Ruslan and Cherpa discover the location with the “leader” of this movement, and after the revive him, it turns out there’s not just a few dozen or hundred humans just waiting to be woken up – there’s over three BILLION! The human race is saved! Yay! These people created underground cryo-type chambers for humans to rest in until the appropriate time – when the Aura Malignance finally ran its course. Turns out, some people planned for the extinction of the human race. The ending was really fitting, and I was honestly astonished that it was a “happy” ending. They’re a little aggressive but still respectful enough to leave the humans alone when they want to be. The younger male dies, Cherpa and Ruslan “donate” their eggs and sperm and have about sixteen artificially-grown offspring, Earth is finally found, and another alien race by the name of the Vrizen is determined to bring the humans home to them. Before they leave the planet, Cherpa tells Ruslan that “oh, by the way, there’s another human here, but I hate him so I wasn’t going to tell you.” This guy is a little older, around 17 years old, but Ruslan and his alien friends are overjoyed. She’s a bit mad, but then as she ages she eventually regains most of her sanity, though she does still call Ruslan “Bogo” and has some other unusual quirks.

Ruslan first encounters Cherpa, an 11-year-old girl living in the wild on a planet that once was home to humans. Alan Dean Foster is also a popular Star Wars novelist (he wrote The Force Awakens novelization), so I thought his writing and pacing (and so on) would be worth reading. I’m not usually one for male protagonists or male POVs, but I thought this would be an exception. I love aliens, and space, and dystopia-like devastations. Now, the idea that only one human (supposedly) survives a plague which otherwise has extinguished the human race (across not just continents or even planets, but whole galaxies!) is totally up my alley. Along the way, Ruslan encounters quite a few surprises. They study him for a few more decades before Ruslan gets it into his head to search out humanity’s birthplace, Earth. The Myssari are tripeds – they have three legs and three arms, and they’re kind of triangular in shape. He lives on a human-colonized planet called Seraboth, and he survives there for a few decades before an alien race finds him. He’s middle-aged, and for whatever reason, he’s immune to the Aura Malignance. The synopsis goes a little something like this: after a galaxy-wide (well, universe-wide) plague (engineered by humans themselves) sweeps through the human population, killing basically 99.9999% of people, one human remains: Ruslan. I received an ARC ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Alien book alan dean foster