The Worship of Mystery

the long version

Jun Battacharya’s final tour of duty sends him to a desolate planet where a mining accident forces him to launch his students into their work without any training. An invitation arrives from an alien priest native to the planet, inviting Jun and his student to their most sacred ritual. Unable to decline, they attend the ritual—which shatters their lives, each in very different ways. Jun struggles to keep his students safe, even as their lives descend into chaos, leading each of them to an encounter with Mystery that will heal them or kill them…or others. In the tradition of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and Michael Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things, J.R. Mabry’s The Worship of Mystery goes to the farthest points of known space to explore the dark regions of the human heart.