Immunity Index: A Novel

by Sue Burke

Overview

Sue Burke, author of Semiosis and Interference, gives readers a new near-future, hard sf novel. Immunity Index blends Orphan Black with Contagion in a terrifying outbreak scenario.

Bustle's 40 Best New Books May 2021

Amazon Best of the Month May 2021

In a US facing growing food shortages, stark inequality, and a growing fascist government, three perfectly normal young women are about to find out that they share a great deal in common.

Their creator, the gifted geneticist Peng, made them that way—before such things were outlawed.

Rumors of a virus make their way through an unprotected population on the verge of rebellion, only to have it turn deadly.

As the women fight to stay alive and help, Peng races to find a cure—and the cover up behind the virus.

Other Books by Sue Burke

Semiosis duology

Semiosis

Interference

Immunity Index

Dual Memory

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250317896
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/17/2022
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	643,268
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

SUE BURKE spent many years working as a reporter and editor for a variety of newspapers and magazines. She is a Clarion workshop alumnus, and she has published more than 30 short stories. Burke also worked extensively as a literary translator, and while living in Madrid, Spain, she headed the long-running Madrid Writer’s Critique Group. Her translations include the fantasy novel Prodigies by Angélica Gorodischer, the bilingual science fiction anthology Castles in Spain / Castillos en el aire, and the script for the science fiction movie Mindgate.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Immunity Index

“This hits close to home.”—Publishers Weekly

“This dystopian biothriller reads like a 21st-century version of Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, crossed with George Orwell’s 1984. . . . hopeful, heartbreaking, and compelling at every turn. Highly recommended for readers of dystopian science fiction or political technothrillers.”—Library Journal, starred review

“A fast-paced hard-sf thriller… Burke imparts detailed discussions on genetics within a dramatic and thought-provoking story of inequality, humanity and family. For fans of the Orphan Black television series or Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers (2019).”—Booklist

“Prescient and powerful, this is a gut-punch of a book . . . Sue Burke only gets better and better. She is a genuine if unsung hero of our genre.”—Seanan McGuire

“Riveting world building by a rising star of science fiction.”—David Brin

Praise for Semiosis

“This is up there with Ursula K. Le Guin: science fiction at its most fascinating and most humane.“—Thrillist

“A fascinating world.”—The Verge

“A solid debut.”—SFRevu

“A magnetic meditation on biochemistry and humanity.”—Locus Online

“This first-contact tale is extraordinary.”—Library Journal (starred review)

“Sharp, evocative . . . Semiosis unfolds the old science fiction idea of first contact in ways that are both traditional and subversive.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“A clever, fascinating, fun and unique debut.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Burke’s world building is exceptional, and her ability to combine the intricacies of colonization with the science of botany and theories of mutualism and predation is astounding." —Booklist

“Impressive debut novel . . . lush . . . beautiful.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher

02/08/2021

Burke (Semiosis) uses a futuristic world to comment on the present in this politically charged dystopian novel. In a near-future America where human clones are stigmatized as second-class citizens and an authoritarian “Prez” titillates his patriot cult with sloganeering straight out of the Big Brother playbook, a nationwide mutiny is brewing. When the government releases a vaccine against the rampaging Sino cold—purportedly to induce herd immunity nationally, but secretly to sicken the mutineers—the narrative refracts the ensuing chaos through the experiences of four characters: Avril, Irene, and Berenike, young Wisconsin women from various walks of life who discover they are clones of one another; and Peng, the scientist who cloned them and who has a hand in the virus’s release. Burke endows her characters with distinct personalities and conjures a frighteningly real sense of national destabilization as events spiral out of their control. Though the ending is somewhat anticlimactic, references to coronaviruses and a nation wracked by social unrest are sure to resonate. This hits close to home. (May.)

Publishers Weekly