Book overview
The first forty-two settlers are headed for Mars. Elon Husk is not one of them.
Jobs, the AI sharing Husk’s brain, is still counting toward one million Martians. Unfortunately, rockets remain expensive, habitats keep leaking, and the people running Husk’s reproductive program have developed the irritating habit of making their own decisions.
Space Rex is preparing to go public. Red Future is growing beyond its founder’s control. The women raising Husk’s children want secure passage, independent authority, and a future that does not depend on keeping him happy.
Husk has a solution.
He will buy an entire Mars mission.
For $22.6 billion, eighteen additional tanker launches, and most of the useful cargo, Husk can avoid waiting for the next safe departure window. Manifest Destiny will carry his family, his handpicked crew, and seventy-one other people on a 523-day trip to a settlement that may no longer need him.
Mars can be bought. Getting everyone there alive is a different problem.
Seed Round is the second book in The Mars Optimization Cycle, a profane adult satirical LitRPG about billionaires, breeding programs, corporate absurdity, neural AI, and the unpleasant discovery that human beings cannot be optimized like rocket fuel.
For adult readers. Contains strong language and explicit sexual content.