Review of "Reliquary of the Dead" by David Falk

​Score: 94/100 (9.4 out of 10)

It's Indiana Jones meets Prometheus!

Reliquary of the Dead by David Falk takes place in the 25th century and follows Dr. Pierre Gulet, an archaeologist pulled into an accelerated colonist program and shipped to the exoplanet Gliese 832 c, being told that there is a "problem with the planet." Pierre is brilliant and stubborn. He quickly becomes the colony’s reluctant problem-solver.

Strangely enough, Pierre’s specialty is in prophetic utterances carved into Egyptian Middle Kingdom burials. This brings up one of the biggest questions of the book: for what reason is Pierre (of all people) being recruited on this futuristic space mission? What need would a futuristic space society have for someone with this archaic specialty?

However, Pierre's background does prove vital when he and medic Alicia Stripes uncover a god-machine, the titular Reliquary, beneath Gliese’s sands. As Arish’s food fails and scatterbugs go missing, rival commander Terry Brandt makes his move and the orbiting MegaAI abandons them, forcing Pierre to weaponize the relic’s toxic breath to save the colony and setting the stage for a larger war featuring primordial gods.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this novel is the world-building. You really get a sense of how alien and different the time and setting(s) of this book are. Let's set the stage. In the 2400s, a total of four World Wars have been fought. Each of them, as you might imagine, brought about dramatic change. World War III brought about the banning of nuclear weapons. World War IV banned androids and cybernetic augmentation outright. The Armistice didn’t just end a war, it reset civilization’s ethics and priorities.

By Pierre’s day, humanity has planted flags on 48 worlds, with orbital MegaAIs coordinating traffic, research, and scarce resources. Colonists are drafted through accelerated programs with strict social contracts, pair up and try to breed for children ("make a good faith effort") or face exile. Out on Gliese 832 c, the air and dust try to kill you, scatterbug swarms struggle to terraform, and people live by lithium hydroxide rebreathers, ration cards, and “insta-caff” (which is kind of like coffee, but a lot less tasty and enjoyable). It feels both futuristic and feral: frontier hamlets under alien skies, governed as much by austerity and myth as by code and policy, until a primordial Reliquary under the sand wakes up and proves the oldest technology in the system isn’t human at all.

This book explores how many aspects of humanity never change regardless of technological advancements. In a sense, we're just like cavemen with business suits and suitcases now. Even in the 2400s, there are still corrupt and power hungry people like Terry; there are still fanatical, cult-like groups of people, and people still need their caffeine (whether it's palatable or not).

This book has a lot going for it. We will say that it seems to place an inordinate amount of focus on scatterbugs, the terraforming critters. Yes, they're cool, cute (sometimes), and somewhat integral to the plot, but did we have to read about them constantly.

Pierre even adopts one as a pet and names it Maat.

It seems like every other page had to have something about the scatterbugs doing one thing or another. We almost felt like this book might as well have just been about the scatterbugs, starring the scatterbugs as the main characters. Cause, why not? They're everywhere anyway!

The good news: once the Reliquary thread heats up, the book absolutely snaps into focus. Stakes spike. The colony politics tighten. Pierre and Alicia’s steady, brain-and-heart partnership shines. Terry’s ambition curdles into something dangerous. And the survival scenes—hazmat scrambles, ration worries, suit patches, desperate gambits—hit hard. By the final act, it’s tense, clever, and memorable, with imagery you won’t forget.

Check it out on Amazon!