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MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.75/5
Format: GraphicAudio
BOOK DESCRIPTION
One crew. One planet. Three timelines. No one survives alone.
When the starship Wild Blue Yonder is torn apart by a quantum anomaly, each surviving crew member crash-lands in a different era on the same deadly exoplanet-hunted, alone, and running out of time. Chief Engineer Jeff Shaw (Anthony Mackie), aided by his virtual assistant (Ray Porter), must battle an unforgiving present, driven by one thing: getting home to his daughter. First Officer Becca Bang (Academy Award winner Ariana DeBose) fights to survive a hostile alien past. Science Officer Logan Bowers (John Leguizamo) wakes in a machine-ruled future that shouldn’t exist. But the anomaly wasn’t random. A relentless alien intelligence is feeding on human technology-and it’s been waiting for them across every timeline. Separated by centuries, the crew must find a way to communicate across time itself before this world consumes them all.
Exoplanet is a propulsive, emotionally charged sci-fi thriller, perfect for fans of Project Hail Mary, Red Rising, The Expanse, and Dark Matter. Listeners, join the latest journey from Andy Weir where science meets survival, and the human spirit is tested across time, space, and impossible odds. Exoplanet awaits your arrival.
MY REVIEW
If you like GraphicAudio, sci-fi or thrillers, then Exoplanet is for you! For such a short 4-hour story that is split up into seven episodes and three separate POVs, I felt like this story was a deep story that was highly immersive. It was everything you could ask it to be, it was thrilling and dramatic, and kept high tension in all three points of view, while making sure all the characters felt fleshed out.
First off, the Exoplanet is executive produced by Andy Weir which is already awesome, but the star-studded cast makes it even better. It stars Anthony Mackie (Captain America: Brave New World) as Chief Engineer Jeff Shaw, John Leguizamo (The Odyssey) as Science Officer Logan Bowers, and Ariana DeBose (West Side Story) as First Officer Becca Bang. It also has a good cast of supporting actors as well, with the narrator of Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, Ray Porter as Puter J, Charlie Plummer as Billy, Sufe Bradshaw as Captain Hawkes, Aida Osman as Puter B and Cherry Jones as Puter L.
What makes Exoplanet so cool is how it has a Hyperion feel to it, but has an underlying Oblivion flavor. The way Percy split the POVs up into different timelines with differing types of subgenres is similar to what Simmons’ does. Where it differs is how there is this underlying alien system that is controlling things. It makes the plot of the story feel more urgency to survive.
Mackie’s portrayal of Shaw was my favorite point of view of the bunch. His storyline had an After Earth-like feel to it with a light splash of Pitch Black and Interstellar, but it wasn’t on earth, it was on a “Goldilocks planet”. Shaw is isolated in the regular timeline trying to survive the planet’s inhabitants and figuring out a way to get back home, his only companion is his virtual assistant, Puter J.
DeBose’s Bang is 500 years in the past, while I was listening to it all I could think of was the 2003 film Timeline starring Gerard Butler and Paul Walker. As much as I liked Shaw’s point of view, DeBose’s wasn’t far behind. Being isolated in the past where you can’t really do anything because the world is primitive and becomes just a raw thriller of survival.
Leguizamo’s Logan is in the future and has a psychological horror feel to it that is reminiscent of Wayward Pines or even Netflix’s canceled show, The Boroughs. While Shaw and Bangs are essentially isolated with just their virtual assistant, Logan at least gets an oasis façade filled with other people. Leguizamo is hit or miss with his narration, sometimes it’s very good and sometimes it feels a bit flat. This could be the writing, but he’s the only one that feels that way. My favorite part of his story is Billy, his innocence makes for a more interesting timeline.
All in all, everything about this story works and my only additional “criticism” is that I wish it was longer, because I wanted more of this story. Do not shy away from the GraphicAudio, it is worth every bit of your four hours of time.
