Arthur C. Clarke Award–winner McAuley (Whole Wide World
) delivers a grim and gruesome near-future thriller, in which a series of devastating plagues, some natural, some manmade, have spread across the earth. In Africa, where civil wars rage out of control and an enormous Dead Zone stretches across the continent, transnational corporations have taken over several nations, using them to conduct experiments in genetic engineering that are illegal elsewhere. Nicholas Hyde, part of a team sent to investigate a massacre, discovers that the dead have been horribly mauled, their skulls smashed and their brains removed. When gun-wielding primates the size of 10-year-old children with enormous claws and teeth—the white devils—attack the team, Hyde is one of the few survivors. On returning to what passes for civilization, he's appalled to learn that the powers-that-be refuse to believe his story, insisting that the hideous creatures were merely enemy soldiers in disguise. Obsessed with a need to speak for the dead, Nicholas, who has his own dark secret to hide, sets out to uncover the truth about the white devils. Though more complex than necessary, this novel serves as a powerful warning about the sinister possibilities inherent in genetic engineering. (Feb. 24)
FYI:
McAuley has also won the Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell awards.
