EDEN

Nature personified seeks revenge for climate degradation in this dystopian thriller by Lebbon (The Silence, 2015, etc.).

Jenn, her father, Dylan, and her boyfriend, Aaron, team up with sportsman Cove, Selina, a scientist, Lucy, a Ph.D. student, and Gee, a former Canadian policeman who became an electrician after he lost his husband and hand in a car accident. The team's goal is to become the first to run across Eden, the oldest and wildest of the Earth's 13 Virgin Zones, which were fenced off and allowed to return to a state of unpeopled nature after the planet's rivers were polluted and its rainforests devastated. One of Eden's attractions for Jenn is the chance to reunite with her mother, Kat, who abandoned her and Dylan nine years ago and who Jenn believes is inside the zone along with her own team. The illegal adventure race across the 300-mile stretch of forests, valleys, cliffs, ravines, rivers, and mountains quickly sours as Jenn is injured, the forest seems to be watching them, and Kat's team members turn up dead and amalgamated into the natural environment. After a clunky start to set up the premise and accommodate the necessary worldbuilding, the story takes off, playing on contemporary fears of climate apocalypse as the team runs through the forest with animal-possessed Kat and a menagerie of wild animals in pursuit. Will any of them escape Eden with their lives?

Jurassic Park meets catastrophic climate change in this creepy, cinema-ready story.