Exo - by Colin Brush (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A debut sci-fi mystery set on an abandoned future Earth, featuring a twisty mystery straight out of a John le Carré novel, a group of larger-than-life characters who'd be at home in the work of John Scalzi, and a deeply weird and dangerous hyperdimensional entity to haunt the dreams of any reader of Kim Stanley Robinson.

Humanity is dying. Banished from the Earth, our descendants eke out lives in orbital habitats and moon colonies--and look with longing on our former home.

But Earth is deadly. Over hundreds of years, its oceans have transformed into an annihilating liquid entity--the Caul. Every living creature approaching its shores is irresistibly compelled to enter. . . and is never seen again.

Scientists, some of the few inhabitants left, work in facilities seeking to understand and stop the Caul. And scavenging the shores are the penitents--those who resist its siren lure.

Among them is penitent Mae Jameson, an octogenarian former Service agent who arrived on Earth thirty years ago to find her lover. When she encounters Siofra, a mute girl, wandering alone by the shore and returns her home, they discover the girl's father, rogue scientist Carl Magellan, hanging from a noose. He's been murdered. Unwilling to leave the matter in the hands of the facility Carl abandoned years ago, Mae takes Carl's journals--which detail his obsession with the Caul and its mysteries--and sets about investigating.

In this page-turning, dual-timeline novel, both Mae and Carl's quests for the truth put them at the center of a dangerous conspiracy. Someone believes they can use the secret of the Caul to shape humanity's future, and they aren't afraid to kill to keep control of it.

Review Quotes

"Brush explores whether humanity should cling to its old home or seek a new life among the stars in this novel about a uniquely imagined dystopia. . . . Dual timelines, a shockingly hyperdimensional setting, and flawed characters make this a must-read that recalls the work of Kim Stanley Robinson. Brush gives a familiar trope an original and exciting twist."
--Library Journal (SFF Debut of the Month, starred review)

"At the center of Brush's turbulent debut is a rogue ocean, the Caul, on an ecologically compromised future Earth. . . . Brush keeps the pages turning with twisty conspiracy theories and exciting scenes of Mae wielding her survival skills with cinematic flourish, surrounded by the Caul's 'inter-dimensional' quantum foam....the earnest and detailed characterizations and worldbuilding mark Brush as a sci-fi writer worth keeping tabs on."
--Publishers Weekly

"With a dual narrative, a twisty mystery, unusual science, and religious and political intrigue, Brush's debut will find fans among both sf and mystery readers."
--Booklist

"[A] dramatic setting [that] will remind many readers of past stories with wastelands that hold mute phenomena at their heart. These include the Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, and more recent works such as Jeff Vandermeer's Annhilation. Or, with a more particular British flavour, the works of JG Ballard and Robert Holdstock's Where Time Winds Blow ... As well as engaging emotively, this is science fiction that challenges the reader to think. "
--Dev Agarwal, The BSFA Review

About the Author

Colin Brush was born in Scotland and reluctantly raised on the small Channel Island of Jersey. After a sojourn studying geology in Glasgow, he moved to London and consequently worked as a bookseller, stock controller, proofreader, copyeditor, quarterly zine publisher, catalog and advertising copywriter, and currently works as a jacket copy writer at the UK's largest publisher. Over the last quarter century he has written the cover copy for well over 5,000 books. He lives with his partner and their two daughters on the southeastern coast of England, a few miles from Dungeness, the wave-battered and pebble-beached wilderness that is the inspiration for Exo.