Content levels
Trigger warnings
Positive tags
Hero archetypes
Protagonist archetypes
Themes
Synopsis
Zach Croft expects a fresh start on Alpha Cen. After leading a suicide mission to Mars, surviving a barrage of world-ending solar flares, and watching his best friend's dropship explode before his eyes, Zach wants nothing more than to leave the past behind and build a better society from the ground up. But upon landing, he discovers that Alpha Cen already has a society. It has settlements. Food. Technology that Zach didn't know existed. And a merciless tribalism that drives scientists to put heads on spikes and colleagues to starve each other into submission. As the days get colder and the beautiful landscape of Alpha Cen contorts into an unsurvivable black desert where the laws of physics do not apply, Zach quickly discovers that humans have a habit of destroying planets and people alike. If they can't find a way to settle their differences and save Alpha Cen, humanity's new beginning will be over before it starts. Because this time, there's nowhere else to go.
Tags
Us Before Them (a Zach Croft Novel): content & age rating
Intended for adult readers (18+).
This military science fiction novel contains strong violence (heads on spikes, starvation, suicide mission references), themes of survivor trauma and PTSD, and depicts humanity's brutal tribal conflicts on a failing colony planet.
What to know going in
This book has strong violence, no sexual content, and moderate language. Content notes include death, death of partner, mass death, and grief (see the full list above).
Who'll love this
Adult readers who enjoy gritty military SF with high-stakes survival and moral complexity will find this gripping.