A sharp, precise, and quietly brutal SF tale…
Green takes readers into a broken America where surveillance is constant, ideology is lethal, and escape lies off-planet. It is 2070, and the American dream has collapsed into detention zones, surveillance drones, and endless wildfire. Inside the Gypsum camp, Alton Lucas survives by hiding his mixed heritage among white supremacists. When the state exposes him, it forces Alton to hunt his former friend Alex Weber—now the insurgent leader Hagen. Augmented and stripped of choice, Alton uncovers a plot aimed not at Washington, but at the Mars Colony Launch before it ever leaves Earth. Can he stop the future without destroying the last people he loves?
Green approaches augmentation and forced militarization with restraint, favoring psychological erosion over technological display. Alton’s loss of agency unfolds slowly, through compromises that feel minor in isolation but devastating in accumulation. As he moves from prisoner to operative, the prose tightens, reflecting the narrowing of his moral and physical options. Violence is deliberate and unsettling, never treated as catharsis or escape.
The novel’s most incisive turn is its refusal to settle for familiar political targets. By redirecting the threat to the Mars Colony Launch, the novel sharpens its core conflict. Mars emerges not as refuge, but as an extension of Earth’s unfinished damage. The future is no longer theoretical—it is personal. Memory ties Alton to Alex and Kiara as both anchor and threat. Green resists sentimentality and allows grief, loyalty, and anger to stand unresolved. Survival within the system is never morally neutral.
Lovers of speculative fiction driven by moral tension and character consequence will find much to admire here.
ISBN 979-8330452699
Pub date October 4, 2025
Print length 400 pages
Price $16.49 (USD) Paperback, $1.99 Kindle edition
