We Have Always Been Here
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
This “claustrophobic and dark” debut science fiction thriller is “full of twisting ship corridors and unreliable characters” as it explores AI ethics and the effects of climate change (Kirkus Reviews).
Aboard a ship manned by humans and androids, one doctor must discover the source of her crew’s madness—or risk succumbing to it herself.
Misanthropic psychologist Dr. Grace Park is placed on the Deucalion, a survey ship headed to an icy planet in an unexplored galaxy. Her purpose is to observe the thirteen human crew members aboard the ship—all specialists in their own fields—as they assess the colonization potential of the planet, Eos. But frictions develop as Park befriends the androids of the ship, preferring their company over the baffling complexity of humans, while the rest of the crew treats them with suspicion and even outright hostility.
Shortly after landing, the crew finds themselves trapped on the ship by a radiation storm, with no means of communication or escape until it passes—and that’s when things begin to fall apart. Park’s patients are falling prey to waking nightmares of helpless, tongueless insanity. The androids are behaving strangely. There are no windows aboard the ship. Paranoia is closing in, and soon Park is forced to confront the fact that nothing—neither her crew, nor their mission, nor the mysterious Eos itself—is as it seems.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A strange madness takes hold of a ship when it lands on an unexplored planet in Nguyen's suspenseful debut. Natural disasters have decimated Earth's population, and the survivors are in the process of spreading across the galaxy, governed by the Interstellar Frontier, or ISF. The ISF orders 13 experts, among them perspicacious psychologist Grace Park, to travel to the newly discovered planet Eos to determine whether it's habitable. Despite her occupation, Park has always felt more kinship with androids than with her fellow humans, making her a pariah among the crew. But when her mentor disappears into a top secret project, Park is the only person with the know-how to treat her colleagues for mental disturbances. Her new responsibilities fill her with "a throat-aching terror" as a deadly, mysterious condition rapidly spreads among her crewmates, making them behave as though possessed. Meanwhile, Park suspects that everyone but her knows a secret about Eos. As it becomes painfully clear that the ship's androids are her only allies, Park must race to stop the madness before she falls victim to it herself. Nguyen immerses readers in a chilling landscape while effortlessly softening the more sinister moments with wistful, dreamlike flashbacks. This impressive sci-fi thriller marks Nguyen as a writer to watch.
