Heartbreaking, terrifying, gripping and fascinating: an excellent mix of sci-fi, family drama, and thriller.
Excellent storytelling and plot development, fascinating world building, fleshed out characters.
Even if it's the second in a series it can be read as a stand-alone.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This series is so good and damn easy to read; it's entertaining and thoughtful and has such good characters and interesting ideas and with all that, it's just a pleasure to read. My eyes just fly across it. It reads like a movie.

It's a mystery, sci-fi, apocalyptic, family ties tale. Like the first, it is a little bit of everything, and has really interesting, real, believable characters.

But while the first book was one of the best I'd read this year, I was really pleased with the different spin this one took: the same world and epic meteor event, but with new characters, location, and a totally different threat. It works well.

And I'm a sucker for invasive alien fungi.
Definitely reading everything Percy has written now.

This book was so weird! It starts fast paced and exciting with the apocalypse coming, but then it turns out the apocalypse drags and also maybe there's alien mushrooms?!
Also, there's a murder mystery serial killer side plot with a cult! AND THEN there's a whole other plot about a cop's missing daughter that's set up like it's it own mystery series(which I kinda want actually). Oh also remember the weird mushrooms?! Yeah.

That's the "no spoilers" plot review.
If you're intrigued you should read this because it's got all that and even more! Just also know the end comes fast.

In book 2 of the Comet Cycle Series, Professor Jack Abernathy took his eight year iold daughter Mia with him when he went out the night the sky fell. He was doing research out in the woods, looking for mushrooms. She got bored and he gave her his phone to play on and a candy bar and promised it would be no more than 15 more minutes. Thirty minutes later he finishes up, looks for Mia and finds the candy wrapper and phone, but no Mia. Her disappearance destroys his marriage with Nora, and she buries herself in her work as a homicide detective. Five years later. Jack uncovers evidence of a new parasitic fungus, while Nora investigates several brutal, ritualistic murders Soon they will be drawn together by a horrifying connection between their discoveries—partnering to fight a deadly contagion as well as the government forces that know the truth about the fate of their daughter.
This book was just as fast-paced as the first book, but read more like a horror story, I thought. I have to say, I personally enjoyed the first book more, but they were both really good. You do need to read these in order to understand the full scope of what is going on. This is definitely a series you do not want to miss. I highly recommend it for all sci-fi/fantasy fans out there.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the free copy of this ARC in exchange for honest feedback**

I’m going to start this review by saying go pre-order this book right freaking now!! This is book #2 in The Comet Cycle by Benjamin Percy. It takes place in the same universe as the first book, The Ninth Metal, but this could easily be read as a stand alone.

If you read my review on The Ninth Metal, I was slightly let down by the lack of “science,” in that the book mostly explored the social and economic impacts of a meteorite crashing to Earth, and leaving behind a rare metal called Omnimetal. This book, on the other hand, blew my freaking mind and absolutely exceeded my expectations.

The Unfamiliar Garden explores the organic matter left behind by the comet that rained debris down on Earth several years past. This presents in the form of all kinds of crazy fungus, creepy crawlies, and other-worldly creatures.

The story follows several characters, each telling their point of view in a terrifying race to the end of the book. The imagery in this story was VIVID and by the end of it I was slowly shrinking down under my covers. Benjamin Percy did an incredible job of harnessing the fear over COVID that everyone has been feeling the past year, then making it insanely more f^€king terrifying.

I don’t want to give too much away on the plot itself but imagine a murder mystery/thriller/science fiction mashup. The characters were real, and while not exactly lovable I found that they fit perfectly together in this novel. Please do yourself a favor and check this book out if you like horror, Scifi, mysteries, or thrillers!!

I enjoyed this fast paced science fiction, mystery, horror mash up. This was the second book in a series. I haven’t read the first book but it wasn’t necessary to follow the action here.

I really enjoyed this mystery sf novel. It is the second book of a trilogy but it can be read without having read the first. It is about a couple who have lost a daughter (disappeared) under bizarre circumstances. The mother, a cop, tries to solve the mystery of mass murders. The father, a scientist specialized in fungus, discovers new alien species of flora. How all this is related to their daughter? The author has obviously made his research and the alien fungus seems very authentic. I ll definitely buy the first book to learn more about this world.

