Other Nature

Set in a small community on the Oregon coast in the middle of the next century, after diseases have ravaged the civilized world, it is the story of the end of a world and the beginning of a new one, of humanity saved, but transformed, by genetic engineering.
The inhabitants of the isolated village of Monkar are fighting a losing battle. Few of their children survive and those who do are not entirely normal. No new people wander in to settle from the devastated lands. Most technology, and the knowledge behind it, is lost or is disappearing fast. No one even remembers now what the abandoned scientific research station in town was for, except that it had to do with seals.
Linda, Sean Rider's former wife, who abandoned Monkar years ago, has been seen near the fortified city of San Francisco. Sean mounts an expedition to go there and get her back. Emily, his present wife and Linda's former best friend, is saddened and begins to doubt her own sanity when she hears strange music on the beach in the middle of the night. So begins a chain of events that destroys the fragile accommodations that have kept the village functional.