Rondah; or, thirty-three years in a star

The narrative follows a small group of four people who are hurled from Earth during a storm to a nearby incandescent planet still cooling; part of their thirty-three-year sojourn is spent under a prolonged winter during which native birdlike, plant-derived inhabitants enter dormancy. Told through journals and chronicle-like sections, the story traces survival amid volcanic landscapes and boiling seas, interpersonal tensions of love and jealousy, strange societies and marvels such as the Sun Island, and efforts to understand the star’s mysteries and whether return to Earth is possible.