On a hotter and more volatile Earth in the 23rd century, humans like
Clare and Jon live in utopia, hunting and gathering in small tribal
bands, engaged in daily art and ritual, reunited with old friends like
the shaggy mammoth and giant ground sloth. Even better, they still have
solar-powered laptops and can communicate with each other around the
world.
The understanding of physics has also advanced. When scientists first
cloned extinct species from the Pleistocene, they discovered that many
of them were telepathic - that consciousness travels in waves. For most
people, animism has become the preferred religion, a panpsychism
compatible with the laws of a fractal holographic universe. As Clare
tells one of her students, the return to an older, Paleolithic lifestyle
is "one of humanity's greatest achievements."
It's too bad that utopia had to come at such a cost: a genetically
engineered supervirus that wiped out most of Earth's human population.
Humanity was shaken by that event and vowed to change. Now, on the 150th
anniversary of that catastrophe, a small group of men and women - as
well as a smarter-than-average dire wolf and saber-toothed cat - are
suddenly faced with decisions in which the stakes are higher than ever
before. Will Earth repeat the cycle of unbridled hubris? Or is
humanity's destiny even stranger than that?
