The Amphora Project - Hardcover

Kotzwinkle's first adult novel since The Bear Went Over the Mountain (1996) is a rollicking old-school space opera complete with sensitive robots, wily space aliens and secretive societies in turmoil. In a lab hidden inside the notorious Junk Moon, scientists on the Amphora Project strive to find the key to immortality from encoded data left behind long ago by the mysterious "Ancient Aliens." Stuart Landsmann, the project's chief scientist, tells Amphora's backers they must stop the research or risk bringing about the end of the world, but his warnings are ignored. Jockey Oldcastle, space pirate and rogue, teams up with mild-mannered biologist Adrian Link to uncover the truth about Amphora, as people around the project start dying, their bodies transformed to crystal. The story twists along at breakneck pace through a future of absurd decadence and immense possibility. Along the way, Kotzwinkle fans will find sharply resonant moments as well as pointed humor and insight into human nature at its worst and best.
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The Amphora project is the attempt by a consortium of the Planet Immortal's rich and powerful to create immortality and enlightenment, and in light of the previous success of an alien species' work with the technology of ancient aliens, success now seems tenable. Hidden on the Junk Moon, the project has attracted the attention of space pirate Jockey Oldcastle, who heard about it from a scientist kicked off the project because of his doomsaying. Investigating the rumors, Oldcastle, his navigator Lizardo, botanist Adrian Link, and the robot Upquark discover that Project Amphora isn't doing what it's supposed to. Instead, it's turning subjects into fragile crystal, thereby rapidly depopulating Planet Immortal. Oldcastle, Lizardo, and Link must decipher the motives of the extradimensional beings truly responsible for the immortality technology and rush to keep predators at bay. An entertaining trip through an exotic future full of weird tech and plenty of heroics and adventure in the company of bizarre creatures. Regina Schroeder
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