THE NINTH METAL by Benjamin Percy

The premise of this book sounded good, that I would enjoy it. Unfortunately, I was unable to get "into" it. I've tried several times, at several different points in the book. Nothing really grabbed me.

I received a complimentary copy of #theninthmetal from #netgalley I was under no obligation to post a review.

A superhero origin story in disguise as a rough family drama.

Only, the superheroes are more anti-hero. There's really no likeable characters in this book. John, arguably, the main character is a murderer and his family is basically the local mafia. Stacie, the rookie cop, is a wholesome character but is changed by the events of the book. Victoria basically tortures a kid "for science" but knows it's wrong and wants to free him. There are other characters that come and go, all are driven to extremes because of the gold-rush atmosphere after a meteor crashes into their town and leaves masses of a new metal that has world-changing properties.

Speaking of the meteor - it's like if the vibranium meteor from the Marvel movie Black Panther crashed in Minnesota instead of Wakanda. The metal has many properties similar to that comic book metal, at least as portrayed in the MCU movies.

Hints sprinkled throughout the story indicate there may be more to the metal than just as a power source and creation of superheroes. Lovecraftian dreams, portals to elsewhere are just a part of the subtle world-building I hope is explored deeper in the sequel. I didn't realize this was the first book in a series until I looked it up on Goodreads. I'm intrigued enough by the world-building to read the sequel when it comes out.

Review eARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley.

Out of tragedy comes a new mining industry seeking to harvest the exotic ore found in the ruins of a Minnesota town after a meteorite shower destroys it. This metal has the capability of allowing great breakthroughs in energy production...and weapons.

One family seeks to dominate this new industry, ruthless and self-centered, but there's a lot of competition after this extraterrestrial ore.

I think this is a book that I will like better when the other volumes are available, carrying the story through its development and conclusion. Multi-volume adventures can take a while to engage my interest. I look forward to seeing what comes next.

For me, there were several elements I just didn't personally enjoy. I read quite a lot of hard scifi and this may have been part of my opinion. I felt as though it became somewhat predictable and a lot of the science was already covered in titles I've read previously. That in itself is not a great metric to rate a book upon, since it clearly depends on a back catalog of previous reads.

What I didn't enjoy was the voice if the author. It was easy reading, but there was something about the flow and the words and the 'ands' were literally everywhere. Things often ran on for paragraphs of lists and descriptions. I could see where some may like this style but it's not for me.


Interesting idea, wonderful cover, just didn't resonate with me.

This was a great book one of a series. I felt like it set up the premise very well, and left the reader dying to know where we go from here. I really enjoyed reading it, as I do with most speculative fiction. This is a great addition to my lengthy list of books that make your brain imagine what the future holds. Can't wait for book #2!

Good overall. I got a little bored at times, but enjoyed some of the ideas and technology even though they played a somewhat minor role. Story is above average and will probably appeal to most sci-fi fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

A comet has left deposits of a new mineral called omnimetal on Earth. The mineral is a source of power, has superior conductive ability, is addictive if smoked or snorted and has had an unusual impact on some of the people who were exposed to it. Two mineral companies are warring over control of the large omnimetal supply in Minnesota. A large deposit is controlled by a weird cult that refuses to sell. At the same time, the Defense Department is conducting extreme experiments on a 15 year old boy in order to determine exactly how useful omnimetal might be to the military.

This is the first book of a three book cycle about the comet, but the story here is complete and doesn’t end in a cliffhanger. A lot of this book was comprised of family/crime drama involving the ruthless Frontier family and their secrets. The family is more connected to omnimetal than anyone knows. There are murders, crooked cops, violent encounters and a police investigation. There are also thriller elements.

I was expecting more science fiction, however the origins and properties of omnimetal were not very well explained. In particular, there was one event involving the cult which had no basis in anything else that was described in the book. Maybe omnimetal will be fleshed out more in the next book. I am intrigued enough to want to read it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Nice job of characterization. written so that the story moves well and the concept has a good feel to it. An enjoyable read from the first page. I enjoyed it as will any SF reader.

