What happened in Planetfall by Emma Newman - Recaptains

• • The book opens with Ren looking through stuff in the Masher. This doesn’t really seem relevant at the time but you should make a note of this for later.

• • Ren gets a message from Mack, as he has seen someone walking towards the colony. Mack gets his gun ready, and he and Ren talk about how “they” should be dead.

• • They go to meet this person, who is dehydrated and starving. It turns out he’s the child of two other colonists who supposedly died, and the grandchild of Suh-Mi. His name is Sung-Soo.

• • Ren takes Sung-Soo to Kay’s infirmary. They find out that he is unchipped, and he has a tapeworm in his stomach, which seems to allow him to eat plants that the others can’t.

• • Kay and Ren used to date.

• • Ren had a daughter who died at the age of three. She met Suh-Mi in Paris when they were roommates.

• • Sung-Soo starts trying to get involved with life in the colony. He carves pendants for people.

• • We learn more about Planetfall and what led the group to this planet. Suh-Mi ate a weird alien plant and fell into a coma. When she woke up, she knew that she had to get to the planet. She gathered a group of people and they started to prepare to set off into space.

• • Sung-Soo starts to bug Ren. He is very insistent on getting to know her and getting inside her house.

• • Mack asks Ren to plant the Seed this year. Every year, God’s City creates a seed for the people, which is what their new religion is based on. Apparently Suh-Mi is up there with God, and is sending the Seed down to her people. Except it’s actually Mack putting the Seed there every year.

• • Ren gets into God’s City and plants the Seed.

• • Sung-Soo basically forces his way into Ren’s house and we discover she’s a hoarder and is suffering from some sort of PTSD and anxiety. There’s junk everywhere. Sung-Soo tells Ren she has to clear it out.

• • Sung-Soo comes back and tries to help Ren clear the house but she’s having none of it.

• • Ren returns one day to find Sung-Soo telling everyone in the colony about the hoarding. They gather around her house and force their way inside. They start taking her stuff. Ren freaks out.

• • Eventually, after clearing most of the stuff out, they find a hidden door. They open it, and they find Suh-Mi’s body there.

• • It turns out that Suh-Mi died during the first Planetfall. The first landing group were exploring God’s City, and Suh-Mi went through the wall. She came back out after some time, and then said that she “took too long”, and then killed herself by taking off her helmet.

• • No one told the rest of the people this. The only people who knew were Ren, Mack, and Sung-Soo’s parents. This caused conflict between the group, and Sung-Soo’s father tried to convince Ren that they needed to tell everyone.

• • Mack tried to have Sung-Soo’s father killed for this because he didn’t agree. He wanted to go with the religion idea.

• Unfortunately for Mack, Sung-Soo’s father survived, and so Sung-Soo was born.

how did it end?

• • Sung-Soo then starts an uprising in the colony. His people – who AREN’T dead – arrive and start taking over. The pendants were actually markers, and the people who wear them are kept alive because they’re useful.

• Ren escapes into God’s City. She eventually finds the wall that Suh-Mi went through and she herself goes in. She finds a body there. She takes its place.

This is a full plot summary of what happened in Planetfall by Emma Newman. Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!