Angry Robot Blog Tour/ARC Review: Symbiote, by Michael Nayak

ABOUT THE BOOK

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 crewmembers 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…

THEMES: Isolation and its effect on the human psyche; the cold of Antarctica as a character; uncontrolled bacterial evolution as a pacing threat; cramped, claustrophobic confines leading to intense interpersonal
fireworks; the Antarctic Treaty, and how that is defined in a time of war

My Review

I received this book in November and read it in early December; I was going to share my review as soon as I finished the book, but I got an email from the team at Angry Robot about a book tour, so I decided to save sharing my review until now. If you’ve seen my GoodReads review, you’ll know I gave it five stars.

This book follows a soldier-scientist in Antarctica; ostensibly there to do astronomy, Rajan Chariya is back up for when things go wrong, he just doesn’t know it yet. And things go very wrong. Three Chinese scientists make the trek across Antarctica from their base to the American South Pole base because something awful has happened. Four set out from the Chinese research base.

A murder, surely?

Stumped, the Americans decide to imprison the Chinese scientists in a storage room and wait for summer.

But the something awful comes to the South Pole and madness ensues, until as the sun finally rises in September.

I read this book over a couple of days, in two long sessions. It was really good! A tense read, as we follow Rajan in his first Antarctic season, trying to survive the cold, the dark, the people around him, and a mysterious bacteria, while a war rages on in the Pacific. The narrative is interspersed with extracts from a war correspondent’s future diaries and messages sent between Rajan and his intelligence agency handlers. We discover he’s there mainly as a scientist, but also works for an American intelligence agency.

The interpersonal fireworks of a small group of people locked up in the cold and dark of an Antarctic winter, where it’s impossible to get away from each other and where small disagreements can become big arguments easily would be tense enough, but the added mystery of the Chinese scientists and the knowledge that no help can get to them for several months ramps up the tension.

Rajan is the main point of view character although we also see events from the perspective of Ben, another soldier-scientist with a lot of baggage that makes him vulnerable to the bacteria. Events move quickly and the weather takes on menacing aspects as the temperature determines if the bacteria is active or dormant, and getting stuck outside in a storm is a death sentence. Rajan has PTSD from military service and he develops self-knowledge over the months that he’s at the Pole, allowing him to survive and encourage others to do so.

The book was partially written while Dr Nayak was doing some research in Antarctica and I think that added a touch of reality to the novel. Who better to write about the isolation and darkness, the customs and rivalries of life at the Pole? Throw in a terrifying scenario of a cold-activated bacteria and an unexpected mutation, explosions and telepathy, and you have a great read.

The narrative was engaging, and kept me turning the page to know what happened next; the characters felt real, and complex; and the world-building (WWIII, America, Russia, and China in 2027) seems frighteningly likely given everything going on in the world recently and the people taking power in the US.

I’m glad this is book 1 in a series, because it means I get to find out what happens next. Eventually.

Book two please. Soon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Nayak was born in Los Angeles and now lives in Washington, DC. By day, he is Doctor/Major Nayak, working for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Michael is a former Antarctic researcher, space shuttle engineer. He is a USAF Test Pilot School graduate, Rotary National
Award for Space Achievement recipient, and has 1,000+ hours of flight time in 40+ aircraft. His real-world experience in the science and intelligence communities adds next-level authentic details and a touch of
hyper-realism to his work.