by Vernor Vinge
First published 1987
Fifty million years in the future, fewer than 300 humans remain alive. They survive by using bobbles, impenetrable force fields that freeze small areas outside normal time, allowing people to spend centuries in stasis while the universe ages around them. The survivors desperately need a long-term plan to prevent human extinction, but bitter divisions threaten any cooperation. When Marta Korolev, one of the key planners, is murdered by being abandoned in realtime while everyone else enters stasis for centuries, a former police officer faces an impossible task. He must identify the killer among the survivors before humanity disappears forever. High-tech devices break down irreplaceably, and each decision about who enters stasis when becomes a matter of species survival. The investigation unfolds against the backdrop of a dying Earth where the last humans struggle not just against extinction, but against each other.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, mystery, thriller
Vibes: dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: dying-earth, impossible-task, species-survival
Setting: Earth
Period: Fifty Million Years in the Future
313 pages · Paperback · Baen Books
Content warnings: death, murder