Synopsis:
Extinction Horizon meets Contagion in this sequel to 2025’s sci-fi thriller Symbiote, where the biological threat has escaped the South Pole and is now wreaking havoc upon humanity.
The survivors of the South Pole massacre will find that getting off the Antarctic continent may cost them their lives…
Months after the events of Symbiote, sunrise has come to the ice continent. At the coastal McMurdo Station (77 deg S), that means an annual series of flights to lay the groundwork for the 1,500 summer visitors that will soon call “Mac” home. Among the Winfly crew are the architects of Have Viking, the classified CIA program that unleashed the microbes onto Dome-A. They are determined to discover what happened with their experiment, and harvest samples of the mutated microbes to turn into a biological weapon.
Their plan goes haywire when the microbe-symbiote Ben Jacobs shows up after an impossible walk from Pole. When Ben is reunited with an asymptomatic carrier of the symbiotic microbes (Penny), all hell breaks loose at McMurdo. The microbes have their origins in the icy waters of Antarctic lakes, and the sea ice surrounding the station becomes a fertile breeding ground for a new and more dangerous infestation. Rajan Chariya and his friends will have to join forces with the CIA to fight the onslaught of infected “sea people” roving the snowy streets of McMurdo. But as they dig in to make their new stand, when do they stop being useful to Langley, and start being targets who know too much?
Worse, Penny may not be the only asymptomatic carrier…
Review:
I received a copy of Sentient in exchange for an honest review.
I loved Symbiote, and after that ending which left the door wide open for the second book I was so excited to get reading Sentient. I’m very glad to say that it did not disappoint, Nayak took the pace he had from the first book and just kept going. This time the stakes were even higher as the plague-carriers find their way to a larger base that has actual contact with the wider world. Nayak has actual real life experience with the setting and that really shines through as he makes McMurdo Station so real and work perfectly as a setting for Sentient.
Sentient really does charge along at quite a pace, and it works perfectly. You know from book one what the plague does and how it affects people, so there’s no need to slow down on letting it start doing it’s thing. And, it turns out, that when it has access to even more people it’s somehow even more horrifying. There’s moments from this book that feel so cinematic and will stay with me for quite some time. Turns out not everything that seems cute is cute.
There are loads of new characters introduced in Sentient, and Nayak did a wonderful job at their characterisation as I easily kept up with all the new people and where they sat in the story. From the leaders of McMurdo station to the CIA team that arrives, everyone had a place in not only the story but the running of the station, a testament to Nayak’s first-hand experience in this environment.
McMurdo station feels so isolated, but yet so much more connected to the outside world than the station in Symbiote. That fact makes this book even more terrifying, as it starts to show how the plague could spread into the wider world, and how little it takes to spread. Sentient is the perfect blend of horror and sci-fi that feels firmly rooted in the real world.
I’m simultaneously excited and terrified for the next book as I have a feeling Nayak will find a way to make this plague even bigger, faster and more real. While the series could technically end as this duology, I have a feeling Nayak’s got more to go…
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