Symbiote
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Contagion meets The Walking Dead in this new sci-fi thriller where a biological threat ravages scientists and military personnel at the South Pole.
As World War III rages, the scientists in Antarctica are thankful for the isolation – until a group of Chinese scientists arrive at the American research base. In their truck is a dead body, the first murder in Antarctica. The potential for a geopolitical firestorm is great, and, with no clear jurisdiction, the Americans don’t know what to do. But they soon realize the Chinese scientists have brought far more with them than the body…
Within seventy-two hours, thirteen others lie dead in the snow, murdered in acts of madness and superhuman strength.An extremophile parasite from the truck, triggered by severe cold, is spreading by touch. It is learning from them. Evolving. It triggers violent tendencies in the winter crew, and, more insidiously, the beginnings of a strange symbiotic telepathy.
Exhausted by suspicion and fear, with rescue impossible for months, the desperate crew members turn on each other. A small group of survivors try to resist the siren call of the growing hive mind and stay alive long enough to solve the mystery of the symbiotic microbe’s origins. But the symbiote is more than a disease – it is a biological weapon that can change the balance of power in a time of war.
The survivors cannot let anyone infected make it to the summer season, when planes will arrive to take them – and potentially the symbiote – back to civilization.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nayak sets his high-octane debut in 2028, as the U.S. and China wage war. At the ice-bound Amundsen-Scott Station in Antarctica, a U.S. research team is preparing for four months of complete darkness when a Chinese convoy blips on the radar. The only military person on site is soft-spoken Rajan, who ventures out to meet the unwanted guests: three Chinese scientists and one mutilated body, the apparent victim of Antarctica's first murder. Shortly after their arrival, a plumber on the American crew experiences strange heat flashes and begins stalking one of the Station's female scientists. After her bloodied body is found in the snow, the station's doctor discovers the cause of all the weirdness: a fast-mutating microbe that thrives in the cold and controls its hosts' minds. Within days, the station is overrun with zombies and Rajan must find a way to stop the hive. The plot feels ripped from John Carpenter's The Thing, but Nayak enhances the familiar setup with sparse but effective scene-setting, much more gore, and a fascinating focus on the psychological effects of isolation and sun depravation. It can be hard to keep track of the large and hastily drawn cast amid the relentless, testosterone-laced action. Still, readers looking for thrills and thrills alone will find plenty of them here.
