Eden

March 1, 2020
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.

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March 9, 2020
Lebbon (The Silence) pits human ambition against a conscious and remorseless environment in this atmospheric eco-horror adventure set in the near future. Desperate to avert a climate disaster, the world’s governments declared 13 “Virgin Zones” closed to human access, hoping they would revert to their pristine condition. Instead the flora and fauna have evolved in terrifying ways. Despite the armed patrols protecting the Virgin Zones’ borders, teams of adventurers enter the Zones illegally to race across their reaches for sport and glory. Dylan and his daughter, Jenn, are part of an elite team planning to cross Eden, the oldest of the Zones, when Jenn learns that her estranged mother, Kat, has entered Eden ahead of them. Desperate to locate Kat, Dylan’s team plunges into Eden. Once inside, they realize the Zone hides a valuable resource, but the land will protect itself from their intrusion at all costs. Lebbon excels at building a world that is both wondrous and deeply unsettling, but shallow characterization—especially of the women, whose worlds seem to revolve around the men—prevents the human characters from being as effective as the ever-shifting landscape. Lebbon stumbles a bit in the execution of this powerful premise.

March 15, 2020
The eco-thriller takes a deadly turn in this action packed, unsettling, and violent tale of nature out for revenge. In a future world devastated by climate change, nature preserves called Virgin Zones" are created in a final attempt to save the planet. A veteran adventure team sneaks into the largest and oldest of these zones, attempting to be the first humans to cross it; but nature has not only reclaimed the land, it seems to be actively trying to repel humanity. Told mostly by leader Dylan and his daughter Jenn, the story reveals each team member's motivation and how he or she reacts to an ordinary, albeit extreme, trip that quickly goes from eerie to mortally dangerous. Each chapter is prefaced by a found document from the Virgin Zone movement, adding both context and dread in equal measure. This is an unsettling story from its first lines, punctuated with a sense of doom that intensifies with each turn of the page. Readers looking for an anxiety-inducing, fast-paced horror-thriller hybrid with echoes of Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy and Christopher Golden's Ben Walker series will love every minute.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)