Against the Machine: Evolution by Brian Van Norman is the third installment in the Against the Machine series. This is a science fiction fantasy novel that introduces readers to the future Earth, approximately two hundred years after the collapse of the Omegan world. Environmental destruction, climate change, mass migrations, religious wars, and nuclear conflict previously devastated the planet, leading to CORPORATE responding by rebuilding civilization inside technologically advanced MEGs connected through the NET. Meanwhile, the impoverished Dàzhòng (MASS) are surviving beyond the protective domes, scavenging the ruins of the old world to support the new.
Steller, Dodo, Kangaroo, Moa, and Tarpan are members of FERN: Free Environmental Resistance Network, a group of activists determined to stop chemical companies from poisoning the planet. Funded by a billionaire benefactor named Saber, each member uses a code name based on an extinct animal as a constant reminder of what they are fighting for. To maintain absolute security, the members keep their backgrounds and personal lives strictly anonymous.
After moving into a house that she feels is a godsend in her time of need, Charlie’s celebration of embracing a new chapter in life is cut short when she begins experiencing strange sights and sounds in her new home. She quickly sums it up to living all by herself in a big house, but soon realizes that maybe the strange activity taking place is something more than a trapped animal or forgotten cell phone. In the novel Winter by Rhya Tenney, readers are treated to a story of ghosts, an AI bot that seems to have the gift of precognition, and a lingering haunting taking place at a nearby abbey. Left to her own devices (pun intended) to make sense of what is going on, Charlie turns to AI for help, as well as tracking down any people attached to the house for answers.
