3.5
The Ninth Metal
ByPublisher Description
“[In THE NINTH METAL] debris from a comet drops a fabulously valuable new metal on Northfall, MN., turning it into a bloody, brawling boomtown. Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing.”
—Stephen King
“Take one part dystopia, one part sci-fi, two parts apocalypse, then ride them roughshod through a bleak and bloody western, and it still wouldn't get close to what Ben Percy does here, which is blow open the core of humanity's dark heart.”
—Marlon James, Booker Prize award-winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
“Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, Ben Percy—with his extraordinary and unrelenting eye—dishes up humanity like some kind of otherworldly blue plate special, at once deeply familiar and wildly new.”
—Margaret Stohl, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Caster Chronicles
“When Benjamin Percy publishes a novel, I have got to read that novel. The Ninth Metal continues his streak of thrilling, incisive genre bending goodness. It’s a sci-fi novel, a crime novel and a super-hero novel, too. Audacious and intelligent and exactly what I was dying to read.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling
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.
In this gut-punch of a novel, the first in his Comet Cycle, Ben Percy lays bare how a modern-day goldrush has turned the middle of nowhere into the center of everything, and how one family—the Frontiers—hopes to control it all.
—Stephen King
“Take one part dystopia, one part sci-fi, two parts apocalypse, then ride them roughshod through a bleak and bloody western, and it still wouldn't get close to what Ben Percy does here, which is blow open the core of humanity's dark heart.”
—Marlon James, Booker Prize award-winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
“Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, Ben Percy—with his extraordinary and unrelenting eye—dishes up humanity like some kind of otherworldly blue plate special, at once deeply familiar and wildly new.”
—Margaret Stohl, #1 New York Times best-selling author of the Caster Chronicles
“When Benjamin Percy publishes a novel, I have got to read that novel. The Ninth Metal continues his streak of thrilling, incisive genre bending goodness. It’s a sci-fi novel, a crime novel and a super-hero novel, too. Audacious and intelligent and exactly what I was dying to read.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling
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.
In this gut-punch of a novel, the first in his Comet Cycle, Ben Percy lays bare how a modern-day goldrush has turned the middle of nowhere into the center of everything, and how one family—the Frontiers—hopes to control it all.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Ninth Metal Reviews
3.5
jkumagai34
Created about 2 months agoShare
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“Well, this was a dark horse for the year. I walked in with no expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. Definitely a change of pace from my usual fantasy reads, it brings you into the real world with a speculative sci-fi twist. I realized later that he was the author of one of my favorite podcasts, which helped everything click at the end.”
Danita Brooks
Created 2 months agoShare
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“I received a free review copy of this book, but all opinions are completely my own.
I feel like I had some mixed reactions to this book. For the first 2/3 of the book I was thinking it would be 5 stars, but then the last 1/3 of the book just felt different to me and not quite as good, so I ended up giving the book 4 stars instead.
The overall concept behind the story is interesting - a comet passed near Earth, and then the debris left from the comet fell to Earth, leading to some strange phenomena around the planet. This book primarily concentrates on a town in northern Minnesota where a new metal, called omnimetal, was deposited.
The book follows several characters and storylines along the way. At first I wondered if I'd be able to keep everything straight, but then things started to intertwine more and fall into place. There's a lot happening along the way, and while some things I saw coming for a while, others kept me quite surprised. I found myself referencing back to earlier chapters to pick up clues I might have missed when I didn't have as much information. The book does a good job of mixing multiple genres - sci-fi, cops, murder, mystery, and even some feel of fantasy. The numerous characters are interesting and complex, though I didn't find myself particularly attached to any in the end.
I think the last 1/3 of the book took a turn to being a bit too unbelievable, even in this changed world, and that is what led to my lowered interest. Some of the storylines didn't feel completely finished to me and I still found myself asking questions that weren't really answered before the book ended. Given that this book is the first in a series, it's possible that the next books will reveal more, though it appears that the next book follows a new set of characters affected differently by the comet event.”
Ethan Leopold
Created 2 months agoShare
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LauraRhiannon
Created 4 months agoShare
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About Benjamin Percy
BENJAMIN PERCY has won a Whiting Award, a Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast. He is the author of the novels The Ninth Metal, The Unfamiliar Garden, The Dark Net, The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding; three story collections; and an essay collection, Thrill Me. He also writes Wolverine and X-Force for Marvel Comics. He lives in Minnesota with his family.
Other books by Benjamin Percy
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