The Sunborn

by Gregory Benford

The award-winning author of Timescape and Eater returns with a gripping new novel set in the same dynamic future as his wildly popular The Martian Race.

The first manned mission to Mars has been successful. However, there is a gathering mystery surrounding "marsmat"- the complex, anaerobic life-form that the expedition discovered inside a honeycomb of tunnels below the planet's surface. The search for the answers to humanity's ultimate questions about life in the universe will lead to the fringes of the solar system-to the dark and cold void beyond the planet Pluto.

Their historic mission to Mars made Julia and Victor the most famous astronauts of all time. Now, decades later, they are ordered by the Consortium to Pluto, where they will rendezvous with another starship led by the brilliant, arrogant Captain Shanna Axelrod. Here, on the frozen ammonia shore of Pluto's methane sea, Shanna has discovered intelligent creatures thriving in the -300┬░ degree temperatures.

But even as their findings shift from the amazing to the inconceivable, the two crews must overcome their own intense rivalry to work together, for the most remote reaches of the solar system are filled with unimaginable wonders … and countless forces that will crush all human life.

Year First Published:

2005