Sawyers World — Alastair Mayer

"Alpha Centauri: Sawyer's World" is the sequel to "Alpha Centauri: First Landing." When the exploration team discovers that the first of two Earth-like planets had been deliberately terraformed millions of years earlier, commander Elizabeth Sawyer takes a volunteer team down to the second planet. The catch is, they have no way to return to space until the other ships have returned to Earth and come back with a refueling system for their lander. As the weeks turn into months, Sawyer and her crew realize that they may be stuck on an alien world for a lot longer than they expected. And alien worlds, however Earth-like, come with their own set of challenges. Inspired by Verne's "The Mysterious Island" and Heinlein's "Tunnel In the Sky," this book is for readers who like their hard science fiction with a generous dose of action and adventure.