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The inheritors of post-apocalyptic Earth jockey for power in Shamrai’s novel. In what could ostensibly be called a “space opera,” Shamrai’s novel gets off to a rip-roaring start as a shuttle carrying astrophysicist Gaag Zorb and cryobiologist Zara Espen suddenly crashes over Arabia. The two protagonists emerge from the wreckage to discover a putrid world of sand and fog inhabited by strange humanoid creatures whom the warring elites of this future Earth couldn’t care less about. Naturally, the tribal peoples who inhabit the place aren’t too keen on outsiders, either. Shamrai imagines a society whose members have mastered a method of successfully striding atop the shifting sands using specially designed stilts. As far out as that might initially seem, Shamrai’s worldbuilding is actually grounded in the here and now; the exploits of the League of Corporations, the government of the Four Continents, and the Kowloon Empire don’t seem that farfetched.