This extraordinary debut takes place on a spaceship, run by ten astronauts. Six of the crew are teenagers. They’ve been selected from thousands of applicants, given years of specialist training, and pitted against other students in a survival-of-the-fittest race to the top. Now they’re ready for a mission that will see them leave their entire lives behind. The journey to the planet of Terra Two will take twenty-three years, with no guarantee of what they’ll find when they get there. This is a coming-of-age story; a contemplative, dystopian look at the world in which we live, and the place young people have in it. I’ve never read anything like it before or since.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet meets The 100 in this unforgettable debut by a brilliant new voice.
A century ago, scientists theorised that a habitable planet existed in a nearby solar system. Today, ten astronauts will leave a dying Earth to find it. Four are decorated veterans of the 20th century’s space-race. And six are teenagers, graduates of the exclusive Dalton Academy, who’ve been in training for this mission for most of their lives.
It will take the team twenty-three years to reach Terra-Two. Twenty-three years spent in close quarters. Twenty-three years with no one to rely on but each other. Twenty-three years with no rescue possible, should something go wrong. And something always goes wrong.
'An ambitious 500-page coming-of-age blockbuster . . .Oh is excellent at portraying the aching sense of loss on a one-way trip to the stars' Guardian
'A tightly wound, emotional epic that asks important questions about humanity, goodness, belief, technology, love, friendship, and duty. At what point is grabbing hold of one’s destiny ultimately an attempt to escape some other? Like all great writers, Temi Oh refuses the easy answer, instead ruminating upon the question itself. This novel is a brilliant, beautiful debut. Reading it will change your heart.' Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms
