Edge of the Known World: A Novel

by Sheri T. Joseph

Overview

Fans of Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake will be swept away by this riveting speculative fiction adventure and love story about family, genetic privacy, and the onrushing future of surveillance technology.

2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in multiple categories, including Best New Fiction, Political Thriller, and Science Fiction

Alexandra Tashen is a brilliant student, adoring daughter, merry wit, and exuberant prankster. After a blissful childhood on a Texas ranch, she learns the truth: She is a refusé, an illegal refugee smuggled into the Allied Nations as an infant. Everyone from her birth region carries a harmless but detectable bit of viral DNA from a flu vaccine. If detected by the rapid genetic testing at security screens, Alex will be returned to the Federation and a likely death. Her adoptive father developed a gene therapy to mask her g-marker, but it is not fully effective. Every g-screen presents a nerve-racking one-in-ten chance of getting caught.

When her father goes missing, Alex abandons her cloistered academic life in San Francisco for a globe-trotting Commission in a desperate race to warn him of a trap that will destroy them both. As Alex dodges g-screens on her precarious and often-hilarious adventure, a love triangle develops between her and two men: Eric Burton, a commanding and disgraced intelligence officer, and his blood brother, Strav Beki, a charismatic and dangerously unhinged diplomat. Betrayals mount and secrets unravel, building to the most confounding choices that people can face—choices between love, family loyalty, and moral obligation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684632626
Publisher:	SparkPress
Publication date:	09/03/2024
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Sheri T. Joseph grew up in a New York beach town until her family relocated to San Francisco. She holds a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley and a JD from UC Law San Francisco. She is passionate about the need for housing and serves as executive director of a nonprofit corporation that supports creation of affordable housing for families, veterans, refugees, and vulnerable populations. She’s also a trustee for Homeward Bound, a provider of homeless services and housing. Sheri and her husband have three adventurous children and live in Tiburon, California. This is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

05/27/2024

In this smart, multi-layered debut, Joseph constructs a thoughtful dystopian near-future adventure complete with genetic screening, international thrills, playful wit, and a welcome touch of romance. A global war 25 years ago between the Allied Nations and the Federation Regime resulted in a dirty bomb that forced Allied forces into Central Asia where a devastating virus killed a billion people. Those inoculated with a gene therapy carry a trace in their DNA that shows up on g-screens. People detected with the marker in their DNA, called refusés, are deported or shot. Indian-Swedish Nations TaskForce academic Alex Tashen carries the DNA marker, which despite her adoptive father and doctor, Patrick, manipulating her DNA, will still trigger a positive in one in ten g-screens. Confined to San Francisco, Alex is hindered in her ability to travel because every checkpoint requires a g-screen.

But the personal and political compel her to action when Patrick, a Nations prisoner, is threatened after exposing the torture refugee refusés endure when deported. Joseph touchingly dramatizes Alex’s courageous choice to risk detection and save him by accepting her Kommandant’s offer to be an analyst on a security assessment Commission to the Nepal Protectorate. Throughout, Joseph’s vivid worldbuilding and her scarifying descriptions of an oppressive state never detract from the psychological drama of these convincing, complex characters. Alex surprises herself in being attracted to her Commission teammates—Viking-sized Eric Burton, the TaskForce Security Operations Director and math and science genius, and Eric’s adoptive brother Strav Beki, a Mongolian linguist.

The tension mounts as the trio navigates the peculiar specifics of diplomacy and Alex fights the clock in her endeavor to save her father. Survival amid draconian societal laws, questions of privacy, advances in science, and issues of refugee status and treatment provide careful readers with rich material for contemplation as they follow Alex, Eric, and Strav’s adventures through political intrigue, suspense, twists, and affairs of the heart.

Takeaway: Dystopian SF thriller of complex science, relatable characters, and romance.

Comparable Titles: Malka Older; Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous.

Production grades Cover: A Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A Marketing copy: A

BookLife Reviews

2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in Best New Fiction
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in Thriller: Political
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in Thriller: Techno
2024 American Fiction Awards Winner in Science Fiction: General

“Author Sheri T. Joseph has crafted a riveting novel. . . . a brilliantly original concept that captures you right from the start.” —Readers’ Favorite, 5-star review

“In this smart, multi-layered debut, Joseph constructs a thoughtful dystopian near-future adventure complete with genetic screening, international thrills, playful wit, and a welcome touch of romance. . . . Throughout, Joseph’s vivid worldbuilding and her scarifying descriptions of an oppressive state never detract from the psychological drama of these convincing, complex characters.” —BookLife Reviews

