As the sun advances into it's next stage the Earth has grown hotter. Plants and animals are evolving rapidly to survive, and as far as the the city of Shadripar knows, it's the last vestige of human civilization surrounded by a hostile jungle. Stefan Advani is an academic turned rebel against the corrupt government of a dying civilization. We meet Stefan as he's being transported to a prison in the jungle where it's expected he will spend a short miserable life, but thanks to his education and tentative friendship with a new guard, he has the opportunity to translate the last work of a famous scholar who died in the prison. Everyone knows there's no point attempting to escape because the jungle outside is deadlier than inside, but Stefan is determined to turn his new knowledge into not just an opportunity to live, but to live a better life.

As always, Tchaikovsky gives us a well crafted story with memorable characters and solid world building. This could almost be a cross between Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Jack McDevitt's Eternity Road. Conrad for the amazing imagery and the jungle we start in with McDevitt's tale of a cast of characters journeying through a dying Earth in search of hope. Stefan's story is one of both survival and adventure where he has to navigate both the worst of human nature and biological adaptation at its most vicious. Which is worst, the wealthy elite determined to maintain their power, genetic mutants that may be better adapted to Earth's future than humans, or aggressive flora and fauna? The least realistic aspect of the world building is probably that the Earth and a few humans manage to survive long enough for solar physics to be a problem. 

My feeling is that it's an interesting book rather than an entertaining one. It's good but I'm not sure I enjoyed it. Narrator David Thorpe received excellent reviews for his performance, with his upper class British accent being a good match to a scholarly protagonist in a book with lots of imagery.