Ghost Species - Paperback

by James Bradley (Author)

When scientist Kate Larkin joins a secretive project to re-engineer the climate by resurrecting extinct species, she becomes enmeshed in another, even more clandestine program to recreate our long-lost relatives, the Neanderthals. But when the first of the children, a girl called Eve, is born, Kate finds herself torn between her duties as a scientist and her urge to protect their time-lost creation. Set against the backdrop of hastening climate catastrophe, Ghost Species is an exquisitely beautiful and deeply affecting exploration of connection and loss in an age of planetary trauma. For as Eve grows to adulthood she and Kate must face the question of who and what she is. Is she natural or artificial? Human or non-human? And perhaps most importantly, as civilisation unravels around them, is Eve the ghost species, or are we? Thrillingly original, Ghost Species is embedded with a deep love and understanding of the natural world.

Back Jacket

In an intimate portrayal of high-concept big ideas, can we engineer ourselves out of a problem of our own making?

Set against the backdrop of rapidly escalating climate catastrophe, scientists Kate Larkin and Jay Gunesekera are recruited by tech billionaire and mogul Davis Hucken to the forests of Tasmania, Australia. His Foundation's mission is not only to halt the effects of climate change, but to re-engineer and reverse the damage through the ambitious process of reviving species lost to the earth over time, including a clandestine ambition to resurrect the Neanderthals. When Eve, the first child, is born and grows up in a world crumbling around her, questions arise that she and Kate must face. Is she human or not, real or unnatural, and is she the ghost species or are we?

As more and more of us are waking up to the truth about our climate, and our need to reverse the damage we have caused, Ghost Species is timely, poignant and reflective on what it means to be human on a personal and a global scale.

Author Biography

James Bradley is the author of four novels, Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist which was chosen as a Richard and Judy 2008 Summer Read, and Clade, and a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus.

His books have won or been shortlisted for a number of major Australian and international literary awards and have been widely translated.

He lives in Sydney, Australia, with his partner, the novelist Mardi McConnochie, and two daughters.