Thaw's Hammer

When global warming melts the Antarctic ice, a disease is unleashed that was responsible for killing off all the placental mammals of Australia 34 million years ago, when the two continents were joined. That disease, the Blue Cancer, spreads rapidly and inexorably via even casual contact, threatening humankind and all the other mammals on Earth. Dr. Jace Nechuston has a propensity to ruminate on the human condition and the meaninglessness of suffering. He seeks refuge at the end of the Earth where his interactions with people, which he finds almost painful, will be at a minimum. When the Blue Cancer is unleashed, Jace holds himself responsible. His controversial solution incurs the wrath of the most powerful political organization of the post-Warming age. "Thaw's Hammer" takes the reader on an adventure that includes seal poachers in the Falkland Islands, a whaling community in Japan, religious fanatics in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the royal family of Madagascar, bone hunters in Mongolia, diamond miners in Lesotho; and ecotourists, expeditions, scientists, and fauna in Antarctica. The reader feels the gripping and unsettling plausibility of "Thaw's Hammer" because it is told using actual news events, corporations, and products, along with footnotes that give background and references for much of the medicine, science, and technology. Like the best novels of Michael Crichton, "Thaw's Hammer" blurs the distinction between medical/science thriller and science nonfiction.