The Cthulhu Helix

"DNA contains two types of base pair sequences. Exons are meaningful templates for making proteins. Introns are meaningless, random sequences. Yet introns account for ninety-five percent of human DNA. Why is such a huge proportion of the genome reserved for useless code?"

What if all that genetic information wasn't really useless? What if it was put there by someone, something, in the impossibly distant past, for a purpose? And what if humanity's interest in understanding and engineering human DNA unlocks something that should have remained hidden?

Award-winning science fiction author Umehara drags you screaming into a darker future as the monsters of our own genetic code come to life, revealing all too clearly humanity's fatal misunderstanding of its place in the universe... and its very reason for existence, weaving the Cthulhu Mythos, genetic engineering, and the battle against extinction into a masterpiece of horror. While the book features names and concepts from the Mythos (with good reason), it is entirely independent of it.

The first part of this book was originally published in Shibano Takumi's famous Uchujin fanzine, promptly winning the 9th SF Fanzine Award, and the book was nominated for both the Mystery Writers of Japan Award and the Seiun Award.

Cover by Noriyoshi Ohrai.