The Broken God: David Zindell

Book I of A Requiem for Homo Sapiens. Into the maze of colour-coded streets of ice a wild boy stumbles, frost-bitten and grieving, clutching a spear: Danlo the Wild, a messenger from the past of Man. Brought up far from Neverness by the Alaloi people, neanderthal cave-dwellers, Danlo alone of his tribe has survived a plague - because he is not, as he thought, a misshapen neanderthal - but because he is human, with immunity engineered into his genes. He learns the disease was created and the creators possess a cure which can save other Alaloi tribes. But the creators have migrated to the region of space known as the Vild and there they are killing stars. All of civilisation has converged on Neverness through the manifold of space travel. Beyond science, beyond decadence, sects and disciplines multiply there. Danlo, his mind shaped by primitive man, brings to Neverness a single long-lost memory that will challenge them all. Cover art by Mick Van Houten.