“The skillful writing makes the book a worthy read. . . . A complicated dystopian political thriller enhanced by lively prose.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A stellar debut! Deftly plotted and expertly executed; Joseph takes readers on a compelling and frightening tale. Alex Tashen is a character worth rooting for. Highly recommended.” —Sheldon Siegel, New York Times best-selling author of Special Circumstances

“Via pristine details, intriguing characters, and such timely themes as technology ethics and societal collapse, Joseph’s broad, bold tale of an any-day-now dystopia never strays from the intimacy of a father and daughter’s mutual love.” —Anita Gail Jones, finalist for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and author of The Peach Seed

“Sheri T. Joseph blends intellect, wit, and passion in an intricate yet thrilling near-future tale. As readers appreciate the myriad exquisite turns of phrase, they must also grapple with burning issues of genetic testing and personal freedom.” —Jude Berman, author of The Die and The Vow

“Brainy, sexy, funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is literary speculative fiction at its best. This romantic thriller is also a real look at the impact of genetic screening on privacy and belonging in a time just a heartbeat away.” —Leslie K. Barry, Chanticleer Award–winning author of Newark Minutemen

“Joseph’s wild, far-flung, and intrigue-filled adventures offer much for future diplomats as well as scientists to ponder as they seek to deter future genocides and ethnic cleansings.” —Mary Carlin Yates, Ambassador of the United States and former deputy commander of the US Africa Command

“Edge of the Known World is a compelling story about technology, identity, and privacy that illuminates some of the most pressing questions facing society today.” —Corie Adjmi, Best Book Award and American Fiction Award–winning author of The Marriage Box

From the Publisher

Joseph’s wild, far-flung, and intrigue-filled adventures offer much for future diplomats as well as scientists to ponder as they seek to deter future genocides and ethnic cleansings.

Mary Carlin Yates

Brainy, sexy, funny, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is literary speculative fiction at its best. This romantic thriller is also a real look at the impact of genetic screening on privacy and belonging in a time just a heartbeat away.

Leslie K. Barry

Like all great dystopian fiction writers, Joseph holds a magic mirror to our world in a compelling, complex story.

Lori Duff

Author Sheri T. Joseph has crafted a riveting novel. . . . a brilliantly original concept that captures you right from the start.

5-star review Readers’ Favorite

Edge of the Known World is a compelling story about technology, identity, and privacy that illuminates some of the most pressing questions facing society today.

Corie Adjmi

Sheri T. Joseph blends intellect, wit, and passion in an intricate yet thrilling near-future tale. As readers appreciate the myriad exquisite turns of phrase, they must also grapple with burning issues of genetic testing and personal freedom.

Jude Berman

A stellar debut! Deftly plotted and expertly executed; Joseph takes readers on a compelling and frightening tale. Alex Tashen is a character worth rooting for. Highly recommended.

Sheldon Siegel

2024-05-07
In Joseph’s near-future dystopian thriller, an economist, a soldier, and a diplomat circle each other as political tensions rise.

About 25 years after a cataclysmic war, Alex Tashen, an economist with a tragic backstory and many secrets, embarks on a dangerous mission. The Allied Nations, governed and protected by the TaskForce Institute, aims to protect its citizens from the disease and violence apparently wrought by the guizi, or refusé—people who inhabit their rival nation, the Federation, and spread disease and commit crimes, according to Allied propaganda. Alex, who’s secretly a refusé, remains hidden in the Allied Nations, due to her adoptive father’s genetic research, which allows her to remain undetected during regular genetic screenings. Alex impresses TaskForce Kommandant Suzanne Burton and infiltrates the Allied Nations political framework. The economist, who’s sure that her father is behind recent anti-Allied cyberattacks, ingratiates herself with the Kommandant and Suzanne’s adopted sons, Eric Burton and Strav Beki. Eric is a disgraced former TaskForce director and Suzanne’s younger cousin, who wants to bring Strav on his new mission as a consultant, but Suzanne places him with Alex instead, forcing the three into an uneasy alliance—one that’s tinged with romantic and sexual tension. Using alternating third-person perspectives, Joseph shows how Alex, Eric, and Strav each work toward their disparate goals. The novel’s worldbuilding is complex; the political system in which the characters work, and are complicit in, is a fascist dystopia with troubling views on nationality, abortion, and sexual assault that the novel doesn’t satisfyingly confront. Still, the skillful writing makes the book a worthy read; Joseph’s writing can get technical when the characters talk politics or economics, but it also has beautiful passages: “They belonged to a universe out of rhythm, a vindictive place without music.” Strav’s dialogue is laced with references to English literature, especially the works of William Shakespeare, characterizing him as something of a tragic hero.

A complicated dystopian political thriller enhanced by lively prose.

Kirkus Reviews