3.5*s. I really enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book; I felt rather let down by the last third. It was the character building that won me over and the world-building that lost me. There was huge potential for change and transformation, but we only see a little and hear of a little more. Perhaps this is something Percy will build upon in the next book. I'd be tempted to read it.

---- 'Take one look and you think you're in a piny postcard advertising Vactionland. Blink a few times and you realise you're in the middle of an alien-ore geopolitical crisis.' ----

A new gold-rush has come to America, a meteor shower depositing a new metal - omnimetal or the ninth metal - on Minnesota, taking the state from backwater sticks to boomtown. With each gram worth millions, those who own the land are in the money and two companies - local Frontier Metal and Texan Black Dog Energy - are ready to cash in.

---- "There's a fight going on here. A fight for Northfall, guess you could say. You properly already got a sense of that. It's like Deadwood downtown. It's like the gold rush meets the oil rush meets the height of the steel boom in the Iron Range. It's fucking bananas. Forget the Wild West. This is the Wild North. [...] Northfall's ours - right, Johnny? It always has been. The Frontiers have kept his place alive as long as we've been alive." ----

John Frontier thought he'd got out of the rat race when he left Minnesota five years ago, but he's been lured back by a family wedding and his family are determined to make him stay. I thought I understood John - the good son of a poisonous family who manages to get up and get out - I was wrong. And then I was wrong again, and again and again. Percy delights in sprinkling just enough clues for you to lead yourself astray and then gently (and not so gently) showing you the error of your ways. I loved it. I never knew quite who to root for or what would happen next.

Alongside John, we hear from from a number of other characters. His old sweetheart, who stuck with him through thick and thin and then remarried when he abandoned her; Stacie Toal, a local policewoman who's beginning to realise the police might not be the peacekeepers she always imagined them to be; Victoria, a physics professor hired by the Department of Defence to investigate the new metal and who's now in over her head; Yesno, the foster son of Ragnar Frontier who will do anything to help; and more. To start, we're given a new point of view with each chapter and I was surprised by how well it worked. Percy has a wonderful way of describing people, focusing on a character's more unusual traits and so giving us a far more rounded impression of the character as a whole. It reminded me a little of Maggie Stiefvater's writing in this regard.

---- 'It wasn't the apocalypse, but it was a taste of it.' ----

With a new metal to play with, this book could have gone far and in all sorts of directions. It started well with a bullet train and then just gave up on wider world-building and resigned itself to being a turf-war with some superhero elements and suggestions of the extraterrestrial. We're told again and again the value of the metal and its possibilities but all they seem to do with it is smoke it or wear it as jewellery (Hawkin, of course, aside, but I'll be spoiling it if I say more). It felt like a waste.

And then the end. Whilst the start felt nicely understated and reasonably realistic, the book gets more and more over the top and unlikely as it goes. The end felt rushed, with new elements introduced and whole scenes (which I'd consider pretty key) just skimmed over. All of a sudden, Percy's history of comic-book writing became clear.

Overall, I thought the book was well-written, with some fantastic twists that kept me turning the page. It's not as dark as I was expecting it to be and I was grateful for that. Will I read the next book? Maybe.

This book was a ton of fun, and honestly I like sci fi that takes you out of this world a bit but not too much. It seemed like it could believably happen to me if that makes sense. I recommend this one and think it will be one that gets talked about a ton.

This was my second book by Benjamin Percy and I liked The Ninth Metal but I expected something else. I liked the parts about the boy and John and I guess I hoped the story would revolve more around them and their abilities instead of a police investigation and family drama.
I will give the next book a shot becuase I hope more will be revealed about them.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy.

