The Earthling Condition

Earth has fallen. The rulers wear human faces.

One hundred years after Earth was claimed by an interstellar empire known as the Hegemony, humanity has settled into the uneasy rhythms of colonial life. Sofia Rian is a low-ranking clerk in the Earthling Welfare Office on the island city of Eveningstar – a woman of no particular consequence, content to keep her head down and get through the day.

Then a positive pregnancy test changes everything. The father is not human.

As Sofia navigates the terror and wonder of carrying the first known hybrid child, the fragile order around her begins to crack. A workers’ strike turns violent. People she trusts disappear. The rules that once kept her safe begin to change. And Sofia – who never wanted to matter, who only wanted a quiet life – discovers that under imperial rule the middle ground is only ever an illusion.

For fans of Octavia Butler, Kazuo Ishiguro and Emily St John Mandel, Eveningstar is an unflinching debut about occupation, dignity, and resistance – the story of an ordinary woman carrying an extraordinary secret in a world that will not let her be ordinary any longer.