It began with a comet...
Ben Percy has been compared to Stephen King and Elmore Leonard, two authors whom you would not ordinarily put together but then, Percy’s sci-fi thriller is anything but standard fare.
Part western, part apocalyptic human study, Percy also throws in notes of the crime genre and, sticking close to the day job...some super-hero super styling.
That is to say that The Ninth Metal is a general-bending delight.
The town of Northfall, Minnesota will never be the same after the Earth spins through a passing comet’s debris and the ‘sky rained fire’.
The close encounter results in the creation of a new “omnimetal” which has properties that make it world-changing as an energy source...and a weapon.
The first book in his Comet Cycle, Ben Percy’s eye takes a wicked look at greed and power. He lays bare how a modern-day goldrush has turned the middle of nowhere into the center of everything.
I can well imagine an adaptation of this turning up on Netflix very, very soon.
The Ninth Metal is out now via Mifflin Houghton.
