Charlie and Parker are punks by night, biohackers by day, living in the stuttering decay of near-future climate-collapse London.
They pay for the beer they don't steal with money from their sketchy astronomy site Zodiac Code, while Charlie's bio-bespoke augments equip the criminals, punks, and eco-warriors of London. They have to deal with disgruntled clients, scene kids who don't dig their band, and a city that's run by corporates and criminals. Their world is split into three factions: Green – who are still trying to save the world; Blue – who try to profit while they can, and Black – who see no hope left.
When a group of extremist Green activists hire them for a series of jobs ranging from robbery to murder, Charlie – who struggles to feel anything except Black – wants to walk away. But Parker still believes they can make a difference, and urges her to accept.
As they enter an escalating biological arms race against faceless corporations, amoral biohackers, and criminal cyberpunks, Charlie will have to choose what she believes in. Is there still hope, and does she have a right to grab it?
About the Author
Ian Green is a writer from Northern Scotland with a PhD in epigenetics. His fiction has been widely broadcast and performed, including winning the BBC Radio 4 Opening Lines competition and winning the Futurebook Future Fiction Prize. His short fiction has been published by Londnr, Almond Press, OpenPen, Meanjin, Transportation Press, The Pigeonhole, No Alibi Press, Minor Lits, and more.
Industry Reviews
A radical, explosive story full of wild hope and venomous rage. Its near future apocalypse is not just prescient and subversive, but full of life, love and thrill in a way that makes it only breaths away from the world we are now. Its voice is challenging, unrelenting, and veering between heartbreak and humour. I feel like this book was written for me, specifically, but I know it's for us. All of us. With its queer community, found family, the dilemmas of resistance and the agony of survival, Extremophile was a song to my soul and a punch in the gut. Read it. - Hannah Kaner
Absolute dirty-nailed cutting-edge biopunk. A world you can taste like a film of grime on the tongue. Phenomenally imaginative. - Adrian Tchaikovsky
A thrilling ride, full of invention and excitement - Josie Long
The novel is clear-eyed about the peril our planet faces, but leavens the mood with a sparky, iconoclastic energy * Financial Times, Best Books of 2024 *
An electric charge of anger animates this gripping novel * The Guardian *
Vivid, visceral and utterly compelling, Extremophile blasts new life into the cyberpunk genre. A heady mash-up of biology, punk, art, activism, hackers, murky morality and ultimately, hope, it had me hooked from the first page to the last. - Stark Holborn
An impassioned, compulsive riot. Imagine an upstart William Gibson setting a thriller amid the punk parties, bio-hack labs and liminal spaces of near-future London. - Jamie Collinson
Extremophile is a pure shot of literary adrenaline - achingly smart, gritty, funny and a hell of a lot of fun. Green's background in genetic research elevates his portrait of a biohacking-addicted near-future London into a compelling and deeply plausible experience. Viscerally dark but full of hope, with characters who stay with you long after the last page, it's an explosive joyride through our wildest impulses and darkest fears. Cyberpunk brought thrillingly up to date - absolutely brilliant. - Molly Flatt
A fast-paced action story full of violence, humour and smarts, Extremophile is also about grief, loss, hope and the climate catastrophe. Cyberpunk may be old hat, but BIOPUNX NOT DEAD! ... A cracking, action-packed slice of near future SF full of bio-hacking, punk rock and an overheating London. It also has much more depth and heart than you might imagine from that description. - Will Ashon
A Gonzoid view of the future-present through a kaleidscopic shot glass Extremophile rewrites the source code of cyberpunk to reveal the next revolution in hacked-up lines of DNA to preach a new gospel of hyper-evolution and day-glo ultraviolence. A keen music fan, Ian Green takes the reader through the subterranean world(s) of alternative sounds and scientific ambition beneath everyday civilisation, to reveal the splintering subcultures of a society at war with itself; where the anthropocene comes full circle to meet with its technological fallout as shards of received text and racing monologues cut across a thrilling narrative of conspiracy and rebellion. - Adam Steiner, author of SILHOUETTES AND SHADOWS
Extremophile has a considerable amount of anger simmering across its pages, and the depiction of the state of the world is brilliant and visceral * The Big Issue *
A near-future sci-fi adventure filled with fresh ideas and unique characters--I loved it! Biohackers. Eco-terrorists and a unique dystopian setting. Fans of climate fiction and cyberpunk will be up late turning the pages. Sign me up. - A. G. Riddle
Green's background in epigenetics lends weight and authenticity to the science... Glimmers of hope shine here amid the noirish gloom * Financial Times *
With its clever, white-knuckle plot rooted in real science, this near-future "biopunk" thriller is a must read * Sunday Post *
A visceral, doesn't-give-a-damn biopunk thriller that treats the "punk" part of that subgenre not as mere window-dressing but as an antifascist shriek against the injustices of a world ruled by malignant corporations and their pet governments... it is the kind of vital and urgent SF that reaches places realist writing never could * Interzone *
A riot of a book, driving into the darker and forgotten areas of the Cyberpunk genre * SF Book Reviews *
The world he conjures up with such impressive detail and vividness feels intrinsically unstable and constantly shifting * The Herald *
Extremophile is extremely f*cked up (complimentary). It puts the punk in cyberpunk. . . A broken world, a fractured society, and everyone just trying to survive. Charlie and Parker were both fascinating characters to follow through this messed up future and their varying levels of hope and nihilism. The antagonist is truly unhinged, which is always fun. There's a lot of verve and vigour and it's propulsive right to the end. Like Principle of Moments, it plays with familiar near future elements in its subgenre but with its own twist. I found it experimental, refreshing, and accomplished.' - L. R Lam
