Zoi
by Jane Mondrup
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Pub Date Jun 20 2025 | Archive Date Jun 30 2025
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Description
At the age of five, Amira watched footage of the first zoi specimen arriving in our solar system, and she became instantly fascinated with the huge, cell-like creature floating among the stars.
Decades later, she and three other astronauts have taken residence in a zoi as it continues its voyage through space.
They have no way of steering its course. Communicating with their non-sentient host is limited to signals of physical needs. And while the zoi meets those needs, it also exposes its passengers to hormonal and even genetic alterations.
Now, as masses of biological material start growing on each astronaut, their interstellar journey begins a new stage–one with far-reaching consequences both for the humans and the zois.
A Note From the Publisher
Apart from the paperback edition, an ebook edition is available at some retailers. The price, set by each site, is between $5 and $8. The cheapest ebook can be bought here: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/zoi-jane-mondrup/1147010568?ean=9781951393472
Advance Praise
“Zoi asks original, startling questions about first contact. Jane Mondrup gives us a clear, anguished voice that must weigh the risk of making dreams come true against an irrevocable choice—with no way to know what is the right choice. Again and again, I was moved by the struggle to retain human identity and purpose in the immensity of time and space.”
— Sue Burke, author of the Semiosis trilogy
“Here is a fresh, original voice, telling her tale of a very different first contact with a cool elegance, dignity, and a deep love for life. It’s squishy, intimate and filled with mystery, wonder—and a little shiver of body horror.”
— Ian McDonald, award-winning author of Hopeland, The Dervish House, and Brasyl
“‘Our body. Our Zoi.’ Zoi journeys through time and space, eliding, through the titular entity, all boundaries between the inner and the outer, the singular and the multiple, and above all between the staggeringly alien and the cosily familiar. A cleverly executed balance of heartbreak and hope.”
— J. S. Breukelaar, Aurealis and Shirley Jackson Award finalist for Aletheia and Collision:Stories
“Jane Mondrup’s Zoi is a wonderful and gripping story about otherness, when “I” becomes “the Other”. Deeply human and wonderfully written, it is a powerful novel and an essential companion to Stanislaw Lem’s classic Solaris. A must-read for all lovers of sci fi with a real heart beating inside.”
— Seb Doubinsky, author of The Sum of All Things and The Horror
“Inventive, clever, and pleasingly Cronenbergesque.”
— Priya Sharma, Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award winning author of All the Fabulous Beasts
“Zoi is a new and refreshing take on first contact stories as well as the idea and role of the doppelgänger. It is a quietly philosophical book about choices and determination that follows the narrator, Amira, on her journey of transformation and adaptation. With its diverse cast and contemporary views, I am tempted to call Zoi a modern Solaris, but it is an original novel that stands fully on its own. I found myself deeply invested in the book and would recommend it to fans of Sue Burke and Becky Chambers, and everybody else who enjoys science fiction that is both solid and approachable.”
— Marie Howalt, author of the Moonless Trilogy, Colibri Investigations and A Study in Black Brew
Marketing Plan
We are using a combination of social media marketing with global distribution through Ingram, making the book available via numerous retailers. Currently we are querying SFF magazines, review websites, and private reviewers like book bloggers, bookstagrammers and booktubers, for reviews or other kinds of mention. At the moment, 25 private reviewers have received ARCs and two reviews (both 5 star) have been posted on Instagram and Goodreads. Two magazines have asked for review copies), and two websites have received material for an author feature. Querying for reviews will continue in the coming months, and when we get to June, we hope that the reviews that have already appeared will help spark interest for reviews through NetGalley.
Available Editions
| EDITION | Paperback |
| ISBN | 9781951393427 |
| PRICE | $15.00 (USD) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Skye G, Reviewer
Wow, what a space journey. Zoi is about an astronaut Amira and her fascination with zoi, a cell-like alien organism that travels through space. I loved how the chapters alternated between the present and past. It gave me more insight on Amira and how she ultimately made the decision to become a lifelong resident in a zoi. I admired Amira's determination and how she never gave up on her dreams, even when her family were pressuring her into motherhood. Overall, an enjoyable read of space and wonder.
BJ L, Reviewer
A thought-provoking and truly wondrous first-contact novel. This is the kind of science fiction I’m always looking for—the direction I wish the genre as a whole would go. Jane Mondrup brings together genuinely science-based world building with the imagistic, impressionistic approach to story and character so popular in literary speculative fiction—something like if Julia Armfield expanded a Ted Chiang story into a novel. Written in prose that mostly doesn’t call attention to itself, the beauty and strangeness and heartbreak-hope of this book really snuck up on me.
So many science fiction novels and stories combine high concept settings with familiar kinds of human relationships—parents and children, romantic partners, friendships, coworkers. Those kinds of relationships are here, certainly, but so are some very different kinds of human relationships—relationships mediated by an alien presence into something uncanny and familiar-strange. The emotional climax of Zoi involves a whole tangle of these science-fictional relationships, relationships no human has ever experienced; it is intensely real and dreamlike and moving, despite and because of that strangeness.
When I finished the novel yesterday, I thought it was very good. But the more I think about it—about the deceptive complexity of its emotional structure; about the layering of ideas (about science, medicine, family, the body, free will); about the many scenes and images that feel as vivid to me now in memory as they did when I was actually reading them—the more impressed I am.
Eric D, Reviewer
Sci-fi for cellular biologists! (and everyone else, too)
What if our first contact is with a giant amoeba-ish being moving through space? How might we engage with such a cell? How would the cell engage with us? What if we went inside? Zoi offers us this thought experiment.
Jane Mondrup’s thoughtful sci-fi novel is reminiscent of “old school” sci-fi, where the story focuses more on “what ifs” than the logistics of space adventure, and where the “real” issues at play are so very human. Zoi definitely aims for the Ursula Le Guin / Octavia Butler vibes.
Clearly written and insightfully balanced, Zoi is one of those books where the ideas will stick with you for a long time. I loved Zoi and would happily read more from Jane Mondrup.
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