FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[Los Angeles— August 2026
Riversong Books, the literary and speculative fiction imprint of Sulis International, announces the forthcoming publication of a newly revised edition of Mortals As They Walk by Markus McDowell on 15 October 2026. Long out of print, the novel returns fully re-edited and under a new ISBN.
Structured in four parts named for the stages of the CRISPR gene-editing process (Adaptation, Production, Targeting, Recovery) the novel moves between three lives that seem, at first, to share nothing but the century they were born into: a girl orphaned in the United States in 2006, a man who loses everything and ends up sleeping rough through an American winter, and a boy in near-future Europe who cannot speak but is beginning to suspect that the story his parents have told him about himself is not the whole story. As their timelines converge, the novel asks what happens when a breakthrough meant to heal becomes something governments, corporations, and zealots alike are willing to kill for—and how much of what happens to any of us was ever within our control.
The structure mirrors the subject. Moving between Heidelberg, Vienna, and Munich, McDowell builds a near-future Europe still reckoning with its own history even as it invents a new one. The novel opens with a line from Jeremiah, “the way of human beings is not in their control; mortals as they walk cannot direct their steps,” and does not let the reader forget it.
Readers drawn to literary science fiction that takes its ethical questions as seriously as its plotting, where multiple timelines serve structure rather than gimmick, will find plenty to sit with here: fiction that is speculative and morally serious in equal measure.
About the Author
Markus McDowell is the author of several works of literary fiction, science fiction, and nonfiction, including To and Fro Upon the Earth, and the historical fiction novel Nuff Sed: A Novel of Desert Steve. His work returns repeatedly to human self-deception, cause and consequence, and meaning found—or lost—in ordinary and extreme circumstances.
Publication Details
- Mortals As They Walk (Revised Edition)
- Author: Markus McDowell
- Publisher: Riversong Books (an imprint of Sulis International)
- Forthcoming 15 October 2026 | Paperback, ebook, and audiobook | Literary science fiction
Cover artwork to follow ahead of publication.
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