Germline — T.C. McCarthy

GERMLINE (N.)

THE GENETIC MATERIAL CONTAINED IN A CELLULAR LINEAGE THAT CAN BE PASSED TO THE NEXT GENERATION. ALSO: SECRET MILITARY PROGRAM TO DEVELOP GENETICALLY ENGINEERED SUPER -- SOLDIERS (SLANG).

War is Oscar Wendell's ticket to greatness. A reporter for The Stars and Stripes, he has the only pass to the front lines of a brutal war over natural resources buried underneath the icy, mineral-rich mountains of Kazakhstan.

But war is nothing like he expected. The genetics -- the germline units -- battle heavily armed soldiers hundreds of meters below the surface. Fast, strong, lethal, and totally devoted to the cause, they are the key to winning this war.

The genetics are more than simple weapons, though, and playing with the human genome can have unforeseen consequences.

GERMLINE is the first of a trilogy of novels that will tell the story of this future war through the eyes of three different combatants.