Biome

Ruth Shannon knows all about inner demons. After putting her daughter in a coma, she's been searching for 12 years for a way to gain absolution. Now the military is offering her the chance to join a mission to an alien habitat on Venus. But the biome has inner demons of its own.

WHO IS THE DOMINANT SPECIES?

For Warwick Rowe, anthropologist, media darling and global enfant terrible, it's all about the future of the race. Machine intelligence would usher in an age of rational scientific progress.

For Ruth Shannon, his unwilling partner in the mission to Venus, it's personal. A breakthrough in her research into AI might open a channel to communicate with her autistic daughter, and so gain her the absolution she craves.

For the military that employs them both, it's simpler still. Smart ordnance offers the best chance at supremacy.

What then of the moaners, the alien creatures in the vast, habitat-like construct on Venus? What of their hopes and dreams and ambitions?

NO TOOLS. NO WEAPONS. NO HIDING.

'We're about to get machine intelligence, thrown in the midst of this dog pit. We've created something that will shatter religious belief at its core, and yet our science, our reason, our humanity isn't ready to take on the burden of responsibility to guide mankind into a future that doesn't involve millions dying under the dictates of crazy leaders.'

Oliveros: an alien artifact hidden in one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system. It contains a tunnel world full of life of stunning complexity and interdependence. Potentially another Galapagos. Except it is cold, wet, poisonous, and it oozes horror. A place purposefully designed to give its inhabitants nightmares, if any of them are unlucky enough to think. A prison that stretches off forever, straight as the barrel of a gun.

The most intelligent creatures are docile herbivores nicknamed 'moaners.' It's clear that they didn't create this habitat. So what did?

EPIC IN SCALE AND SCOPE

Biome is a widescreen, immersive, standalone adventure story that follows a scientific mission to an alien artifact discovered on the surface of Venus.

As the exploration turns to a horrific battle for survival, the novel explores ourselves, standing on the verge of ditching moral certainties for the bald vacuum of science. Where is our moral compass to come from, after our country abdicated the role of shepherding us through the dangers?