58% Too Far

"Noordermeer's impressive debut is mind-expanding anthropological SF... This heady SF yarn satisfyingly explores a cave-full of human dilemmas and evolves surprisingly well." - KIRKUS REVIEWS

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They invited it in-without asking what it would replace.

Seven years. Countless sacrifices. And now, anthropologist Zadie Thornton's doctoral work on how humanity might adapt to AI is already obsolete. With her PhD in jeopardy, she accepts her uncle's mysterious offer to glimpse AI's future, expecting a top-secret research facility. Instead, she wakes up on another planet.

Mushēški is home to the Anunnaki, descendants of ancient Sumerians who merged AI into their DNA five millennia ago. The result? Superhuman cognition... but at a cost. Their emotions have dulled. Their thoughts have grown uniform. They believed they'd reached the pinnacle of evolution, until a destabilizing disorder called Quantum Psychosis began stripping away the last traces of who they were. In pursuit of a solution, the Anunnaki have recreated extinct human species in vast biodomes.

For Zadie, it's the opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to observe what humanity once was, while living among what her people could one day become. As fascination battles unease, she agrees to stay. To revive her career, and maybe even stop Earth from making the same mistakes.

But as the disorder spreads, the Anunnaki's noble intentions give way to increasingly unethical measures, forcing Zadie to confront the true cost of progress-and what it really means to be human.

58% Too Far is a cerebral, emotionally rich, and chillingly plausible exploration of our future evolution where the fusion of AI and humanity leads not to transcendence, but to slow erasure. Perfect for readers who appreciate the speculative urgency of Blake Crouch, the philosophical insight of Ted Chiang, and the haunting emotional resonance of Kazuo Ishiguro.