Description:

Candidia Maria Smith-Foster, an eleven-year-old girl, is unaware that she's a Homo post hominem, mankind's next evolutionary step. With international relations rapidly deteriorating, Candy's father, publicly a small-town pathologist but secretly a government biowarfare expert, is called to Washington. Candy remains at home. The following day a worldwide attack, featuring a bionuclear plague, wipes out virtually all of humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens). With her pet bird Terry, she survives the attack in the shelter beneath their house. Emerging three months later, she learns of her genetic heritage and sets off to search for others of her kind. The original Emergence novella, Volume I herein, and its sequel, Seeking, Volume II, were published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine. Both earned Nebula Award nominations, Hugo Award nominations, as well as Philip K. Dick Award nominations for best new writer. In addition to those nominations (and coming in second in the final Hugo balloting in 1985), the Emergence novel won the Balticon’s Compton Crook Award for best first novel.