“An Eye-Popping Sci-Fi Fantasy Universe” The Hollywood Reporter
The Divyas know this. Through their planetwide network of Maya trees, they can see all that is, and therefore, predict all that will be. They intervene invisibly.
The insect will survive. The war will never happen. No one will ever know.
On Neh, seven species tether daily to Maya. The trees immerse them in play, fable, and the company of the living and the dead.
The Divyas rule all of Neh without armies. Why force obedience when you can shape desire itself?
“We live within cages made of desire.”
Anil SethNeuroscientist · author of Being You
8 min readRead the forewordMAYA: Seed Takes Root is the first novel of a planned sci-fi fantasy trilogy. It is a labor of love of more than 200 artists, scientists, filmmakers, and game designers from around the world, handcrafted over the last four years.
This is a book with an insane number of ideas. Every page has a scene, a moment, a creature, a sentence that I know I am going to remember for years to come… I have too many favorite scenes to write about, and I am too blown away, too overwhelmed, too jumpy from all the ideas still firing in my head.
Morgan TaylorGoodreads reviewIf Hugo Weaving could continue narrating for the series that would be great. His voice added a whole other level to this book.
DarleneGoodreads reviewAn Eye-Popping Sci-Fi Fantasy Universe
$426K+
raised by 4,185 backers, 4,260% of a $10,000 goal.
Thank you, truly. 4,185 backers made this the most-funded debut novel on Kickstarter, and all of it went into the object itself. Edition Zero is a hardcover with a printed slipcase and a foreword by Anil Seth, printed and bound to a standard worth keeping.
Open the Kickstarter
You backed it. Here’s where it is.
The Divya Trials have been announced. Billions will compete. One will ascend to godhood. In every future predicted by the Maya network, the outcome is certain: the son of a god will win.
Kshar disagrees.
He has rehearsed the scion's assassination a hundred times in Maya's simulations. In seventeen minutes, a single fruit will begin a cascade that ends in a riot.
The plan is perfect. Every move predicted. Every breath choreographed.
Except one. Yachay.
Nineteen years old. Maker of riddles.
His grandfather has staked their lives on him winning the trials. But Yachay seeks what he has been kept away from. Maya. He doesn't know:
When you gaze into Maya, Maya gazes back into you.
Some reviewers received advance reader copies. Here’s what they had to say:
The complete novel in Hugo Weaving's voice, carrying the same canonical text as the hardcover.
The voice of Elrond, Agent Smith, and V reads MAYA: Seed Takes Root.
Four characters carry Seed Takes Root.
A nineteen-year-old manushya raised in isolation, Yachay has grown up with scrolls, riddles, and the words of long-dead bards. He has never entered Maya, the planet wide network that everyone tethers to daily. Little does he know that his longing for connection is the very thing that makes him dangerous to the world.
A veteran naag operative of the Secret Coil, Kshar faces an impossible choice: kill an innocent child, or watch his ailing son die. The mission he has been enlisted for is harder still: change the future with just a fruit.
A young, pragmatic rakshasi scholar, Ayn's contrarian philosophy makes her an outsider to her people. After setting out to see the world with her own eyes, she discovers why all three of her mothers warned her against venturing into the manushya heartland.
The forgotten son of a Divya, Tarkash has had to claw his way up in the world with charm and guile. After the Divya Trials are announced, his birthright is closer in reach than it has ever been.
Seed Takes Root arrives August 25, 2026. Backers get live access to Book Two as it’s written.
From the creators of Ship of Theseus & Tumbbad.
Adapted from MAYA: Seed Takes Root.
“Beautifully crafted and creepy as hell.”Tasha Robinson, Polygon
Opened Venice Critics' Week · Three Filmfare Awards · Best Film, Sitges Fantastic Festival
“A life-changing film.”Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard
National Film Award, Best Feature Film · Transilvania Trophy, Best Film · Prizes at Tokyo & BFI London
Two companion volumes go deeper into Neh: the history beneath it, and how it was built.
Chart the big history of Neh, from primordial cosmology to lush tropical present, across geological epochs of 6.9 billion years. Witness the emergence of consciousness itself, and follow its trajectories across every sentient species, from evolutionary origins to civilizational upheavals to present realities.
The cog-and-lever edifices of the manushyas, the humming, breathing dwellings of the rakshasis bound by mite colonies. How evolutionary biology shapes habitats, how geological forces sculpt cities, and how imagined cultures manifest new solutions of shelter and coexistence.
Claim pre-order bonus
Pre-order on Audible