Ship Destroyer

The near future, a dark era of human civilization. The South of the USA is the victim of a series of natural disasters. Here, skyscrapers have sunk underwater; hurricanes — the "city killers" — rampage; here, numerous tankers and bulk... carriers rot on the shore in the humid heat. For a teenager named Gvozdar, as for many other residents of this disaster area, the only way to prolong his miserable and hopeless existence is through hard labor, the risky salvage of scrap on the sunken ships. To escape from this hell, he is ready to commit any crime. At least, right now he has no doubt about it… In the region now called the Submerged Cities, a civil war rages, everyone against everyone — and the warring armies are mass recruiting children, from whom it is so easy to raise fearless and ruthless fanatics. One can only hide from this war in the dense jungles, but eventually it will reach there too — it will come in the wake of a genetically engineered creature, a half-human half-beast, a perfected killer who has severed ties with his pack… The title novel of this collection has received the Locus Award and the Michael L. Prinz Award.