Iota Cycle

“There’s a problem with Iota Horologii. We lost contact three days ago.” Russell Lutz’s first novel, Iota Cycle, chronicles the creation and development of a human colony fifty-six light years from Earth. At the beginning of the Twenty-Third Century, the colonization ship Hermione, under the watchful care of two androids, brings one hundred thousand settlers to the planets and moons of the Iota Horologii system. The colony takes its initial, hesitant steps as amateur flier Eliot Burke pilots the first landing in this new system and claims the landing site for his family’s new farm. Slowly, citizens like Burke turn the barren ground of their new home into the breadbasket of the system. Decades later we join a soldier and a scientist on safari through jungles stranger and more dangerous than any on Earth. In Iota’s halls of power, we witness the political machinations of a government tearing itself apart. We meet a brilliant young scientist whose passionate vision of the future is clouded by love. Through it all, we follow the fates of the Burke family as they, like so many on their home planet, struggle to make their farm a success. Finally, we ride with a platoon of Rangers on a bold mission to find clues to the mystery: Why did Iota Horologii break contact with Earth? The answer leaves the Iota System itself changed forever. Mark Brand, author of Red Ivy Afternoon, calls it “reminiscent of the best parts of Dune, Jurassic Park, and a number of Ray Bradbury’s works.” Across two centuries and including stories both personal and epic, Iota Cycle shows the dangers and the promise of the future.