet and a colony attempting to overcome the difficulties of creating a society on a new planet, so there are quite a few science-fiction areas of interest in Emma Newman's Planetfall. For a while too there are several intriguing threads relating to the nature of the organic structure of God's city that the travellers find on this strange world, as well as some guilty secrets, strange behaviour and unusual practices that seem to have developed in the short 22 year span that the new arrivals have spent on this new world. It's soon apparent however that the SF elements are going to take second place to the exploration of human behaviour, which itself can be an interesting SF theme, but you are still left with a feeling that Planetfall has gone off course two-thirds of the way through.

Certainly, the science that has permitted the Pathfinder Lee Suh-Mi and her team of acolytes to set out for some distant world is not particularly well defined, nor indeed is its location. The technical parts are secondary to the nature of the mission itself and what the colonists do when they get there. Ren has been a friend of Suh from her university days, so although she may not entirely be convinced in her friend's belief that God can be found on a distant planet and that she has been granted the vision to find it, she nonetheless has faith in her friend and is excited by the opportunity to do something extraordinary, and assists Suh as an engineer to build the spaceship Atlas.

Some years later there are some gaps in the story that need to be filled in, but it seems that Suh wasn't totally delusional. The space travellers made planetfall twenty-two years ago and now form a colony close to the mysterious structure of God's city. Much of the planet outside the boundaries of colony is hostile to human life, so there shouldn't be anyone out there, but one day a young man is rescued from outside. He tells them his name is Lee Song-soo, the grandson of Lee Suh-Mi, the only descendant left from the survivors of the missing pod of lost colleagues that no-one in the colony is terribly keen to talk about. With a new message due to arrive in a seed sent by his grandmother, who is communing with God, Song-soo's arrival, and even his existence, is quite a coincidence, and indeed, it's not long before the whole dynamic of the colony is destabilised.

The gaps in the story are genuinely intriguing and do have an otherworldly quality to them. Just what is God's city and why after spending a couple of decades there are the colonists no nearer discovering its nature, nor indeed - other than Ren - particularly curious about exploring it? The 'seeding" ritual is also just one of a number of other mysteries, secrets and intrigues evident in the strange behaviour of some of the inhabitants. What seems particularly suspicious is the story behind the lost landing pod, and in the sudden appearance of a young man who should not have been able to survive out there. There is also some interest in discovering how the colonists have adapted to life on this distant world, how they 'print' everything, from housing requirements to food, how the new society is structured and in general how human life adapts to a new environment.

Considering the origin of the mission, inevitably there is something of a cult aspect to the colony, and Newman realistically relates the development of this religious devotion to the Pathfinder and her communing with God's city to the human need of "frightened, insecure little things millions of miles from home" looking for something to give comfort, solace and meaning to their lives, particularly in such an alien and hostile environment. There's a sense that they haven't really developed, and are still holding on to old ways of thinking, weighed down by feelings of guilt, and that living in a bubble - almost literally - and falling back on worship of a "holy place" has prevented them from scientifically exploring and advancing as a society.

Strangely however, one particular obsessive characteristic seems to takes over the direction of the book in the final third and it threatens to push the genuine science-fictional and anthropological aspects of this behaviour into the background. Like Ren, the writing itself almost falls into this OCD-like anxiety, looking inward, not really pushing the ideas as far as they might go, and Planetfall becomes very frustrating for a long period when it dwells excessively on this point. Once it is finally pushed beyond breaking point however, everything suddenly leaps forward. Answers and revelations come thick and fast, and they generally satisfy. So much so that the notion of sequels - the first After Atlas trailed in a short excerpt at the end of this first book - does hold a great deal of promise.

Prior to reading “Planetfall” I’d heard it described as intelligent science fiction – having finished it I think that is probably the best way of putting it. Planetfall is at it’s very heart a character study examining the human condition – the fact that it is set on an alien planet just brings that home rather than setting it apart – in a beautifully emotional prose Emma Newman shows what happens when a community is both brought together and ripped apart.

Ren is a purely fascinating character – she pops from the page, the secret she is hiding slowly coming out into the light from her inner darkness – having lived a lie for a long long time, a stranger holds the key to unlocking her painfully hidden secrets. Around that we get the story of an epic quest to find “God” and an often dreamlike narrative that tells the tale of humans reaching out for answers into an unknown universe.

I loved it, immersed myself in it and cried like a baby at the end – Planetfall has a dual sense of feeling to it – the very entertaining and clever imaginative side, plus the very very human side. Themes of religious fervour, mental illness, friendship and love all mixed up with ingenious world building and sense of place make Planetfall both a page turner and a thought provoking social study.

Beautifully written, masterfully plotted and with an ending to touch the soul, Planetfall comes highly recommended from me.