"If you found God—or if God found you—would that be a good thing?"

Chaplaincy instructor Jun Battacharya only needs one more tour of duty to retire, and he is determined that his last semester will be quiet and uneventful. But the very day he lands on the planet Skagway a mining accident forces him to launch his students into action with zero training.

Jun is certain that if they can just get through the crisis, everything will quiet down and go back to normal. Then Jun receives a letter from the native alien species—specifically from their ranking clergy—inviting him and his students to attend their most sacred ritual.

Jun is fascinated to discover that the aliens worship Mystery—whatever is unseen or unknown is sacred to them. He considers this an intriguing but quaint theology, but when the humans arrive for the ritual, each of them—in very different ways—has an encounter with Mystery that brings the world as they know it to an end...

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.

Begin The Worship of Mystery today!