"By turns gritty, bleak and barbed with hope, this inventive sci-fi cyberpunk thriller packs environmental and ethical punch. "
Fittingly billed as a “biopunk thriller”, Ian Green’s Extremophile is a romp of criminal cyberpunks, eco-warriors and ethical dilemmas set in a dystopian imagining of London. Ambitious, inventive and written in an addictive style, it comes recommended for fans of Neuromancer and China Miéville.
Exploring environmental ruin, corporate control, grassroots resistance, and the impulse to keep on trying even when all seems doomed, the narrative focusses on biohackers and punk musicians Charlie and Parker, who live in near-future London that’s on the brink of climate collapse. A place in which people are either Green, Blue or Black: “Greens want to save the world…Blues don’t give a fuck as long as there is profit… Blacks know that the world is fucked and you either need to have a good time or find a bath and a toaster”.
Into this, Charlie and Parker are hired by extreme activists called the Heavy Crew, the “hardest of the hard Greens”. No tactic is excluded from their arsenal — including assassination and arson — which elicits very different responses from Charlie and Parker. While Black-hearted Charlie wants to walk away, Parker is of a more hopeful persuasion and believes it might still be possible to bring about change.
In short, Extremophile presents an inventive experimental journey through human nihilism, optimism and morality in the age of AI and climate crises.
| Primary Genre | Science Fiction |
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