The Impossible Planet

How it reads

The Impossible Planet is science fiction (science-fiction short story, specifically), and its dominant mood is eerie. It's atmospheric and uncanny, with a sense that something is wrong. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in an international setting, in the future, told in the third person, staying close to one character. Its central concerns are identity, loss and grief and survival. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending is left open, for you to argue about. At 9 pages it's a single-sitting book. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.