The Ninth Metal
The Comet Cycle Book 1
Published on 13. January 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-4736-9008-0 (ISBN)
Description
'Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing' STEPHEN KING
It might have been the end of days. Instead it was the beginning of something shockingly new.
They called the comet Cain, after the astronomer who discovered it. It passed 500,000 miles from Earth. We were spared planetary destruction and granted a light show like no other.
But, one year later, Earth span into the debris field left by the comet and a meteor storm struck. Roads, buildings and even a small town were annihilated.
The meteors impacted heavily around the dying mining town of Northfall, Minnesota. It was the night of a mysterious double murder, the deed overshadowed by the discovery that the burning remains of the rock contained an unknown substance more precious than gold: the Ninth Metal. And with that discovery, everything changed.
Benjamin Percy is an award-winning novelist, celebrated comic books writer and author of the Wolverine podcast. The Ninth Metal is the first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe.
Praise for The Ninth Metal:
'Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, 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, No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Author
'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 winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
'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 might have been the end of days. Instead it was the beginning of something shockingly new.
They called the comet Cain, after the astronomer who discovered it. It passed 500,000 miles from Earth. We were spared planetary destruction and granted a light show like no other.
But, one year later, Earth span into the debris field left by the comet and a meteor storm struck. Roads, buildings and even a small town were annihilated.
The meteors impacted heavily around the dying mining town of Northfall, Minnesota. It was the night of a mysterious double murder, the deed overshadowed by the discovery that the burning remains of the rock contained an unknown substance more precious than gold: the Ninth Metal. And with that discovery, everything changed.
Benjamin Percy is an award-winning novelist, celebrated comic books writer and author of the Wolverine podcast. The Ninth Metal is the first of a cycle of novels set in a shared universe.
Praise for The Ninth Metal:
'Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, 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, No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Author
'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 winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf
'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
Reviews / Votes
Praise for THE NINTH METAL * : * 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 * Ben Percy will serve you the impossible-and by the end of every chapter, you will believe it and feel it as truth. Whether you choose to think of him as the Elmore Leonard of rural Minnesota or the Stephen King of Science Fiction, 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, No. 1 New York Times Bestselling Author * 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 winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf * The plot is dynamic, featuring multiple viewpoints as well as corporate malfeasance, spooky cults, and family drama. This sounds complicated, and it is, but all of these moving parts work together due to strong characterization, especially the cheery rookie police officer Stacie Toal. The action is vivid without being too graphic, contributing to an overall cinematic feel. While the novel comes to a satisfying conclusion, this is the first book in an anticipated trilogy * Booklist * Debris from a comet drops a fabulously valuable new metal . . . turning it into a bloody, brawling boomtown. Great characters, fine writing, totally engrossing * Stephen King * Wildly entertaining * Publishers Weekly * A propulsive thriller that drops plenty of hints about a bigger picture to be discovered. Fast-paced and gripping, this will make you eager for the next in the Comet Cycle * Sci-Fi Bulletin * Percy's novel is a clever amalgamation of speculative fiction and family drama, of supercharged characters and regular folk, encompassing various viewpoints in a highly cinematic narrative. * Star Tribune * There's mystery and intrigue and a heavy dose of the Midwest in this book, which bills itself as a modern gold rush * Science Friday * The engine of the novel, first of a trilogy, has a lot of moving parts but Percy keeps them all meshing nicely together with sinewy prose and strong characterisation * Financial Times * It's a fast-paced book, full of gritty drama, surprising revelations that don't stray too far into incredulity, complex character dynamics and multiple layers of plot. It was great fun to read and had a real meteoric impact * ParSec * Reads like Stephen King, mixed with Lee Child with a dash of Marvel's Jessica Jones. I couldn't put it down * Concatenation * There's mystery and intrigue and a heavy dose of the Midwest in this book, which bills itself as a modern gold rush * Science Friday *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Hodder & Stoughton
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 193 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
220 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4736-9008-0 (9781473690080)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2021
1st Edition
Hodderscape
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Benjamin Percy is the award-winning author of the novel, The Wilding (forthcoming from Graywolf, September 28, 2010), as well as two books of short stories, Refresh, Refresh (Graywolf, 2007) and The Language of Elk (Carnegie Mellon, 2006). Publishers Weekly gave The Wilding a starred review, saying "Percy's excellent debut novel...digs into the ambiguous American attitude toward nature as it oscillates between Thoreau's romantic appreciation and sheer gothic horror... It's as close as you can get to a contemporary Deliverance."
Percy's honors include a Whiting Writers Award, the Plimpton Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Esquire (where he is a regular contributor), Outside, Men's Journal, the Paris Review, Orion, Tin House, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and many other magazines and journals. He teaches in the MFA program at Iowa State and can be found online at benjaminpercy.com.
Percy's honors include a Whiting Writers Award, the Plimpton Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories. His fiction and nonfiction appear in Esquire (where he is a regular contributor), Outside, Men's Journal, the Paris Review, Orion, Tin House, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and many other magazines and journals. He teaches in the MFA program at Iowa State and can be found online at benjaminpercy.com.