THE FIRST OMEGA

Megan O'Keefe's THE FIRST OMEGA reads like Mad Max's Fury Road meets the X-Men. In the vast, bleak desert caused by generations of global warming, society's discontents carry on a ragtag existence stealing from the self-driving freight trains that cross the scrub brush wasteland from one prosperous coast to the other. But even a society of discontents draws in someone to keep the peace.

Part bounty hunter, part sheriff, part superhero, Riley is the force of nature that keeps the balance in the hot arid desert. Keep to yourself and she'll leave you well enough alone. Take a little here and there, and she'll overlook it. But when you try to score big, her employers will notice. She will need to restore the balance.

When she gets the latest call, Riley knows she has a problem. She finds a supply truck knocked over too cleanly. Too precise. And the bodies scattering the wreckage weren't killed by her normal prey of scavengers. The destruction is too great and the bodies are already rotting hours after the attack.

And cowering in the corner of the wreckage is a young girl. A girl that shouldn't be there. A girl with unnatural, violently blue eyes. Just like hers.

Megan O'Keeffe's is a very talented SF writer whose career is ramping up. She has won the Writers of the Future and Gemmel Morningstar Awards, and been nominated for the Campbell (Astounding) Award.