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Editorial Reviews

Scientists said it would burn itself out, a tragic genetic mutation leading to weak, malformed newborns and visions of The Rapture. But the virus goes on and on and across the globe as generational changes in DNA breed a soft apocalypse. Sadness, regret, and confusion infect every tone of the performance of these six intriguing stories set soon and through the end of the century. Ordinary people are trapped by extraordinary biological forces in a social and environmental collapse, all combining in an engaging, if unsettling, eulogy for humanity.

Publisher's Summary

It began soon after the Millennium. Reports of newborns with strange malformations, too weak to live…caused by a single genetic mutation. Or, as the press quickly dubbed it, the Dragon Virus. Scientists predicted that it was an evolutionary dead end; that the mutation would burn itself out quickly; that it was nothing to be worried about.

They were wrong.

Every racial type. Almost every continent. No known cause. Human-created, maybe. Or just God, throwing the dice. Infecting us, warping us. Tied into our genetic code, from here on in. No known treatment. No idea where even to begin.

Everything was about to change.

Six connected stories, charting the end - beginning - of everything we know, everything we fear, everything we hope for….

With an Introduction by Walter Jon Williams
©2012 Laura Anne Gilman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

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Narration Killed This Book

The story might have been pretty good, but Thomas Stephen Jr.s narration killed it. There was zero variation in his characters. Old man? Little girl? They all sound exactly the same which makes following conversations impossible at times. The lack of emotion in his voice... he could have been reading a technical manual for a toaster for all the excitement he had. Luckily I got this on sale or I'd be super pissed I had wasted a credit on this story.