149 pages, Paperback
Published February 17, 2026 by Tordotcom
Join us for a live PKD hangout and interview about this novel on 9/15/26 at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST.
For most of Science Fiction’s history, novels were short and didn’t have to be a Stephen King-sized doorstop or an arm workout to carry. It is funny that books that have 50 pages more than Of Mice and Men and would’ve been considered a novel in the golden age of SF are just novellas these days. Enter this classic-feeling short novel, The Rainseekers by Matthew, that feels like a warm blanket for lovers of classic SF. Don’t get me wrong, it is a modern novel, but the things that make it feel classic are subtle, in the same way that the best world-building is built on tiny moments.
While some recent Martian novels have taken the route of a retro Mars, like The Strange by Nathan Balligrud or Song My Enemies Sing by James Reich, they do a wonderful job of invoking the Mars of the imagination. The Rainseekers is closer to a hard SF take on Mars, although the details of terraforming get fantastical.
The book has several POV characters, and the narrative jumps POV often; for such a short book, it has a mosaic feeling. We mostly follow Earth-born Sakunja Salazar, who is an influencer trying to document the first natural rain on the terraformed Mars.
The Martian-born character was a bit more interesting to me. “I was born on Mars and, unfortunately, I'm a brittle bone. I get bimonthly injections to boost my bone density and muscle mass. One day I hope to walk the same Japanese hills of Earth that mom did. But right now I can't walk in full Earth gravity without risking my spine. I flew to Luna once, and let me tell you there was no fucking masseuse on the crowded boats.”
Saki’s adventures around the solar system hint at a wider universe and more experiences.
“On Enceladus, I leaped like a bird from a tall frozen Cliff into an enormous crevice, artificial wings spread wide, and no orgasm nor drug will ever approach that feeling spiraling down in low gravity on that shimmering and frigid alien world while Saturn’s majesty loomed over me.”
I like that Kressel is fully using all the colors of the rainbow of SF to paint a picture of amazing travels around the solar system. Wouldn’t Saturn ring diving for influencers be a part of this future?
Kressel takes the Martian setting seriously. He seems to have researched and thought out how this Martian culture would work while humans worked to change it. Consider how they thought about the deaths of the people trying to see this first rain on Mars.
“The old Mars tradition, going back to the first landings, was to put the dead body in cold storage until it could be flown back to Earth for burial. But that proved difficult and absurdly expensive. So most of the early settlers buried their dead in the Martian sand. There's a fair amount of graveyards spread around Mars; if you look hard enough, some have become shrines, with plinths, and obelisks, and monuments to those brave early pioneers. But you can't bury folks on Mars anymore. The NDC forbids it, doling out huge fines and penalties for any infraction. You might contaminate the protosoil with invasive human microbes and ruined decades of careful planetary engineering. So most folks are cremated now, or their bodies get donated to the ag farms, where you're slowly composted and turned into fertilizer. You can never have enough nitrogen if you live on Mars long enough; chances are you've eaten a meal containing matter from at least one recycled person. Number one rule of life away from Earth is that nothing goes to waste, not even waste."
A novella with this scope, nothing goes to waste either, and I love it for that. The Rainseekers is an excellent SF novel that sells the harsh Martian environment without sacrificing the characters. I believe these characters desire to see this first rain, and I was invested. 24 chapters in a short novel, and the story felt like it expanded to the wider Solar System.
You have a few weeks to read it before I interview the author on a live Dickheads. This is A+ modern science fiction in my opinion.
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