In 2015, a case found in the struts of the International Space Station is brought to Earth. It releases a virus giving people amnesia. They lose their memory at the rate of a year’s worth every week. No one is immune. Infectious amnesia is unheard of. Industry breaks down as people forget where they work and how to perform their duties. People die as they forget their medication, and production ceases along with food, water supply, and energy. A few small groups realise what is happening in time and find isolated refuges. Ryder Nape takes a group to a secluded Welsh valley where safety from the virus is possible. Biologists call the virus ARIA: Alien Retrograde Infectious Amnesia.

In this conclusion to the trilogy, Dr. Antonio Menzies arrives on Zadok. The ARIA-3 bomb had reached there two days previously, causing havoc. Surviving Zadokians consider a mass-migration to Earth to escape the effects of ARIA-3. Antonio’s madness grows, and he makes disturbing discoveries in their laboratories.

Meanwhile, Ryder’s group is now on a Pacific island. His relationship with Jena is unstable and others have astonishing infatuations in tune with the increasingly desperate situation. When their island becomes unsustainable, and the alien-Earth hybrid weed gets out of control, where should they go?

What was the Zadokians’ real purpose with the ARIA viruses, and how does it all end?

“Geoff Nelder inhabits Science Fiction the way other people inhabit their clothes.”

— Jon Courtenay Grimwood

“Geoff Nelder's ARIA has the right stuff. He makes us ask the most important question in science fiction--the one about the true limits of personal responsibility.”

—Brad Linaweaver

“ARIA has an intriguing premise, and is written in a very accessible style.”

—Mike Resnick

Geoff Nelder escaped from his roots in the south of England and now lives in the north. He would do most things for a laugh but had to pay the mortgage so he taught I.T. and Geography in the local High school. After thirty years in the education business, he nearly became good at it. A post-war baby boomer, he has post-grad researched and written about climatic change, ran computer clubs and was editor of a Computer User Group magazine for eleven years. Geoff lives in Chester with his long-suffering wife and has two grown-up children whose sense and high intelligence persist in being a mystery to him.

Visit Geoff's website - www.geoffnelder.com

Cover Art
©2014 Andy Bigwood

ISBN: 978-0-9905655-0-5 (print)
978-0-9905655-1-2 (ebook)

254 pages / 89,500k words

Genre(s): science fiction, speculative fiction

Available formats;
Paperback, PDF, epub, mobi