From the author of ‘Crash’ and ‘Cocaine Nights’ comes an unnerving tale of life in a modern tower block running out of control.

Within the concealing walls of an elegant forty-storey tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on ‘enemy’ floors and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for riots and technological mayhem.

In this visionary tale of urban disillusionment society slips into a violent reverse as the isolated inhabitants of the high-rise, driven by primal urges, create a dystopian world ruled by the laws of the jungle.

Harper Curtis is a killer who stepped out of the past. Kirby Mazrachi is the girl who was never meant to have a future. Kirby is the last shining girl, one of the bright young women, burning with potential, whose lives Harper is destined to snuff out after he stumbles on a House in Depression-era Chicago that opens on to other times.

At the urging of the House, Harper inserts himself into the lives of these shining girls, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He's the ultimate hunter, vanishing without a trace into another time after each murder -- until one of his victims survives.

Determined to bring her would-be killer to justice, Kirby joins the Chicago Sun-Times to work with the reporter, Dan Velasquez, who covered her case. Soon Kirby finds herself closing in on an impossible truth . . .

Six years after a global pandemic wiped out most of the planet's population, the survivors are rebuilding the country, split between self-govering cities, hippie communes and wasteland gangs. In post-apocalyptic San Francisco, former pop star Moira has created a new identity to finally escape her past--until her domineering father launches a sweeping public search to track her down. Desperate for a fresh start herself, jaded event planner Krista navigates the world on behalf of those too traumatized to go outside, determined to help everyone move on--even if they don't want to. Rob survived the catastrophe with his daughter, Sunny, but lost his wife. When strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city's eyes by connecting with people again. Krista, Moira, Rob and Sunny are brought together by circumstance, and their lives begin to twine together. When reports of another outbreak throw the fragile society into panic, the friends are forced to finally face everything that came before--and everything they still stand to lose. Because sometimes having one person is enough to keep the world going.

Mike Chen is a relatively new SF author from San Francisco. He says this about his writing: "In my stories, there are no epic wars or fate-of-the-universe events; instead, they're tales of family and friendship and humor that just happen to have some time travel or an apocalypse."

Availibility Available from the London Public Library, Available from book stores e.g. Chapters/Indigo or Amazon or local used book shops.

Sea of Tranquility follows some of the characters introduced to readers in the author's previous novels -- Station Eleven and The Glass House -- but is a stand-alone novel. A detective, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts uncovers complexities that connect people across time (over two centuries) and space (between Earth and a moon colony). We covered Emily St John Mandel's novel Station Eleven in 2020.