SPSFC4 Review: The City That Disappeared by Cheryl Peña

Blurb:

For the past ten years, the city of Khonsu, built on the foreign planet Reiddo, has sent a daily transmission home to Earth. Then one day, the transmissions stopped coming.

Rebecca Vance fears that something disastrous has happened to Khonsu. She and her friend Mark Wu, the nearest thing there is to an expert on Reiddo, convince the leadership at the AAIR (the American Agency for Interplanetary Relations) to investigate the city’s strange disappearance, eventually making their way to the site of the lost city itself. From the beginning, the expedition is plagued by problems. The city isn't where it's supposed to be. There are mysterious deaths among the team members. Rebecca has never trusted easily, but she must put aside her fears and doubts in a frantic attempt to find survivors before they are lost forever. The natives are friendly and seem anxious to help, but they aren’t alone. A deadly secret puts her own life at risk and possibly the lives of the members of her team. It may even spell doom for the entire planet she calls home.

Review:

This was the fourth on my list to read, and I did so on a train ride to go see a history museum in Heidelberg, which took roughly an hour and a half, and like the others, aside from one, was a fast read. But it’s still in my head. Like most books. It hit all the sci-fi spots, but Peña created something slightly more interesting than that, meshing multiple genres together. Like the other books in my pick, I went into this blind, and therefore was glad with some I picked, like this one, and disappointed with others, like my second read.

As per usual, if I had to sell this novel to a blob, I’d give them this blurb here:

“Rebecca Vance, concerned about a settlement on an alien planet, goes to investigate with her friend, Mark Wu, however things start going wrong. Care for more?”,

with a conspiratorial wink. Yet with only that blurb, so much of the book gets left out. And even with the aforementioned fast consumption of “The City that Disappeared”, my brain still has most of the book rattling around.

So, with that, let's take a look at Rebecca Vance and Mark Wu. Both are well rounded. And both are very cautious researchers. They grow a bit as characters, learn some new things, somewhat hook up, the usual. Until the end, and then it’s happy ever after with a tease for more to come out of the series. Both are solid characters, they had their morals and values tested, and I’d be sad if anything happens to them (hopefully nothing does in further books).

After that, there’s the plot. What a plot this book follows. At a first glance, it sounds like Dead Space 2, with our protagonists wandering through an abandoned area, with some verrryyy suspicious wildlife and flora hanging out in the said area, but then the blob gets involved. Don’t know what else I should call it, it’s a literal blob. With some fungal and bacterial properties that kill people. Or brainwashes them. Vance and Wu, after seeing what’s happening, bugger off the planet, head back home, and some shenanigans involving space cannons happen, some action and some resolution, and the book ends. Fun plot, was not expecting the second half of the book, some solid science-fiction. 

The world building is… well, we have earth, with a lot more technology, and they’re all united. Amongst other things, Earth has found alien life, and the planet has some interesting properties. Spaceships are a thing in this book, as well as massive communication lines, and scientists toying with an organism that is quite literally the pied piper of bacteria. Overall, good worldbuilding. A very optimistic one, at least in terms of our planet, but still, good setting for the rest of the novel.

Now, the only thing I’d probably have to say that negatively impacted my read through is the pacing… and the genre hopping from scientific research to space invaders. If the novel continued with the same pace as it did in the first half, and had the mystery play out, it would’ve felt less rushed to a conclusion. As for the genre hopping, that kinda happened midway through the book, and it was a somewhat sudden switch. It would’ve been nice if it stayed with one of the two genres throughout the book. But, that’s my view on it. It might be different for you, which is why I recommend you read it for yourself.

As always, if you’ve made it to the end of this review, thank you for reading it, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If not, don’t fret, we have plenty of reviews here on the blog, and if my memory serves me right, all sorts of genres are on display here, from litRPG to Romantasy , from epic science fiction to cozy fantasy. Considering this, here’s a random link to a review on the site for a novel that could fall into any sorts of genre. Enjoy!

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!