‘This is up there with Ursula K. Le Guin: science fiction at its most fascinating and most humane’THRILLIST‘SEMIOSIS combines the world-building of Avatar with the alien wonder of Arrival, and the sheer humanity of Atwood. An essential work for our time’STEPHEN BAXTEREscaping conflict on Earth, an idealistic group of settlers arrive on a distant planet – Pax – with plans for a perfect society.The world they discover is rich with life, but this is not the Eden they were hoping for. The plants on Pax are smart – smart enough to domesticate, and even slaughter, its many extraordinary animals.To survive, the colonists realize that they must strike bargains of their own. But if they are to make Pax their home, they must go further, searching for a way to communicate and coexist with these utterly alien intelligences.

Semiosis: A novel of first contact