How High We Go In The Dark

By Sequoia Nagamatsu 

Theme parks for sick children, a talking pig, and a girl literally frozen in time are all just part of the odyssey this ambitious sci-fi epic takes you on. 

Format: Paperback
Pages: 304

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In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus. Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy.

In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet. 

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, How High We Go In The Dark takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.

Read if you: have a weakness for "everything is coNnected" narratives a la Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven.