Recursion - (Black Dawn) by Aric McBay (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This sequel to Inversion forces a pacifist society in a pastoral, isolated universe to wrestle with the cost of self-defense.

The people of Germinal live on a
tiny, verdant planet where evolution has traced a
slightly different path. For centuries, they have peacefully coexisted amid an ecosystem
where an advancing wall of fire consumes all in its path, a perpetual cycle
of destruction and renewal. That is, until everything they knew of their history
was violently upended by the arrival of colonizers.

Months after the events in Inversion, the people of Germinal are rebuilding, reckoning with the
brutality of the invasion, and striving to absorb newcomers. But young Char, earning a reputation
among her people as a capable new conciliator, wrestles with the trauma of
those events and tries to rally her community to defend themselves against
future attack. Her friend Graft, formerly an aide-de-camp of the invading forces,
is adrift. Though finally safe, he has nothing left but the stories of his lost
home and grows increasingly haunted by visions of the past--including of the mysterious creation of Germinal. But calm in their changed world is short lived.

A pair of warriors arrive from a
militant culture on the far side of the flamewall, violating a great taboo that
forbids one side from meeting another. They insist on being brought to the survivors, to deal with as they see fit. As the situation escalates, Char
and Graft struggle to do what is right. To keep each other safe. And to ready
themselves for what they both know is true: The invaders will try again.

Aric McBay's Germinal trilogy is the spiritual successor to Ursula Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson, posing large moral questions of justice inside a lush, wholly unexpected world.

Review Quotes

Praise for Inversion
"A masterful worldbuilding feat
.... Never heavy-handed or preachy, this thought-provoking work of speculative
fiction is sure to linger in readers' minds." --Publisher's Weekly,
starred review

"Every
once in a while, I run into a new science fiction story that feels remarkably
classic, as though it had been written at the height of some previous era and
only recently discovered ... [Evokes] some of the best utopias to be found in
science fiction...Immensely fun and inspiring, and a welcome addition to a very
long conversation." --Jake Casella Brookins, Locus Magazine

"Writing a believable collective
utopia space opera that still features significant conflicts and a real sense
of danger is not a simple task, and McBay does admirably here, particularly in
the speculative aspects of Germinal at large, and its firewall in being a way
to help ensure such a society persists." --Daniel Haeusser, The Skiffy and Fanty
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About the Author

Aric McBay is a community organizer, organic farmer, and author of nine books. His fiction includes the speculative fiction novels Inversion (2023), which Publisher's Weekly called "a masterful world-building feat" (starred review), and Kraken Calling (2022). His non-fiction includes Movements That Win (2025) and the two volumes of Full Spectrum Resistance (2019). He is also an award-winning digital game developer.