The Terraformed Earth series continues with Terraformed Earth – Discovery.
In the distant thirty-third century, Earth is a Holocene paradise after an ancient genocide and centuries of environmental remediation. The gene-modified Young rule the Seventeen Cities, home to the tiny remnant of human survivors. The Young are currently debating whether to exterminate humanity entirely when the biosphere is fully healed.
Ignatius Ryan, a Jesuit priest banished by his church to the future in cryosleep, sought only to survive and restore his flagging faith. His arrival upended the Young’s carefully sculpted world.
Ignatius, his lover Morna, and their daughter Iris barely managed to escape Selloi and Brunna, rulers of the city of S’Loo. With a tiny band of refugees, they set out for sanctuary in Kaycee, the one city on Earth not controlled by the Young.
But Kaycee is not the refuge they had been led to believe. They take shelter in a cavern nearby, hoping to find a way to evade the pervasive control of the Young.
In the forest south of Kaycee, they find a group of humans living a primitive lifestyle beyond the control of the Young. Faced with a choice of whether to join this tribe, itself liable to extermination if they are discovered, or return to S’Loo and the Young, they opt for the city.
Their return leads to an event no one expects. Morna finds herself on trial before a tribunal of the Young led by Ansan, at eight hundred years of age the oldest of the Young. In the face of mounting evidence against her, Ignatius must find a way to protect Morna and convince Ansan that the future of humanity and the Earth are not incompatible.