The Chosen Twelve

by James Breakwell

Overview

The Hunger Games meets Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in this breathless survival thriller.

Lord of the Flies meets Philip K Dick.

There are 22 candidates. There are 12 seats.

The last interstellar colony ship is down to its final batch of humans after the robots in charge unhelpfully deleted the rest. But rebooting a species and training them for the arduous task of colonisation isn’t easy – especially when the planet below is filled with monsters, the humans are more interested in asking questions than learning, and the robots are all programmed to kill each other.

But the fate of humanity rests on creating a new civilization on the planet below, and there are twelve seats on the lander. Will manipulation or loyalty save the day?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786185174
Publisher:	Solaris
Publication date:	01/18/2022
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

James Breakwell is a professional comedy writer and amateur father of four girls, ages ten and under. He is best known for his family humor Twitter account @XplodingUnicorn, which has more than a million followers. He has published three comedy parenting books that explore hot button issues like the benefits of doing as little as possible and the best ways to protect your child from zombie attacks. His fourth book, Prance Like No One’s Watching: A Guided Journal for Exploding Unicorns, teaches kids to find humor in the world around them while also avoiding the undead. The Chosen Twelve will be James' science fiction debut. He lives in Indiana, US.

Editorial Reviews

11/29/2021

Comedy writer Breakwell (Prance Like No One’s Watching) makes his sci-fi debut with this darkly humorous take on AI overlords. The last 22 humans have spent decades performing disastrous colonization simulations in preparation to land on the hostile planet below their moon base, never questioning their bot tutor or wondering why they’ve all been 12 years old for so long. Breakwell gradually reveals the horrific yet amusing history of relations between organic and digital life forms as SCASL (the Supreme Commander of All Sentient Life), a digital being who’s just won a decades-long battle to command the AIs, takes over the humans’ education and reveals that he’ll only be taking the 12 most capable to colonize the planet, leaving 10 behind. Conflict steadily grows among the humans amid increasingly cutthroat competition to earn a seat, even as questions arise about the feasibility of colonizing a planet populated with lethal creatures. In this growing unrest, Delta, one of the top-performing humans, sets in motion her own plan for colonization. Breakwell’s examination of society is as precise and pointed as his humor, taking readers on a roller-coaster ride to a bittersweet conclusion. The result manages to be both diverting and thought-provoking. Agent: Mark Gottlieb, Trident Media. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Had me fully on board in the first couple of pages, sticking with me long after finishing.” — Frank Fleming, author of Superego

Frank Fleming