Recursion: Germinal, Book 2 (Black Dawn)

This sequel to Inversion forces a pacifist society in a pastoral, isolated universe to wrestle with the cost of self-defense.

The people of Germinal live on atiny, verdant planet where evolution has traced aslightly different path. For centuries, they have peacefully coexisted amid an ecosystemwhere an advancing wall of fire consumes all in its path, a perpetual cycleof destruction and renewal. That is, until everything they knew of their historywas violently upended by the arrival of colonizers.

Months after the events in Inversion, the people of Germinal are rebuilding, reckoning with thebrutality of the invasion, and striving to absorb newcomers. But young Char, earning a reputationamong her people as a capable new conciliator, wrestles with the trauma ofthose events and tries to rally her community to defend themselves againstfuture attack. Her friend Graft, formerly an aide-de-camp of the invading forces,is adrift. Though finally safe, he has nothing left but the stories of his losthome and grows increasingly haunted by visions of the past—including of the mysterious creation of Germinal. But calm in their changed world is short lived.

A pair of warriors arrive from amilitant culture on the far side of the flamewall, violating a great taboo thatforbids one side from meeting another. They insist on being brought to the survivors, to deal with as they see fit. As the situation escalates, Charand Graft struggle to do what is right. To keep each other safe. And to readythemselves for what they both know is true: The invaders will try again.

Aric McBay's Germinal trilogy is the spiritual successor to Ursula Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson, posing large moral questions of justice inside a lush, wholly unexpected world.