Daniel Krawchuk

The year is 2331. The Earth has become uninhabitable, and what is left of humanity is split into small colonies on Mars and the moon. Stranded with failing technology, the two sects of humanity struggle to both survive and stay in contact with each other.

Maria Earl is an Emergency Systems Technologist from the Hellas Planitia colony on Mars. Having made one too many mistakes, she is on the verge of being suspended from her role, when she is inexplicably assigned to investigate the failure of a crucial piece of technology.

Now Maria must make the dangerous journey from her colony to the summit of Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the solar system, to complete her mission. But something doesn’t add up. Why was she assigned to such an important job? And what are the strange, swirling visions that keep intruding on her perception? Mars is only the beginning, and the more Maria finds out about her world, the stranger things get.

This 25,000 word novella combines hard sci-fi elements with heady psychedelic space fantasy. Caldera’s Edge will appeal to fans of The Martian and Dune.