The Cusanus Game

Biologist Domenica Ligrina fears her planet is dying. She might be right.

An atomic disaster in Germany has contaminated Northern Europe with radioactivity. Economic and political calamities are destroying the whole planet. Human DNA is mutating, plant species are going extinct, and scientists are feverishly working on possible solutions. It becomes increasingly apparent that the key to future salvation lies in the past.

In 2052 a secret research facility in the Vatican is recruiting scientists for a mission to restore the flora of the irradiated territories. The institute claims to have time travel. When Domenica’s sometime-lover tells her that he knows her future but that she must decide her own fate, she enlists despite his ambiguous warning. 

The Middle Ages hold Domenica spellbound. She immerses herself in the mysteries, puzzles, and peculiarities of a culture foreign to her, though she risks changing the past with effects far more disastrous than radiation poisoning. Perhaps there is more than one Domenica, and more than one catastrophe.

“An extraordinarily ambitious novel combining the best of the thriller, the historical novel, and detailed science fiction… Outstanding.” — L. E. Modesitt, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of The Imager Portfolio

“An epic that combines the cerebral satisfactions of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose with a ripping, gripping, time-tripping vision of a near-future apocalypse.” — James Morrow, editor of the SFWA European Hall of Fame

“I recommend Jeschke because we need to see science fiction as a world literature, and he is one of its first rank practitioners.” — Gregory Benford, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Bowl of Heaven