'It works brilliantly. In The Accord, Keith Brooke has created a dazzling work of the imagination.'—SF Site
alt.human / Harmony
alt.human / Harmony
(Most recent edition: May 2012; Solaris.)
shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Award
[Note: one novel, two titles. The North American title is Harmony; elsewhere it's alt.human.]
Here's what the publishers have to say:
Two titles, one incredible vision of the colonization of Earth - Keith Brooke's Harmony/alt.human
The aliens are here. They always have been. And now, one by one, they’re destroying our cities.
Dodge Mercer deals in identities - until the day he deals the wrong identity and clan war breaks out. Hope Burren has no identity, and no past, struggling with a relentless choir of voices filling her head.
In a world where nothing is as it seems, where humans are segregated and aliens can sing realities and tear worlds apart, Dodge and Hope lead a ragged band of survivors in a search for the rumoured sanctuary of Harmony, and what may be the only hope for humankind.
Keith Brooke forces us to look again at the idea of alien invasion, abandoning tired cliché and instead creating an all-too-real world where mankind faces extinction. With his crystal clear prose and vivid imaginative storytelling, Harmony/alt.human promises to reinvigorate one of the oldest themes in SF.
"A startlingly new take on the theme of an Earth under alien occupation. Keith Brooke's vivid, high-definition prose makes us see it all with magnificent clarity, as if we were there, sharing the ruins and rubble with his strange but all too human characters." – Alastair Reynolds
"Brooke excels at depicting unknowable and scarily arbitrary extraterrestrials and a human race crushed by endless cruelty and domination. Recommended." - The Guardian
"We greatly admire the work and imagination of Keith Brooke ... [the] worldbuilding is simply stunning ... great novel, full of ideas and definitely a fresh take on the genre ... Well recommended." - upcoming4.me
"We've enjoyed Brooke's writing a lot before, including his weird tales of virtual heavens. And now he's back, with a novel that sounds weirder than all get-out." io9.com on Books you can't afford to miss in May
Author's note
With this one I decided it was time for me to tackle some of the big ideas of SF. Like alternate history. And aliens. And the Fermi Paradox. So I did it: all in one book.
And what's more, the novel was shortlisted for the Philip K Dick Award!
