Book excerpt: Earth's sixth mass extinction has ended, and in its wake a post-dystopian civilization has struggled to rebuild after a global cataclysm shattered its ecosystems and propelled all life to the brink of eradication. In a world where the air is unhealthy, food is strictly rationed, and the energy consumption that triggered the destruction is highly regimented, scientists experiment with artificial biospheres to secure survival and techno-mimicry to breathe life into long-dead species. It's an unavoidable surveillance state where every living thing is tracked, numbered, and categorized. In this fledgling society born out of catastrophic loss and now challenged with a new reverence for all life, a lone detective is haunted by a series of murders traumatizing the populace. Assisted by a medical colleague, she finds herself entangled in a crisis with far-reaching consequences and dangerous repercussions that threaten the fragile balance of all existence. What is the impact on humanity when mankind is required to play god to the creatures they have all but destroyed? Praise for Resembling Lepus: "Amanda Kool asks difficult questions here, about life and consciousness and about rights and privilege..." — Alan Baxter, multi-award-winning author of The Gulp, The Fall, The Roo, and the Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller series "Kool's Resembling Lepus is a self-contained novella that intermingles identity, human nature, and a reverence for all life in a murder mystery that says more about the systems humans put into place to define what "life" or "murder" is. Cool, deeply imagined speculative fiction." — John FD Taff, multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Fearing and The End in All Beginnings "Resembling Lepus is a timely futuristic crime noir tale, set in a very different place—a world like no other—and deals with the complex lives of the creatures upon it. Hauntingly realistic, Kool masterfully tackles the issues and outcomes of our world of today, and provides a frightening glimpse into the very real possibilities of our future." — Steve Gerlach, author of Love Lies Dying and Lake Mountain "Resembling Lepus is a disturbing dystopian noir that takes us into a future we should hope never comes to pass. With climate change having wrought havoc on the planet, what remains of humanity faces a reckoning: what kind of value do we place on life, and what kinds of lives do we actually value? Amanda Kool sketches a complex, confronting world within this tightly plotted novella—if we're lucky, we'll see more stories from her that explore its dark and ethically tangled depths." — Kirstyn McDermott, author of Perfections and the Never Afters series "A detective story for animal lovers, keenly aware of the sacredness of life. Alternately gentle and empathetic, creepy and tense, with a dark climax to savor. A futuristic novella for our times." — Rjurik Davidson, author of The Stars Askew Proudly presented by Emergent Expressions from Grey Matter Press, the independent publishing home of multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated titles. Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive