Unnatural
by Anthony DiGiovanni
After hunting down a robotics engineer he believes to be a sexual predator, a destitute man in southern Nevada finds that he's the only conscious person on a planet of suddenly comatose humans -- until his victim appears to be commanding the world's androids. Marked public enemy #1 in the eyes of a moon colony that'll do anything to sustain the human race, can he prove he isn't better off dead?In the developed world, year 2062, the human body is obsolete. Those too poor to be rid of this handicap, such as would-be pathologist Dennis Uriah, are called Organics. Fed up with a society that marginalizes people like him and his partner Pat Mallard, Uriah attempts to take justice into his own hands when Pat tells him that Isaac Livingston, a playboy of the exoskeleton-equipped Transhuman class, raped her.Immediately afterwards, every human besides Uriah falls unconscious, leaving him not only responsible for the welfare of animals that his traumatic memories compel him to save, but also in a position of extreme suspicion to the residents of a Russian moon colony. To avoid becoming the survivors' scapegoat, Uriah's only option is to discover how to reverse this apocalyptic affliction -- something that Livingston, who has somehow survived both a murder attempt and the global coma, isn't prepared to let happen when he has all but one of Earth's androids on his side.Parallel to Uriah's struggles, Sabrina Lockhart, already grappling with depression and the isolation of being the moon's sole Organic due to her religious convictions, has lost on Earth the only person she truly loves. The colony's governess requests her help to use her Organic immunity from EMPs to subdue a rogue robot, an emotionally advanced servant who has lashed out against the moon colonists after separation from her master.Sabrina knows well, however, that her community has an ulterior motive. Unless she complies with their wishes and bears children with the only other Organic, the human species may not outlast this sparse group of survivors. How will she defend her identity when the most powerful woman alive wants to exploit her as a mere reproductive utility?[Note: Although it would not be accurate to mark this book as having "adult content," there is a mild trigger warning for moderate discussion and depiction of violence, and (for those sensitive about it) some profane language and sexual content. Treat this novel as roughly on the level of a PG-13 film in terms of content appropriateness. Personally, I wouldn't get too hung up about this considering I had to read more disturbing material than this in a grade-school curriculum, but my aim here is to please readers, not to invoke the anger of parents. I promise this novel won't encourage your children to join Satanic cults.]