Grab something and hold on because this story takes off from page one!! In the follow-up to The Ninth Metal, we go to a different part of the country and experience the effects of the comet flyby from new perspectives. Now set in the Pacific northwest, a region that has suffered from prolonged drought. The story follows Jack, a professor specializing in fungi and his wife Nora and daughter Mia. One night Jack takes Mia out with him to survey a part of the forest fungal growth, and while working, Mia vanishes and is never found. Jack and Nora's marriage does not survive this and each tries to manage their grief, each unsuccessfully. The story moves forward five years and heavy rains have returned and the explosive growth of many species of fungi have unexpected and disastrous consequences.
I flew through this story as it hooks you like some mycelial hyphae......Seriously, the wow and ick factor are high and it's creepy and frightening in equal measure. You can really understand how something like this could happen and it makes this so haunting and impossible to put down at the same time. Yikes. Can't wait to see where this story goes next!!

This is the second book of a series, but it isn’t an extension of the first book, it’s more of of an extension of the world. Set in the near future (around 5 years), the meteors fell in northern Minnesota during the first book and that changed the world. In the Pacific Northwest, it changed the weather patterns and there has been a drought since then. For Nora and Jack, their marriage was broken when their daughter went missing in the forest the day the meteors fell. But now they are pulled back together again when the rains start again in Seattle, but it brings a parasitic fungus and a slew of murders. Nora is an investigator and Jack researches fungus, so they have to work together to figure out what is going on. But how does their daughter fit into all of this? This is an interesting book that explores relationships, not only human but also how fungus is such a part of the earth. I’d recommend this if you like to explore symbiotic relationships in nature, plus solid characters. You probably don’t have to read book 1 on the series, but it would certainly help.

A blisteringly fast techno-thriller, different in vibe and setting from THE NINTH METAL but continuing to expand its strange new mirror of our world. It's an ANDROMEDA STRAIN kind of story and if you're reading this book with any intention (as opposed to just picking it up for, I don't know, your first ever spec-fic read), you'll know that from jump... and so some of the twists and turns of plot will seem obvious. Thing is, Percy's writing is so sharp that it keeps you flying through even as you realize that the 200-page-novel is a bit thin-ice in spots.
I love this Comet Cycle and I hope he gets to write many more books in the world he's created. It's fun to see our world, so recently turned upside down in so many horrible ways, turned upside down in a fun way. Well, fun to read, at least.

This is the second book in the Comet Cycle Series, about the consequences of a comet passing close to the Earth. Each book works fine as a standalone.

When the comet Cain speeds across the sky, people gather en masse to watch the spectacle, and experts on television ominously explain that comets have long been associated with disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, pandemics, and more. Then the comet passes out of sight and people forget about it. Until a year later, when the Earth rotates through the debris field the comet left behind. For days, meteors fill the sky, and meteorites rain down on Earth.

On the second night of the meteor shower, Professor Jack Abernathy, a mycologist at the University of Washington, plans to hunt for mushrooms in the woods outside Seattle. Jack's wife Nora, a homicide detective, is on a case, so Jack takes the couple's eight-year-old daughter Mia with him. Mia is reluctant to venture into the dark spooky woods, so Jack promises to buy her graphic novels and jelly-bean candy, and Mia traipses along.

Jack parks Mia on a stump playing a game on his phone while he crawls around nearby examining the forest floor. Jack glances up at Mia once, sees she's fine, and goes on with his work, snapping photos, taking measurements, making notes, and collecting mushroom samples. Later, when Jack is finished for the night, Mia is gone.

One result of Mia's disappearance is the dissolution of Jack and Nora's marriage, which - in any case - is a union of opposites. Nora is rigid, organized, and controlling while Jack is easy-going, permissive, and spontaneous. And the loss of Mia tears them apart.

Five years after Mia vanishes, following the Covid pandemic and a long drought in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is once again experiencing high rainfall. Fungi are spreading and mushrooms are sprouting everywhere. Detective Nora Abernathy is called out to a nature preserve in West Seattle, where the body of a mushroom hunter has been found, a man whose eye has been gouged out and whose skin is cross-hatched with lacerations that look like foreign writing. The murder appears to be a copycat killing, mimicking the modus operandi of a man - now in prison - who went on a murder spree after the meteor shower.

Meanwhile, Jack's graduate student Darla brings mushroom samples back to the mycology lab, starts feeling sick, throws up gray gunk, and goes home. Later, when Jack goes to Darla's apartment to check on her, the floor is covered with blood and muck, and Darla - with fingers bent into claws, gray slime spewing from her nose and mouth, and teeth gnashing - tries to bite him.

