Chaga (1995)

Gaby McAslan's heart is set on a career in network journalism, but when the brightside of Iapetus starts diminishing, and Hyerion disappears completely, her destiny is truly set. As the mysterious fate of Saturn's moons draws her to London and fires her ambitions, so a meteor drags her even further, across whole continents, to Kenya, the site of the Kilimanjaro Event. Where the meteor landed, the striking African landscape has given way to something equally beautiful - and indescribably alien.

A little like a multi-coloured rain forest, a little like a drained coral reef, but mostly like nothing anyone has ever seen before, the alien flora deposited on Earth from the stars is spreading a a phenomenal rate.

It's dubbed the Chaga, in memory of the first of the African tribes to be engulfed and swallowed by the unceasing expansion. It destroys all plastics and man-made materials - and it moulds human flesh, bone and spirit to its own designs, as varied and as insomprehensible as the Chaga's own multitude of forms.

And when Gaby McAlsan finds the first man to survive the Chaga's changes, she realizes the Chaga has its own plans for humankind - and the face of the future is both terrifying and awesome...

Cover blurb of Gollancz edition

Chaga is an expanded version of the short story "Toward Kilimanjaro" in Speaking in Tongues. The American edition of Chaga, Evolution's Shore, is slightly longer due to different editing. There is also a short story, Recording Angel, which is an outtake from the novel. Also see Kirinya and Tendeléo's Story.

Editions

• Gollancz (hardcover)

  1995

  413 pages. £16.99. Cover by Mark Harrison.
  ISBN 0-575-06052-2.

• Bantam Spectra (as Evolution's Shore; trade paperback)

  1995

  357 pages. $12.95. Cover by John Jude Palencar.
  ISBN 0-553-37435-4.

• Easton Press (as Evolution's Shore; hardcover)

  1996

  357 pages. No price.
  No ISBN.

• SFBC (as Evolution's Shore; hardcover)

  1996

  357 pages. $9.98. Cover by John Jude Palencar.
  #11008.

• Vista (paperback)

  1996

  413 pages. £5.99. Cover by Mark Harrison.
  ISBN 0-575-60022-5.

• Bantam Spectra (paperback)

  1997

  401 pages. $5.99. Cover by John Jude Palencar.
  ISBN 0-553-57309-8.

• Millennium (paperback)

  1999

  413 pages. £6.99.
  ISBN 1-85798-875-2.

Translations

• German Chaga oder Das Ufer der Revolution, translated by Irene Bonhurst.

  1997

  Heyne SF & F, 5660. 653 pages, 3-453-12634-3. Cover art by doMANSKI.

• Italian I confini dell'evoluzione, translated by Anna Polo.

  2003

  Fanucci Editore.

Reviews

• Faren Miller in Locus #418, November 1995
• Gary K. Wolfe in Locus #418, November 1995
• Chris Gilmore in Interzone #102, December 1995, page 59
• Joseph Milicia in The New York Review of Science Fiction #95, July 1996, page 16
• Keith Brooke on Infinity Plus, April 1997.

I'm very interested in cover scans of the Easton Press and SFBC editions.