The Dire Earth Cycle

The Dire Earth Cycle is a trilogy of science fiction novels written by American author Jason M. Hough.^[1] The series was simultaneously released in both the United States (Del Ray Books) and the United Kingdom (Titan Books).^[2] The first book in the series, The Darwin Elevator, was released in July 2013 and the following two books in the series, The Exodus Towers, and The Plague Forge, were released later that same year.^[3]

Reception for the The Darwin Elevator was extremely positive and the book placed on the New York Times Best Seller list.^[4]

Background

The series is based on a future post apocalyptic earth from the 23rd century. An empty space vessel arrives which foretells additional arrivals; the next being a ship which constructs the cord of a space elevator anchored on Darwin, Australia, labelling the unknown aliens as The Builders. Neil Platz, having discovered the first vessel in orbit, works out the future location of the elevator and establishes Platz Industries to exploit it; buying the land where it will anchor, building the NightCliff elevator base and climber infrastructure in Darwin and eventually establishing orbital colonies along the elevator cord. For a time Darwin thrives as it becomes the centre of space technology innovation.

Synopsis

The Darwin Elevator

The first novel is set years after a plague has afflicted most of the earth's population, dubbed subs, the disease turns people into zombie like sub-humans, apart from rare immunes and the refugees inhabiting the aura safe zone around the space elevator.

Humanity exists as refugees in Darwin, and technological space dwellers who occupy space stations and space farms constructed around the elevator. They live a fragile coexistence, Darwin exporting air and water for the space stations and the space farms feeding the ground population.

The lead character Captain Skyler Luiken, an immune, heads a team of immune scavengers who can survive outside the aura where they battle sub-humans while collecting items of value to trade, or for repairing the aging elevator complex and space stations. Skyler and crew become entangled in political plots and power games of Russell Blackfield, the head of the Nighcliff elevator base, and Neil Platz, 'owner' of the space stations. As the aura protection begins to fail, Neil Platz and scientist Dr. Tania Sharma discover that another Builders vessel is due to arrive.

Skyler eventually gets to the bottom of the aura failure but is unable to stop Blackfield assaulting the space facilities. The novel ends in a cliffhanger as the new Builders vessel has established another space elevator in South America, the characters escape from the Nightcliff coupe by relocating some space stations to the new elevator, where they find things are very different.

The Exodus Towers

Skyler and Tania have managed to build a colony around the new space elevator in Brazil, but things are far from over. They are soon attacked by a group of soldiers that are also immune to the plague and bent on taking over. Things are made worse by the existence of a new group of plague-infected humans that are enhanced by strange alien technology and by the presence of a religious cult back in Darwin, Australia.

The Plague Forge

In the third book Skyler must try to find a set of strange keys left behind by the aliens, all of which are spread throughout the world. In Africa Skyler manages to find several strange artifacts but also many humans warped by the plague. Throughout this Skyler continues to question what is the purpose of the aliens and why they have done all that they did.

Development

Prior to writing the trilogy Hough was greatly influenced by Joss Whedon's television series Firefly, as he had enjoyed the show during its limited run and the show's cancellation made him to want to write books with a similar theme.^[5] Hough did not immediately begin writing the trilogy, as he felt like "in novel form the genre had largely alienated all but the hard-SF reader".^[5] He began writing after reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War, which he stated showed him that the literary genre still had potential. While writing Hough tried to create a world that was "equal parts The Stand and 2001" that would be accessible to all readers.^[5] He chose to have the trilogy take place in Darwin, Australia, as he "needed a location near the equator, because otherwise a space elevator doesn’t work" and because the location had other things that appealed to him such as the name's connotations and its melting pot-esque nature.^[5][2]

Reception

Critical reception for The Darwin Elevator has been predominantly positive,^[6][7][8] and the book received positive reviews from SF Signal and Locus Online.^[9][10] Alan Cheuse praised the book and compared it positively to older books in the same genre such as Arthur C. Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise.^[11] Tor.com also had praise for the novel and commented that although the book did not fully live up to the blurb's promise of it being "a novel with the genes of a Firefly episode mixed with a John Scalzi novel" its action sequences and Hough's development of the "alien mystery and the story’s rising stakes" were extremely entertaining.^[12]

References

External links

• Official website