I really enjoyed this book by Benjamin Percy. It was the first book I've read from him but won't be the last. The book sucks you in from the first chapter and doesn't let go. While it is a sci fi novel, its not too far in the future as to be unbelievable . Also enjoyed no unnecessary harsh language.
thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

This book is great!! I confess that I had never heard of Benjamin Percy before reading this book, but he is clearly a very talented and creative writer. While this is definitely a Sci-Fi and fiction book, it also has an element of realism at its core that helped ground it for me, and made it far more enjoyable. The characters were very well written and believable. I particularly enjoyed the complicated family dynamics that the author explores and the constant moral grey area that virtually every character finds themselves in at some point. There are also several twist and turns in this book that surprised me, and kept me hooked the whole way. If I had one criticism, it would be that I wish more of the mysteries explored in this book were explained. While I fully understand that this is book 1 of a series, and it wouldn't do to give too much away to soon, I still wish more would have been revealed about the deeper mysteries hinted at in this book. If anything I simply wish the book was longer! I devoured it in one day, and now I just want more. This is always the mark of a good author in opinion. This book is well deserving of it's 5 star review and I cant wait for the next book in the series to find out what happens next.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC!

When I saw a new book by Benjamin Percy, I jumped all over it! I have enjoyed most of his previous works and I will say that overall I liked this book. The premise is super interesting and part of me hopes that he will explore tidbits from this book in other books. The idea that pieces of a comet effect earth in different ways and how this changes people is pretty creative and I really thought all of that was great. In fact, the premise carries a lot of this story for me. That being said, this book just didn't seem as well written as his others? Granted, this isn't due to be published until June so maybe it'll go back through the editing process again. I'm not sure if it was reading it on kindle but there were parts that were very confusing. The wedding and post wedding scenes as well as the climax in the diner were incredibly disjointed for me. I read each of them several times just trying to figure out who was doing what and where and didn't really figure it out with either one. I also just sensed this wasn't as polished because certain things kept being brought up again and again. Like we get it, Yesno has a hump. Do we need to bring it up every time we see him? Same thing with Talia and her beefy body. I just wish the characterization had been fleshed out more. Listing off a bunch of traits about each character in random paragraphs does not constitute characterization for me. This was done for nearly every character and was pretty much the extent of their character development which left them feeling not nearly as three dimensional as I'd hoped. That being said, I enjoyed this book and I will continue to auto-request/buy Benjamin Percy's work in the future. If you like unique sci-fi works, give this one a shot! 3. 5

I enjoyed Percy's book. The plot was interesting and kept me engaged until the end. It's an original scif plot.

A page turning thriller that is of this world but at the same time not. After the first chapter this book had its fangs in me and I could not put it down.

A story of many different individuals in a world that has been turned upside down by the arrival of a new alien metal that quickly becomes more valuable than diamonds and gold. No one really understands the full potential of the mysterious metal, or of its origin. Those who work closely with it are affected by it immensely, those who control it are the most powerful individuals in the world. See how all of their stories unknowingly intertwines and you receive key bits and pieces through each characters narrative. There are a few transitions in the ARC I received that could use a little work, like when transitioning a scene to maybe include a indicator, other than that, amazing read! I cannot wait for the release of the second book in The Comet Cycle!

The Ninth Metal by Benjamin Percy is a superbly written book that will hold the reader's attention. well worth the time spent!

"The Ninth Metal" is a trip into a speculative universe that is in one sense very recognizable and in another sense entirely unrecognizable. The book is at once science fiction, but also contains old themes of warring Hatfield and McCoys and of the prodigal son returning to his hometown, but finding himself a stranger in a strange land.

The world suddenly changed forever when meteors rained down from the sky, meteors so large that they obliterated big things, particularly in the economically distraught north Minnesota iron range. And it is there where the greatest gold rush in history takes place. Omnimetal, the Ninth metal, is more valuable than gold. It creates energy and powers trains, like the one John returns on to find mining camps everywhere and warring family compounds.

The author starts the reader slowly, developing his characters with true depth. Each of them have lived and hurt. But hang on to your hats because you have no idea what's coming. Cause everything is changing.

This is the first novel in a planned series with at least two more on the way. Bring them on.