In Progress

Angelians

by Dennis Meredith

A human loves an alien jellyfish enough to risk his life to save her species!

Years ago, investigative reporter Luis Varga was brutally attacked and left for dead in an attempt to stop an exposé he was working on. Brain-damaged, he required neuro-regeneration therapy at the world-renowned Hunter Institute of Neuroscience. His memory of the exposé is gone, but it seemed related to some mystery at the Institute.

As he recovered, he fell deeply in love with neurologist Dr. Jodi Calvetti. Jodi had also been a patient at the Institute decades ago, when her brain—far more damaged than Luis’s—was regenerated decades earlier as a child.

Now, Luis discovers Jodi harbors dark secrets about herself, and she tells him a totally outlandish tale. She claims that the human he loves as Jodi is actually a Resonant—a human body with a bio-electronic brain implant melded to a remote alien Symbiont via quantum entanglement. She claims that this creature is among a multitude that fled from the dying Jovian moon Europa, where they evolved in the vast ocean beneath its ice crust.

To prove her claim, she reveals a huge hall beneath the Institute harboring hundreds of jellyfish-like Symbionts, glowing translucent creatures, immersed in fluid-filled tanks

Jodi also reveals shockingly that the Angelians are now locked in a desperate battle with an aggressive strain of their species, Demonoids, that seeks global domination by taking over massive numbers of humans as Resonants.

Luis finds himself on breathtaking adventures flying aboard the Angelians’ sentient, shape-shifting spacecraft; entering their huge, domed undersea bases; and working with them to thwart the Demonoids.


"Angelians works as both a pulse-pounding, highly imaginative sci-fi thriller and an ethical rumination over definitions of humanity, agency, disability and more . . . Meredith’s tight yet descriptive prose beautifully captures and explains complex alien technology. . . the exploration of the ‘Angelian’ species, its factions, and its worldbuilding keeps readers engaged to the last page."  Publishers Weekly BookLife reviewer

Read chapter 1!