The Two-Body Problem

CAITLYN EVANS · THE EVANSPHERE

Caitlyn Evans: The Two-Body Problem by Chris Simmons follows Caitlyn Evans, Botanist Prime of the Olympus Prime agricultural extension, as an unfamiliar blight puts food, trust and personal boundaries under pressure.

Back-cover description

Caitlyn Evans keeps Mars fed.

As Botanist Prime of the Olympus Prime agricultural extension, she grows eighty percent of the food on the planet. When a blight appears in Sector Seven, aggressive and unfamiliar, she takes command of the quarantine. She holds life and death authority over who is isolated, whose crops burn, which sectors seal.

But containment is not the same as control. As corporate pressure mounts through a polished young liaison and the council demands harsher measures, Caitlyn must draw every boundary twice: once around the blight, and once around herself. Protection is not control. She has spent her life learning the difference. Now she has to prove it.

The Two-Body Problem is the story of a woman who is fully capable alone and something is missing anyway. Not a weakness. A mass absent from the orbit. Five years after the apart years, with her marriage stronger than ever and her children half grown, Caitlyn faces the hardest decision of her career and learns what it means to hold steady without gripping tight.

Some systems look complete until you remove the second mass. Then the orbit decays.

Complete description from the Amazon paperback listing · Checked 14 October 2026

People to know

• The family: Caitlyn Evans, Paul Evans, John Evans, Jennifer Evans and their frequent visitor Niko.
• The growing team: Rian Okoro, Hana and Lia.
• The community: Marta Anders and the supporting cast.
• Institutions and influence: Sable Ashford, Aldous Crane, the council and Hollister Dynamics.

Places and working life

The extension supplies the colony through growing domes, laboratories and family plots. Sector Seven is part of this everyday working landscape. The systems guide introduces the language of cultivation, quarantine and responsibility without revealing how the crisis develops or ends.

Connections across the books

Where The Divide approaches the Evans household through Paul's work, this book puts Caitlyn's expertise and experience at the centre. Olympus Prime connects the heat needed to sustain a habitat with the food grown inside it. John, Jennifer and Niko are older than in Paul's story, but this is still before the adult world of 39 Minutes.

Each shared character page labels its appearances by book. This guide leaves discoveries, allegiances and outcomes to the novel.

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Paperback

Caitlyn Evans: The Two-Body Problem

6 × 9 inch edition · Chris Simmons

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Large print

Caitlyn Evans: The Two-Body Problem

8.5 × 11 inch edition · Chris Simmons

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All books and editions · Themes

The ordinary life around the crisis

Caitlyn’s morning rounds introduce the extension through familiar work: checking grafts, watching irrigation, answering a colleague’s question and carrying a little basil home for soup. Food production is a profession, a community and part of the texture of her family life.

Teaching is another part of that work. The growing team has its own observations and judgment. Reading their exchanges alongside the council discussions shows the different demands placed on practical expertise and public authority.

Reading guide · Glossary · Discussion questions