Sea Change

This quietly revelatory bio-thriller from Nebula Award–winner Kress (Beggars in Spain) follows one woman’s moral persistence in the face of a near-future worldwide emergency. Following a nationwide biochemical contamination and a major financial crisis, Luddite panic sweeps America, resulting in a ban on all GMO products and research. Now, in 2032, humanity is facing famine caused by global warming, making it vital to find ways to adapt plants to new growing conditions, despite such experiments being outlawed. Caroline Denton has always fought for humanity’s survival, and after Domoic acid released by an immense oceanic algae bloom kills her son Ian, she commits even more fiercely to aiding in top secret GMO research. As a courier for the Org, an underground group of scientists developing better food plants, Caroline passes communications between a network of small, clandestine research facilities—until raids by law enforcement make it clear that the Org has a mole in its midst. Kress wisely keeps her global catastrophe on a human scale, eschewing superheroic action for tense realism. This urgent, deeply satisfying story is as tenacious and inspiring as its heroine. (Apr.)