From Cameron Reed, the acclaimed author of The Fortunate Fall, comes a soaring novel of queer hope and transformation, perfect for readers of Ann Leckie and Amal El-Mohtar.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed, which releases on April 7th 2026.
On the planet Scythia, plants give birth to insects and trees can drag you to your death. Artificial monsters stalk the desert, and alien basket-men have wandered into town.
John Maraintha has been abandoned here, light-years from the peaceful forests that he loves.
The desert is harsh and the people in thrall to a barbaric custom called marriage.
He must find some way to make a life here.
But on Scythia, survival means transformation—and not everyone is willing to change.
On the planet Scythia, plants bud off mobile creatures—animals—that detach to disperse their seeds. That’s the rule. In this scene, John learns about an exception.
“Now I’m going to show you something that you’ll wish didn’t exist. Remember to stay close to me.”
She led him around a small hill and then stopped; her raised hand told him he should stop too. “What do you see?”
At the base of an outcropping to their right, a litter of leaves without visible stems clung to the rocks. “What is that?” he asked, pointing.
“Just worms. They’re never anything to worry about. Notice anything unusual about that tree ahead?”
He examined it: a little gnarled insect, standing alone in the sand. “One branch is thicker than the others.”
“No it isn’t. Look again.”
“Is it two branches growing together?”
“Good guess, but not quite.”
“The lower branches are very crooked.”
“Yes. But you’re still missing something. Let me see if I can get it to declare itself.”
She chose a stone from the ground—a red one that fitted the palm of her hand—and with a good stance and good motion threw it toward the tree. As it passed by the branches he started. Something had twitched, he thought, but there was no animal to be seen.
“Did you catch that?”
“I thought something moved, but now I’m not sure.”
“That’s because my aim was bad. You try this time. Aim for the branch that looks thick. You don’t have to hit it—just come close.”
He hadn’t thrown anything to hit a target in years, not under gravity—and never under Scythian gravity. Nevertheless he found a rock of a suitable size and threw it as hard as he could. The stone flew too high, striking nothing, and yet the branch split. The top part of it swung toward them and stretched out straight, a long tube covered in green bark. It had eyes and they were open. It was trying to get to them, John thought, but its tail was trapped inside the trunk, and it was not long enough to reach. At last its body slackened, became a zigzag, then folded up tight. Slowly it crept out along another branch, a downward-angled one; the way it moved was liquid, like a trickle of water or oil. Its color and its pattern matched the plant’s bark so exactly that when it became still it was invisible.
“What was that?” he breathed.
“It’s called a snake-tree and it’s the deadliest thing in this part of the world. Luckily their venoms don’t work on humans, but they can still kill you. They’ll latch on to an arm, sometimes a leg. The teeth are curved backward like hooks, to hold on. They’ll pull you closer so you don’t have time to get away while they let go, then bite you in a different place. You noticed Ru’s arm, of course.”
“Yes.”
“She had to tear away three times before she got free. If you like all your limbs, I recommend not getting close to one in the first place. That means checking every tree before you get any closer than we are now. Snake-trees come in lots of species, different sizes, colors, shapes, some with leaves and some without, so you can’t go by any of that. What you can count on is that the main branches will be very crooked. That way the snake can lie along one and be fully supported, even though it’s long enough to reach beyond the tree. But there can be other limbs the snake doesn’t use, that help it mimic other plants. You can see this one has branches with fake buds and even fake seams, to disguise it as an insect.”
“What is it really?”
“Closest to reptiles, but a distant relative.” She answered offhandedly; she was studying his face and, he thought, making some judgment. “I’m going to tell you what I tell the boys who take my class, because you’re older than they are but I’m not sure you’re enough older. Seven people have been bitten by snake-trees since we got here and all but one of them were young males. Why, because either you’re doing something stupid to show off, or you’re trying to kill the snake to protect other people, which is also stupid and a way to show off. If you find a snake-tree, use your tag to mark the location—I’ll show you how later. If it’s in a bad place we’ll send out a team of at least four to remove it. If you want to kill snakes, the place for you is on that team, not lying half-eaten making them step over you to do their jobs. Do you understand?”
“Certainly. I would never approach something dangerous unnecessarily.”
“I’m glad the women on Essius raise sensible sons.”
“I should hope so. Our world is so full of poisons that a reckless boy would never become a man.”
“Hm. Well, keep that in mind when you get close to the Earthlings, because that riverbed they’re in has snake-trees on both banks. They like to live near springs or rivers, mainly because water attracts animals—the snakes don’t have to drink if their roots can suck up enough water. You’ll have to look for a gap wide enough to pass through safely. The river’s very low right now, so you should have room to walk along the water from there, but you do not want to be wrong about that, because a snake-tree near water will try to drown you. By the river they’re a lot bigger and stronger than this one, so they can push you in and hold you down, and their mouths are big enough to grab you by the throat when they do it. Every segment of the snake has spiracles to breathe through and they all share air, so they can keep you underwater as long as they need to. To stay safe you’ll have to find the snake, figure out how long it’s going to be when it unfolds, then multiply that by one point five, because it’s hard to judge exactly. If you can’t find a snake, it might have died and not regrown yet, but assume it’s just well hidden and it’s long enough to reach the end of the longest resting-branch. You’ll remember?”
“Yes.”
