Category: Science Fiction
Rights: World rights available
Zone completes the saga begun in Escape and continued in The Island of Lost Girls. Together, the three books will comprise the MEIJI Trilogy, following the life of Meiji, the only young woman to survive the brutal decimation of all women and girls of her birth-culture.
The final novel begins shortly after the end of the second book. Meiji faces sentencing for losing control of the giant flying lizard named Smaug, on whose back she was riding when it went berserk, devouring half the Red Team of the Zone Games.
The novel will follow Meiji’s trajectory across the Zone, which is the name given to the continent that we call Africa today, in the lawless future in which these novels are set. Meiji seeks not only to avoid punishment for Smaug’s destructive spree, but also to escape the social expectations of everyone she knows. This includes the guardian who was once called Youngest, now Yasmine. In particular, she’s desperate to break free of the gender roles forced upon her by those who think they know best for her, based on their traditional ideas.
She will have a pair of companions with her. One is the transwoman Aila and the other is Rayn, a young man with a troubling history. Mounted on long-limbed flightless raptors and armed with a handful of unusual weapons, all three must once again look for sanctuary amongst strangers in a distant land.
The author: Manjula Padmanabhan