Welcome to my weekly segment, Waiting on Wednesday, where I look at upcoming books that I am planning to order and review in the next few months and which I think I will really enjoy.  I run this segment in conjunction with the Can’t-Wait Wednesday meme that is currently running at Wishful Endings.  Stay tuned to see reviews of these books when I get a copy of them.  For this week’s Waiting on Wednesday, I look at The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy, an awesome upcoming science fiction novel that I think is going to be a lot of fun to read.

Benjamin Percy is a fantastic author who is probably best known for his contributions to the comic book world.  Over the last few years, Percy has helped write intriguing series for both DC and Marvel Comics, including stints on Green Arrow, Teen Titans, Nightwing, X-Force and Wolverine.  Percy has also written several novels which generally have a science fiction twist to them.  These books include The Wilding, Red Moon, The Dead Lands and The Dark Net, each of which sound rather intriguing and cool.  I have read and enjoyed a couple of Percy’s comics recently and it will be interesting to see what his full-length novels are like.

Percy’s next project, The Ninth Metal, is another compelling science fiction novel, which is currently set for release on 1 June 2021.  The Ninth Metal will serve as the first book in The Comet Cycle, which will showcase the complex aftermath of a meteor strike in rural Minnesota, which not only brings destruction but opportunity as a rare metal is deposited in the ground.  This leads to a new gold rush, as everyone attempts to claim the new mineral for themselves to gain power and money.  I really like the sound of this fascinating and cool new book and I cannot wait to see what chaos and destruction this new resource causes for the residents of Northfall, Minnesota.

Synopsis:

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 Defence 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.