Sawyer Rowe’s dystopian sci-fi novel, Foreign Bodies, was released today. Set in a dystopian future city divided into three rings, its protagonist, Lark, finds her world turned upside down when rogue androids attack her homestead.

Synopsis –

THEY SAY THE CITY IS SAFE. THEY SAY THE WORLD IS DEAD.

Five years after banished androids killed her father, eighteen-year-old Lark Elliot knows better: beyond the fences, where the birds call in warning, the Wilds are dangerous—and alive.

But scavenging means survival, so she counts to keep the panic at bay. Drinks to dull her father’s words. Then a battered stranger appears at the boundary.

He is not dead. He should be. His wounds heal impossibly fast, and when he wakes, he remembers nothing. All he has is a word branded into his skin:

NERO

When Lark’s uncle vanishes, her refusal to lose the last of her family means trusting Nero—and questioning everything she knows to be true. Because people are disappearing. They won’t return the same.

In the City of Cobalt, surviving might be worse than death.

AND SOMETIMES, THE ENEMY LOOKS LIKE FAMILY.

Protagonist Lark lives a pretty meagre existence. Cobalt, the city at the heart of Foreign Bodies, has a distinct divide, and Lark lives on the neglected outer ring. No electricity, no support from the centre, no hope. She, along with her community, gets by by scavenging from the wilds, then world outside of the fence, where the trash from the centre is dumped. They’re called the wilds for a reason, however, and are plagued by malfunctioning androids that pose a murderous threat.

When a mysterious stranger is discovered, injured and suffering from amnesia, there is inevitable suspicion. Before he is able to regain his memory, and his past can be puzzled out, there is a massive android attack, and then Lark’s home, and her world, collapses around her. This sends her off into an adventure where she discovers that those closest to her haven’t been completely open and honest about her past, or their present.

Foreign Bodies begins like a fairly standard dystopian YA story. Lark is a teenager living a hard life, far removed from the comfortable and wealthy on the other side of the fence. When her status quo changes, she is forced into an adventure of self-discovery, but then it becomes clear this isn’t the usual journey of hope. Usually, the protagonist would learn how to use their natural skills, pick up some new tricks, and become an unstoppable force that instills fear in the hearts of her oppressors.

Foreign Bodies, however, is a much more down to earth, ‘realistic’ story. Lark is an alcoholic. Not a functioning alcoholic that takes down her enemies with a smirk and a quip. She is a very troubled teenage girl who is ill-equipped for the position that events have forced her into. She has little real family left, and her ‘found’ family, her friends and those she is pressed into working alongside, have chosen not to fully trust her to play her part. She is young, inexperienced in the threats they are facing, and unlike the heroes of some fantastical adventures, her past and her emotions prove to be as much a barrier as they are her motivation.

When people aren’t honest with Lark, she gets upset. When she gets upset, she drinks. As you can imagine, this doesn’t endear her to those around her, and they do not necessarily treat her with the understanding, forgiveness, and support she needs. This makes her journey considerably more difficult, and it makes her character so much more relatable. As she muddles through her new existence, trying hard to make the right decisions in her struggle to find the truth, there’s no easy route. No miraculous happenstances that facilitate her success, no mysterious mentor figure there to tell her exactly what she needs to know, and what she needs to do. Like in real life, there is no simple blueprint, and the pieces do not easily fall into place.

The plot at the heart of Foreign Bodies is relatively ‘standard’. The poor, maligned masses struggling against the corrupt rich. Twists and turns, revelations that shock the main characters just as they think they’ve uncovered the true nature of the threat, and a bit of will they/won’t they romance. But that’s not really what Foreign Bodies is about. The plot is there, and it is interesting, but this story is about the characters. Their flaws, their relationships, and their bitter struggles to get past the flaws hampering their progress. It has something real to say about what it is to be human, and the difficulty and suffering it brings. Dystopian YA is back, but it is now a lot deeper and complex.

Foreign Bodies is Book One, and as yet there is no release date for Book Two. It is available now in both paperback, and ebook formats. Check out www.sawyerrowe.com for more details.