This story is climate fiction with a vengeance. The earth now has, around the equator, the Hygrometric Dehabitation Region, or the “Zone”. Wet bulb temperature never goes below 95 degrees, so it is quickly fatal to humans - actually, to all warm-blooded species. It's not the heat, it's the humidity - which causes lots of equipment failures, & if your equipment fails, you die.
After being the only survivor of a research team 20 years ago, our protagonist signs on to go back into the zone. Deaths start almost immediately. Brutal.
Meanwhile, the Zone thrives with life: plants & cold-blooded animals. But it is death for warm-blooded animals. Some interesting biology here, about how much better adapted cold-blooded species are for this environment.
Tchaichovsky does a great job with this material. For a Brit, he understands American zeitgeist very well:
My family were never gun-havers. We were naturalised immigrants. We weren't ever white enough for our neighbours to be happy with us exercising our second-amendment rights.I totally didn't expect the turns this plot would take, particularly the ending. Very well done.
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