Second Species

On a hothouse earth, the Equatorial Zone expands and the decimated population moves north.

The territorial government, now staffed by physicians instead of lawyers, has a grand plan to build a complex of domes, a New Eden, even farther north, for a new beginning and a new life.

But, just before the Big Move, an epidemic of suicides sweeps the cities, peculiar diseases strike down the troublesome and inconvenient, and the mad and unbalanced simply disappear.

All Martin Bergman did was ask, "Who is Sylvia Romilar?" and he made someone's top ten.

As he fought through his own madness and the collapse of society, at the bottommost pit of his life, he looked up one day, into the eyes of the Second Species.

The Age of Humans had ended and the future had begun.

About Wayne Wightman's Fiction:

John Brunner, the legend himself: "Wayne Wightman is agreeable company, both in person and via the printed page. As to the former, I'm afraid you will have to wait the chance to make his acquaintance…. As to the latter, however, now's your chance."

Orson Scott Card, Hugo and Nebula winner: "[Wayne Wightman is] …one of the names I[‘ve] learned to look for…. He…is a romantic whose stories confess his belief that individuals can be larger than life, that their decisions can change the world around them."

Best Story of the Year 2011 awarded to Wayne Wightman's "Brutal Interlude" by Orson Scott Card's online magazine The Intergalactic Medicine Show.

Richard Paul Russo, Philip K. Dick Award winner: "One of Wightman's great strengths is his willingness to go to the edge. He pulls no punches, whether the story is serious or violent or manic. You can count on him to take you places other writers shy away from."

Lewis Shiner, writer par excellence and editor: "Wayne Wightman… has produced an impressive series of connected stories… full of manic energy, rich in colors and emotions."

Ed Ferman, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction: "He writes top quality sf and fantasy, humor and horror, and he never forgets to tell a compelling tale."