First published 2021. Hodder, paperback, 2022, pp 290, c.100,000 words.
When I first saw the title of this book I had no trouble naming considerably more than nine metals. In the story it is explained that this new comet-born substance is a noble metal. However there is no clear definition of a noble metal, with counts ranging from three to fifteen according to Wikipedia. Further, as anyone with a glancing encounter with chemistry will know, there are no gaps in the periodic table into which a new metal might fit. So this is not science fiction but fantasy.
The story is set in a contemporary world, but one in which the Earth has had a close encounter with a large comet, and then, a year later, passes through the remnants of the comet’s tail, which rains down a storm of meteors, a considerable number of which are huge lumps which cause devastation to a remote small town in northern Minnesota in the USA. Soon it is realised that the debris contains the ‘ninth metal’ – omnimetal – and that it has amazing properties that make it enormously valuable. The gold-rush is on.
The story is reminiscent of Dallas, the TV show that ran from 1978 to 1991. It even has a similar opening with a son returning home after a time away. His family are local tycoons, and deeply dysfunctional. The plot follows the same formular: the good guy is about to win, but then suddenly, the bad guy turns the tables (end of episode). The drama is amped up from even Dallas levels. There is a lot of the usual American bang-bang violence, but anything really nasty happens off stage. Some parts come across like a superhero story of the darker variety like Batman, which is heavily referred to towards the end, so no coincidence. Also typically American – something that would be unusual in a European author’s book – is the amount of religion that goes on from the Lutheran world of northern Minnesota to the weird cult that builds up around the metal, which can also be consumed as a drug.
Percy writes competently. The characters are well drawn, even if from a rather stock stable: the good female cop, the aging patriarch, the Texan rival with his Stetson, etc. However they are mostly given effective interiority which lifts them from being two-dimensional cartoon figures. We get to root for some of them and hiss others, although sometimes are hisses and boos turn out to be misplaced. He manages his character and plot twists efficiently. His dialog is sparse and realistic. The story bowls along entertainingly, if sometimes confusingly with at least three major strands on the go simultaneously.
At one point he writes ‘She sits on her couch, but given her size, it might well be a chair.’ [p118] This is remarkably similar to a sentence in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010). Did Percy absorb the idea from Egan, or is it a common way of referring to obese people in America?
This is intended as a fast-paced, contemporary thriller and if you are prepared to put your brain in neutral, then this might be suitably diverting. Sometimes it all seems a bit juvenile so perhaps the book is aimed at what the publishing industry call the Young Adult market (and what the rest of us call teenagers.) The second volume, in what is planned as a trilogy, has just been published. I won’t be rushing to buy it.
© William John Graham, August 2022