The Chosen Twelve

November 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.

January 12, 2022
From the man behind the XplodingUnicorn Twitter account, which has more than one million followers, comes this scruffy tale of mankind's last stand in a hostile universe. Trapped for sixty-plus years in the bodies of twelve-year-olds, the denizens of a forlorn colony must train for a landing on the planet below. Educated by "digitals" who inhabit everything from coffee machines and laundry carts to mining drones, only twelve of them can fit in the last operational lander for the one-way trip. The previous landing party made some grievous mistakes in cloning kangaroos to deal with heavy labor and native "wolf sharks" and other sea monsters. The "megaroos" are now the apex predators that the chosen twelve must overcome in order to recreate human civilization (and, by the way, ensure digitals continue to "guide" them). The whimsical fancies of the characters--one likes to parkour in the dangerous outer halls, one would love to find new ways to cook their "slightly cherry-flavored" rations, one is a born leader but an outcast--don't add up to making a successful landing party but that's all the digitals have to work with.

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