Having first been introduced to Benjamin Percy in the world comics, the writer has a gift for telling stories in many different mediums. One of his better series of novels is The Comet Cycle, a science fiction series featuring a world changed by a comet’s debris, which introduces a new metal and alien fungus, blending elements of cli-fi, thriller, and superhero genres.
The Comet Cycle includes three novels, The Ninth Metal (2021), The Unfamiliar Garden (2022), and finally, The Sky Vault (2023).
The Ninth Metal
While I won’t say that I am not a fan of Science Fiction novels, it’s just not a genre I gravitate towards on a regular basis, but when one jumps out at me it can be such a fun time. Benjamin Percy‘s The Ninth Metal, and The Comet Cycle stories, did just that. Gripping me from the start and never letting go.
It began with a comet…At first, people gazed in wonder at the radiant tear in the sky. A year later, the celestial marvel became a planetary crisis when Earth spun through the comet’s debris field and the sky rained fire.
The town of Northfall, Minnesota will never be the same. Meteors cratered hardwood forests and annihilated homes, and among the wreckage a new metal was discovered. This “omnimetal” has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source…and a weapon.
John Frontier—the troubled scion of an iron-ore dynasty in Northfall—returns for his sister’s wedding to find his family embroiled in a cutthroat war to control mineral rights and mining operations. His father rightly suspects foreign leaders and competing corporations of sabotage, but the greatest threat to his legacy might be the US government. Physicist Victoria Lennon was recruited by the Department of Defense to research omnimetal, but she finds herself trapped in a laboratory of nightmares. And across town, a rookie cop is investigating a murder that puts her own life in the crosshairs. She will have to compromise her moral code to bring justice to this now lawless community.
It’s possible that The Ninth Metal hit so hard for me because its not just a simple sci-fi tale, its a blend of sci-fi, western, crime, and superhero all in one spectacular novel. The story is unique, entertaining and a moments truly cinematic. While Percy attempts to tackle a lot in the first novel in The Comet Cycle, and at moments I can see what that would confuse some, but I just couldn’t put the book down.
The Ninth Metal lays a fantastic foundation not only for the rest of this book, but the overall series as a whole. Putting into perspective the meteor shower, meteorites crashing to earth, and what unfolds five years after the sky falls.
Benjamin Percy’s The Ninth Metal is a spectacular novel that is imaginative and entertaining, blending many different genres. Percy lays the groundwork for what’s to come in future stories.
The Ninth Metal is available at bookstores everywhere from William Morrow. The audiobook, narrated by Julia Whelan, is available via Libro.fm!
The Unfamiliar Garden
When reading a book in a series of novels authors can go a few different directions, one is to base a book in a world with the previous novel, but not a direct sequel. This is what Benjamin Percy does with The Unfamiliar Garden, the second novel in The Comet Cycle series. Taking place in the Northwest, again five years after the comet strike and touching on the events in Northfall, Minnesota, but with new characters and different challenges.
The night the sky fell, Jack and Nora Abernathy’s daughter vanished in the woods. And Mia’s disappearance broke her parents’ already fragile marriage. Unable to solve her own daughter’s case, Nora lost herself in her work as a homicide detective. Jack became a shell of a man; his promising career as a biologist crumbling alongside the meteor strikes that altered weather patterns and caused a massive drought.
It isn’t until five years later that the rains finally return to nourish Seattle. In this period of sudden growth, Jack uncovers evidence of a new parasitic fungus, while Nora investigates several brutal, ritualistic murders. Soon they will be drawn together by a horrifying connection between their discoveries—partnering to fight a deadly contagion as well as the government forces that know the truth about the fate of their daughter.
Where The Ninth Metal deals with the toughness and strength of a new metal introduced to Earth, The Unfamiliar Garden goes with softer and more delicate side of things. Again, Percy blends science fiction with other genres such as mystery, thriller, horror, and a touch of family drama, while still holding true to his storytelling started in the first book.
I found myself intrigued by the characters introduced in this second story, but found the metal more interesting. That being said, the characters are strong in The Unfamiliar Garden. We get unique characters with real world struggles, in addition to the world changing drastically, basically overnight.
The Unfamiliar Garden by Benjamin Percy is creepy and imaginative. A thought-provoking and fast-paced story which adds to the world building set in The Ninth Metal. While this is a sci-fi thriller, its the family storyline that really set in for me along the way.
The Unfamiliar Garden is available at bookstores everywhere from William Morrow. The audiobook, narrated by Will Collyer and Mela Lee, is available via Libro.fm!
The Sky Vault
I tend not to read books in a series directly in a row if I can help it. Giving myself a break between each installment allows my brain to breathe a bit. But with The Comet Cycle, I couldn’t help me continue reading and crushed all three books in a row, most recently The Sky Vault. The final book in the series by Benjamin Percy, well at least published so far, The Sky Vault did not disappoint.
The comet, Cain, came from beyond our solar system, its debris containing elements unknown. Now, in the isolated region of Fairbanks, Alaska, the skies shift and stretch as an interstellar dust cloud seeds the atmosphere. When a plane shudders its way through pulpy, swirling, bruise-shaped clouds, lit with sudden cracks of lightning, the sky opens and the aircraft vanishes…but only for a minute.
When the flight lands, everyone on board and in the community will be changed forever. Chuck Bridges, a local DJ and conspiracy theorist, was on board and later reported dead to his family, but not before proclaiming that something inside the clouds was speaking to him. Now his son, Theo, must chase down answers to the mystery his father unlocked. He’ll find himself at odds with Sophie Chen, an agent with a shadowy employer desperate to secure the black box from the airplane, as well as Rolf Wagner, a widowed sheriff investigating a series of increasingly strange and unsettling reports. And then there is Joanna Straub, a contractor reconstructing a top-secret government lab active during WWII and shuttered deep within the nearby White Mountains.
The answer to the comet’s origin is about to be unveiled, and its impact on Earth is more treacherous and sublime than humanity could imagine.
While The Ninth Metal deals with omnimetal, the aftermath of the comet, and a metal-flesh hybrid in Northfall, Minnesota and The Unfamiliar Garden sees the story head to the Northwest and a the effects on planets with a part human, part planet being. Now, we get things from another dimension in The Sky Vault. What Percy does with three books in one series is amazing. I love the connective tissue of the comet’s effects on the world, but three entirely different, and mostly self-contained tales.
This book answers a few questions posed by the first two novels, but also left a lot to be answered. This gives me the feeling the third novel in the series may not really be the final installment. We can only hope.
Benjamin Percy’s The Sky Vault is a thrilling science fiction story that continues to the lore of Cain. A very cinematic reading, The Sky Vault fits right in with the rest of The Comet Cycle, but also stands out in its own way.
The Sky Vault is available at bookstores everywhere from William Morrow. The audiobook, narrated by Michael David Axtell, is available via Libro.fm!
