After humanity arrives on the planet Pax, only mutual communication can forge an alliance with the planet’s sentient species and prove that mammals are more than tools.
Forced to land on a planet they aren’t prepared for, human colonists rely on their limited resources to survive. The planet provides a lush but inexplicable landscape—trees offer edible, addictive fruit one day and poison the next, while the ruins of an alien race are found entwined in the roots of a strange plant. Conflicts between generations arise as they struggle to understand one another and grapple with an unknowable alien intellect.
This standalone novel spans a century of events on Pax, following the human colonists as they come to terms with the native plant lifeforms. Author Sue Burke’s experience as a journalist and translator enables her to richly imagine another planet and the cultures of alien races. Her research into ways non-animal species would communicate is woven deeply throughout the novel.
Burke’s debut offers an engaging cross between Arrival and Jeff VanderMeer’s Borne. Semiosis arrives on February 6, 2018 from Tor Books.
