A man wakes up and doesn’t remember who he is or where he is. There are two other people near him, dead in weird beds. He quickly realizes he’s not on Earth and slowly remembers piece by piece. The three of them were the crew on a spaceship and he’s the only one still alive.

In flashbacks in San Francisco, we find that something is stealing energy from the Earth’s sun. They call it Astrophage. The sun’s output will drop a full percent over 9 years and in 20 years it’ll grow to 5%. Basically, an ice age right away. Crop failures, mass starvation. The sun is dying. Eva Stratt with the Petrova Taskforce meets with Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher. He also wrote a paper saying life doesn’t require liquid water. Her job is that of saving Earth. Stratt’s Taskforce has to find 3 crew members to go on the suicide mission since there won’t be enough fuel for the long ride home.

Ryland realizes he’s in a different solar system and his spaceship is using Astrophage for fuel. He’s meant to put info into beetle capsules to go back to Earth. Hopefully to save the planet. His journey there took him 3 years but Earth has experienced 13 years which is so freaking weird I can’t wrap my head around it. He sees an alien spacecraft near his own. Long story short he basically makes friends with an alien from a planet called Erid. Ryland names him Rocky since he looks like rocks. Rocky speaks in musical notes but somehow Ryland and him learn to communicate. Together they discover a natural predator of Astrophage, which they name Taumoeba. Ryland needs to send the Taumoeba back to Earth in the beetle capsules with data to stop the Sun from dying.

The book alternates between Ryland in the spaceship in the present and him in the past starting when he first learns of the Petrova problem. I have never taken more notes for a book review before. I was constantly taking notes. I’m definitely not a science gal so it made my brain hurt. Atmospheres, time dilation, etc. Sci-fi is not really my genre and I definitely won’t be choosing anything like this again anytime soon. Even with that said, I thought it was very very good. The suspense, the friendship between Ryland and Rocky, the tension with Stratt. All so good. And the movie was even better because obviously, Ryan Gosling.

5/5

See listing on Amazon:

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Thanks for your support in utilizing my links!