by Paul Theroux
First published 1986
On New Year's Eve in the near future, eight privileged New Yorkers fly their private aircraft to the quarantined O-Zone for a holiday picnic. The contaminated Ozark region glows with nuclear waste from failed limestone storage, but as members of the ruling Owner class, they bypass restrictions easily. Their expedition turns dangerous when they encounter a group of aliens living in the forbidden territory. The discovery transforms each traveler in unexpected ways. One pursues an obsessive romance based on a single photograph. A fifteen-year-old computer genius, normally afraid to leave his room, gets kidnapped and must survive in the wilderness. Another becomes a violent vigilante. A woman searches for her former lover across exotic locations while her husband schemes to control the Zone itself. Their stories unfold across a fractured world where no nuclear war occurred, just the relentless progression of existing problems. The human capacity for love and adaptation persists even in this chaotic landscape.
Genres: science-fiction, adventure, aliens, 21st-century, apocalyptic
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: New York, Ozark
Period: Near Future
527 pages · Hardcover · Putnam Publ. Group