The novel “Proxima Dreaming” by Brandon Q. Morris was published for the first time in 2021. It’s the third book in the Proxima Trilogy and follows “Proxima Dying“. The English translation is by Frank Dietz.
Eve is alone in the alien structure and must try to survive. She’s losing hope, partly because she doesn’t know what really happened to Adam. The dangers for her are not over, also because she knows nothing about the creatures who seem to be in a state of stasis.
Gronar wakes up without knowing how much time has passed. The situation he finds makes him think that there’s a dangerous creature that must be dealt with. Things get more complicated but this could also open up new opportunities to fulfill his mission.
“Proxima Dreaming” is the last book of the trilogy written by the physicist Matthias Matting, who uses the pseudonym Brandon Q. Morris, focusing on the mission to the Proxima Centauri system. He picks up the story where he left it at the end of “Proxima Dying” in order to complete the trilogy, which constitutes a single great story that must be read in its entirety.
Adam and Eve have faced various dangers on the planet Proxima b and their adventure is not over yet. The author continues to offer various scientific speculations connected to Marchenko, the alien structure, and what it contains. There are tense situations and frenzied moments but the technical and scientific elements remain central in the development of the plot.
The great change in “Proxima Dreaming” compared to the previous two books is the addition of Gronar’s point of view. He’s a Grosnop, a sentient being whose origin is not difficult to understand for readers with some astronomical knowledge given that at the beginning of the novel he mentions Father Sun and Mother Sun.
Gronar’s point of view offers some insights into his civilization, his mission, and why he was in stasis. All of this presents a picture in which the Grosnop civilization is sometimes familiar to a human being and other times radically different. Bit by bit, revelations are offered that make us understand what happened to Gronar and the reasons behind some of his actions and some of his choices.
Among the trademarks of Brandon Q. Morris’ novels is the inclusion of appendices that cover scientific topics significant to the plots for educational purposes. The appendix of “Proxima Dreaming” concerns astrobiology, an interdisciplinary science that studies the origin, development, and future of life in space. For now, scientists trying to develop astrobiology have only hypotheses based on limited facts since we only know of Earth’s life. The author talks about astrobiology offering food for thought on the nature of life with its chemical bases and the conditions in which it could develop.
Anyone who has read the previous novels in this trilogy knows Brandon Q. Morris’s style by now, so they know what to expect. In my opinion, the flaw of “Proxima Dreaming” is that it’s supposed to give a conclusion to the story of the mission on Proxima b also offering answers to the various mysteries introduced at the beginning of the trilogy. Honestly, from this point of view, it only partially works, with an ending open to developments to be told in a new series of novels. I would have preferred a clear-cut division between the different series without having to start another one to hope for answers about the one I just finished.
As it is, the Proxima trilogy turns out to be a work that is only one part of a larger work. Consequently, when you start it, you need to be aware that you don’t know if and when it will have a real end. If you like long, hard science fiction series, you may be stimulated by all the speculation in these books. “Proxima Dreaming” is available on Amazon USA, UK, and Canada.