Strange things start happening all over the region. A restaurant delivery boy arrives at an apartment, sees blood seeping out beneath the door, and is snatched inside; the corpses of a family of four are found in their backyard, their bodies etched with cross-hatched markings; a father frantically calls 911, saying he's not sure if he needs an ambulance, the police, or a priest, but there's something desperately wrong with his daughter; and much more.

After receiving dozens of phone calls about odd phenomena, Detective Nora Abernathy herself encounters a dog weaving down the street, teeth covered with blood, eyes rimmed with fungal growth, and mushrooms sprouting from its nose and ears. Nora's suspicions about what's happening lead her to contact her ex-husband Jack, and the two of them work together to investigate the scourge.

Meanwhile, a secret government organization is performing perverse experiments in an effort to weaponize the phenomenon. Unexpected events bring the Abernathys and the government researchers together, and the book becomes an exciting thriller.

In addition to writing a good story, Percy provides fascinating snippets about fungi. For instance, the largest living thing on Earth is Armillaria ostoyae, a vast fungus that takes up almost 2,500 acres in the Pacific Northwest and is estimated to be over 8,000 years old

And a rain forest fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis can invade the bodies of ants and control their behavior

The book is an excellent mash-up of mystery and science fiction that would appeal to fans of both genres.

Thanks to Netgalley, Benjamin Percy, and Mariner Books for a copy of the book.

A child's mysterious disappearance is the catalyst for her parents, Jack and Nora Abernathy, to end their rocky marriage for good in THE UNFAMILIAR GARDEN, by Benjamin Percy. The world, along with the Abernathy's family, has forever been changed after meteor shower rained down on the earth five years ago around the same time that Mia, the Abernathy child, disappeared. As the earth recovers from that monumental event and rain first falls again in the State of Washington, Nora, a detective, and Jack, a biologist, find themselves looking into phenomenon with their own investigations and seems like only a matter of time before they cross paths.
A little bit horror, a little science fiction, and a little thriller makes this book quite a lot of fun to dive into. Percy does an excellent job creating real, grounded people in Jack and Nora; they both have plenty of desires coupled with real flaws like we all do in this world. However, their passion of discovery is what the reader quickly attaches to. The supporting cast bringing so many great characters that range from nice and helpful to sinister and malicious to everything in between. The plot is unique and thought-provoking and the ending of the book will leave the reader both gasping and hopeful at the same time.
Because THE UNFAMILIAR GARDEN touches on so many book genres, I feel like it's appeal is quite broad and I recommend this book to anyone who wants an exciting story with interesting characters and a unique story.

When I found the first book in this series on a bookstore shelf, I had high hopes. I'd never read anything by Benjamin Percy before, but ended up buying (and obviously reading) that novel within two or three days. It was one of my favorite books of the year! When I got the chance to read the sequel, my expectations were pretty high going into the whole thing. I can very confidently say that this book is better than the first. It's set in the same world as that one, but the specific geographic region involved is quite far away from the events of that novel. These characters are so creative and their stories so evocative that I just couldn't put it down. It builds on the world-building from the first book very well, and goes in some really unexpected directions. There were more outright horror and fantasy elements in this one, along with plenty of science fiction, all wrapped into a great narrative. Pick this one up, you will NOT regret it.

This amazing and fascinating horror/sc-fy story.
While The Unfamiliar Garden is book 2 in a series, it is not necessary to read book #1 to enjoy and understand the novel. Unfamiliar Garden takes place in Washington State during the same time period, a few years following the fall of the meteor in Minnesota. The story is somewhat parallel to novel #1 in "the Comet Series."

In Washington, we meet a family who loses a daughter. The couple separate and we learn more about them fiver years later - husband (Jack) is a mycologist with U of Washington and Nora is a police detective. Their daughter Mia disappeared and no trace of her was ever found. Percy does a great job dissecting their relationship - both what worked and what didn't and it's utterly fascinating to follow their train of thought about each other and of the apocalyptic events in Seattle.

There is lots about fungi but it's truly interesting. The horror is well done and not over the top. Percy is such a great writer in that he has packed in so much, so quickly but it utterly believable and you can picture it happening to your town. Do you like Stephen King like horror? Science Fiction or mushrooms? This is definitely a book for you! #NetGalley #TheUnfamiliarGarden

Absolutely brilliant. Having just come off the heels of re-reading Percy's first book in this series, The Unfamiliar Garden is a stunning addition to the Comet Cycle. What strikes me as so profound is that you could very nearly read this book first and then The Ninth Metal, or read it in the desired first-second order, and there would be little information lost between the readings. I have to applaud Percy's ingenuity when it comes to this apocalyptic world—the dichotomy presented between a world of metal and stars (The Ninth Metal, #1) and one of plants and fungus (The Unfamiliar Garden, #2) is striking and quite honestly, beautiful.

