Synthetic Eden - Paperback

by Alexander Titus (Author), Sean Platt (Author)

When Earth falls to a devastating fungal plague, geneticist Dr. Samara Makinde joins humanity's desperate bid for survival on DaVinci, a distant exoplanet meant to be their fresh start. But DaVinci has a secret: it harbors spores that wipe out every pregnancy, threatening to erase the colony before the next generation is born.

Samara believes she can save them with gene therapy, reengineering human DNA to live in harmony with the alien fungus. But psychologist Dr. Ayesha Basu sees only the shadow of her family's past, genetic "enhancements" that led to madness, and vows to stop Samara at any cost.

Defying the colony's laws, Samara risks everything to secretly engineer her own child. Her daughter, Phoebe, should be a miracle. Instead, she becomes a spark for paranoia and revolt. When the ruins of DaVinci's first settlement reveal a mass grave of genetically altered children, fear turns to fury, and the colony fractures into zealots and outcasts.

As Samara fights to protect Phoebe from those who would destroy her, a darker truth emerges: the first settlers aren't entirely gone. Something twisted survived in the forests beyond the colony, watching...and waiting.

Now Samara must navigate betrayal, fanaticism, and an alien threat older than humanity's second chance. If she fails, Phoebe won't just be the last child of DaVinci; she'll be the last child of mankind.

Neal Stephenson's Seveneves meets Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary-with a haunting edge of Raised by Wolves.