Right from the beginning of Exile Machine, we’re injected into a place that’s unnatural. The lack of daylight and the struggle for warmth and permanence are disruptive to the circadian rhythm of our mind. Aric, the main character, waits beneath a scarred tree. Hacked and hewn for firewood, the tree is a symbol for everything the reader knows about how worlds work. How a post-apocalyptic story is supposed to be told.
And then something comes rushing forward. A black mass of dense air. Is it alive? Is it navigating the cold wind? Or is it along for the ride?
See a cough, catch a cold. Even a kid like Aric knows the saying. He ducks out of the way, not wanting to be touched by the malady that’s consumed so much of his world’s population. He looks up, sees the streak across the night sky, and pushes the thought of what he just saw out of his mind.
You should ask yourself, what kind of cold did he catch?
While the story focuses on the band of scavengers, the grawlix devices, and the pair of tidally locked planets, there’s a great deal more at play in this novel. The end of the story gives a glimpse into the cosmic scale of the events, but readers shouldn’t take their eyes off the cast of characters. Even when the planet is dying, someone gets exactly what they’ve always wanted.
