Tidelands: Ghosts and Monsters

Tidelands is an ongoing sci-fi and fantasy serial. Set some years in the future, it is a dystopian blend of cyberpunk, first contact, Lovecraftian horror and dark humour. In a flooded city on the brink of collapse, the arcology provides a high-tech haven - for those who can afford it. Here, safe in her pampered confinement, Eva longs for escape. But each day she is made to play The Game, a mysterious virtual environment that seems more designed to monitor and test than to entertain. Outside, life is a different story, where unregulated tech spawns nightmares to rival those of fairtytale and folklore - ghosts and monsters, the no-longer-human and the never-should-have-been. Here, Squirrel is a memory thief, eking out a fraught existence in service to the criminal gangs that trade in illicit gene hacks, blackmarket augments and - her speciality - stolen secrets. But with skills she didn't know she had, Squirrel steals a secret its owners would do anything to keep hidden. And as her new-found talents attract the attention of bad people keen to utilise them for their own ends, her only route out leads to the arcology itself, to Eva, and the answers that will upend both their lives.Tidelands, Part 1: Ghosts & Monsters collects together instalments 1-17.