Artifact

About the book

Sheriff Colton Graves prefers the quiet life in Raven’s Rest, Alaska, a remote town accessible only by tunnel and home to a hardy mix of locals and secrets buried in the ice. But when a camel wanders down Main Street—its head grotesquely sprouting a dozen eyes—Colton knows his quiet days are over. The bizarre incident leads him to NovaGen, a nearby research facility constructed inside a Cold War bunker, buried in the mountains above town. There, a trail of blood and eerie silence hints at something far more sinister than an escaped animal experiment. With his deputies—the sharp-witted Tali and rookie Ethan—Colton recruits a few trusted locals, including the unshakable Marit, Tali’s sister, the intimidating ‘Grizz’ Norval, and Edgar ‘Old Red’ Rydell, an aging man plagued by demons from when he worked at the bunker during its covert cold war days. Together, they investigate the abandoned lab. What begins as a search for missing scientists soon reveals chilling evidence: pools of blood without bodies, cryptic warnings left behind, a bloody six-fingered handprint, and the revelation of a new technology: a generative A.I. capable of printing living organisms. As they descend deeper into the lab, it becomes clear that the answers they seek may come at a terrifying cost—and that what was made in the dark may not be content to stay there.

Description: publisher’s blurb via Hardcover

Where the score comes from

The sources average 7.4 across 24 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 12% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 7.7 comes out.

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