My only criticism is the mentions of COVID and the use of it as a comparison to the plant/fungal invasion. The fungal "plague" is occasionally referenced as "the next COVID" and frankly, I'm not sure I'm ready to read fiction that mentions our current and ongoing pandemic. It adds a fundamentally realistic element—a world that has moved on from and survived COVID, that has recovered and soldiered on as humans are want to do—but it is also a harrowing reminder that in this moment, in this day, we are still living with and fighting against it. Knowing that COVID will have a huge impact on forthcoming literature is a given, though I have to wonder if this is the right time for it.

Still, I am impressed with The Unfamiliar Garden, and enjoy this catastrophic, yet naturalistically beautiful, world that Percy has created. I look forward to visiting it again.

*Note: I received an uncorrected ARC of this in exchange for a review. All opinions that follow are my own and are honest. MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW*
The Unfamiliar Garden might be my favorite Benjamin Percy book other than The Dark Net.

Percy himself once said "the best horror takes a knife to the nerve of the moment." While not strictly horror, it blends horror with science-fiction and crime thriller that poignantly expounds on a number of things that haunt the collective human memory, from the need for strict categorization and classification, to the fear of climate change and that so much of the plant and fungal worlds are unknown to us, to the ways pandemics can quickly upend lives. Thematically the novel opens up plants and fungi as functional metaphors for multiple abstract ideas that never quite feels clunky or forced. Much like fungi, the novel explores the interconnectedness of all things on this earth.

What works about this novel is that ultimately these themes drive the characterization and the character arcs that follow. Nora and Jack are two polar opposites, one with a strict need for control, the other living spontaneously, which serves as a nice compliment to their two fields of work: police officer and mycologist/professor respectively. Garden has that Bob McKee-rules of writing-type thing down-pat: plot informs character informs plot informs character, and so on and so on. They both approach the problem of alien plant life from different angles . It helps too that the chapters alternate between perspectives, occasionally throwing a wrench in by giving us chapters from the perspectives of the antagonists. It would have been a cool formal trick to have a chapter told from the perspective of the fungus, but that doesn't happen here.

In regards to the rules of its fiction, Percy grounds his fake alien fungi in the rules of real fungi, and adds an element of believability to the story. One thing I enjoy about Percy's books is that he does real research for them, and then throws his own twist on it, which seems to lineup with his working project of blending so-called 'literary fiction' with so-called 'genre fiction'.

The prose, and my common criticism of Percy's prose overall, is that it's a mixed bag. The man often writes these astoundingly good sentences, but then he'll employ specialized verbs and devices like repetition to his own detriment sometimes. Nora, for example, is the categorical 'control freak' of the dual protagonist pairing, and all of this is reflected in any writing about her. What's effective here is when it comes through in her actions, but not in the narrator's descriptions of her. It often employs characterization in a list format. Nora is controlling because she does this. We know she's controlling because she does this. She also does three more things that show she's controlling, and so on. The same goes for Jack. We know Jack is the spontaneous one because he did these five things one time. This is often grating on the reader. My favorite scene of Jack's spontaneity that I think most effectively showed it were the opening chapters and when he goes to his grad student's apartment. It comes down to the difference between showing and telling; telling is effective, in my opinion, for the establishing characterization, and everything that follows should come down to the action. There are too many moments where things we already know are reinforced constantly for the reader and are unnecessary.

As for the specialized verbs, I think this is typically a good thing of his writing, but there's some clunky use of verbiage in here that's distracting where something a little plainer would have done the trick. My favorite specialized verb in here is an effectively creepy use of the word 'unspooled'.

Plot-wise and arc-wise, TUG mostly achieves its goals; the characters achieve their transformative moments and learn valuable lessons; the last 25% of the book is a big albeit sometimes muted feeling roller-coaster ride, and it leaves room for more. However, and I rarely say this about books, but this could have benefited from being longer. Events are a little too tidy here, and some characters feel like stock characters or like they didn't have enough of an arc (Isaac namely). Isaac's moves in the story have a thin logic given the lack of space devoted to him. It's the same with the antagonist in The Ninth Metal and her lack of space. A good antagonist can often reflect back the thematic particulars of the story right back at the protagonist and subsequently the reader. The Misfit in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and The Judge in Blood Meridian are both phenomenal examples of this. I think Percy writes interesting antagonists that have the potential to be more.

That being said, that doesn't necessarily detract too much from the quality of the novel. If Percy's rhetorical goal is to bring the best of both genre and literary together, then the plot bears equal importance to the characters, and we can't spend too much time mucking about in navel-gazing for side characters.

The Unfamiliar Garden, above all, is a thoroughly enjoyable read. One gets lost in the mechanics of plot and world building (this being a standalone novel and the second in a trilogy, it has to pay its dues with repeated references to not only the past book, but to potential future stories as well) that one often forgets the criticisms of the novel. It moves forward at a propulsive pace, and speaking as an educator, has teachable qualities too (if only they let us choose our own curriculum). The thematic particulars are relevant, it blends genres seamlessly, and above all else, it's fun.

“The point is, everyone has stared hard at somebody and imagined a chalk line around that person’s body. Everyone is capable of slashing a knife or pulling a trigger. Probably you’re not going to, but you could—you can.”

Special thanks to @netgalley for allowing my to get an reader reader copy of @benjamin.percy’s second novel in the Comet Cycle series, #TheUnfamiliarGarden. This book was so great, for a myriad of reasons, but Percy knocked this one out of the park—I couldn’t put it down and read the whole thing in a day.

Set in Seattle in the aftermath of the meteor shower first introduced in #TheNinthMetal, Jack, a biologist studying fungi, and Nora, a police captain, deal with the fallout of their daughter disappearing the night of the meteor shower five years ago. As new signs of life begin to show themselves after a long drought and a potential copycat murderer may be hitting Seattle, the couple must come together to uncover the mystery behind both, all while holding out hope for their lost daughter.

So much about this novel was great, particularly because it was set in my backyard. Percy’s introduction of a new, but related meteor shower distasteful is well done; it feels organic while also making reference to the first book in a way that connects the stories, but doesn’t make it feel like a true sequel. Where I enjoyed the constant point of view switch in his first book, the limited perspective of characters in this novel really worked well and subtly mirrored the isolation of the characters in this novel. As my first book that I’ve read that specifically mentions COVID, it was an interesting plot point given the focus of the story—it didn’t feel like Percy threw COVID in as a quirky afterthought, but really used the experience of the pandemic to dictate how characters handle the alien contagion.

I’m just overall super impressed with this story in particular as I often find sequels to be lacking that zing found in the first book of a solid series.

Percy is very prolific and probably has a large fan base, so this should sell well. He knows how plot a good story, and this has a good premise and great pacing, Recommended for those seeking an engaging sci-fi tale with bits of horror.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

NetGalley provided an advance copy of this book for my review. I'd not previously read The Ninth Metal, so to avoid the risk of missing some important backstory context, I read that one first.

Turned out there was no need. An important element of each story is an unexpected result of an intense meteor shower after Earth passes through the tail of a near-miss comet. There are a few cross-over, fairly minor, nasty characters. And the ninth metal plays a key role in the resolution of The Unfamiliar Garden. Aside from that, the two books are basically stand-alone. You can definitely read The Unfamiliar Garden without first reading The Ninth Metal.

Whereas The Ninth Metal is kind of a wild west gold rush meets X-Files romp, The Unfamiliar Garden is a cross between a hard-boiled detective novel and a sci-fi horror novel. Another important thread in The Unfamiliar Garden is how brutally the disappearance of a child affects the parents, who cling to hope despite long passages of time.

I learned a fair bit about mushrooms and fungi, as they play a central role after rain finally returns to the PNW following a 5-year drought (it isn't clear whether the drought was caused by the comet or climate change). The plot moves along at a pretty good clip, and I got so caught up in following the action that it wasn't until I finished the book that I took some time to think about the in-hindsight obvious question: symbionts or parasites?

There are references to COVID-19, quarantines and lock-downs, which evoked a bit of a stress response and had me cheering for Nora and Jack.

I will be watching for The Comet Cycle Book 3. Will Benjamin Percy somehow bring together the characters and themes from books 1 and 2? Or will it be another stand-alone examination of a close-encounter-with-a-comet "what if" scenario?

This book isn't quite as good as its predecessor, The Ninth Metal. This one is more far-fetched. A lot more. That said, it's still very entertaining and definitely worth the read. The characters are well developed and easy to pull for or against. I recommend it.