Scion

James Islington’s Scion (2026) is a science fiction thriller that is a notable genre departure for the author, who is best known for his massive epic fantasy series The Licanius Trilogy and Hierarchy. The first book in the Scion series, this cyberpunk novel introduces Azure, a genetically enhanced assassin working for a powerful corporation called the Keres. His job is to execute legal assassination contracts against “lifers,” ultra-wealthy individuals who use a life-extending drug. When an unusual protection assignment isolates him from his support network, Azure uncovers a deep conspiracy involving a mysterious event from his past and the existence of his own clone. The novel explores themes of The Harms of Wealth Disparity, The Illusion of Choice Under Capitalism, and The Ethics of Pursuing Immortality.

Scion is situated within the tradition of classic cyberpunk narratives like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell, featuring genre tropes like a neon-lit megacity, unchecked mega-corporations, and advanced bio-modifications. The premise reflects contemporary anxieties surrounding real-world investments in life-extension technology and the potential for a permanent, resource-hoarding elite class. The book was a commercial success upon its release, landing on the Publishers Weekly hardcover-fiction bestseller list. The novel’s conclusion resolves its immediate plot while leaving the overarching conflict open for direct sequels.

This guide refers to the 2026 Saga Press edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, animal cruelty and death, substance use, self-harm, physical abuse, illness, cursing, and death.

Plot Summary

The novel is set in a future version of the Earth that has been greatly affected by climate change, causing massive storms to render the world uninhabitable. The remaining populations of the Earth are concentrated in a series of megacities run by artificial-intelligence-driven systems called Decentralized Governments (DeGov). These system processes civic resolutions to improve the quality of life within each megacity.

In the megacity of Themis, a genetically-enhanced assassin named Azure works for the Keres, a powerful corporation that executes proscription contracts against “lifers,” individuals who extend their lives using a drug called Ichor (in the world of Scion, overwhelming support for a law called Proscription Resolution 10010 enabled the legalization of contractual assassination in certain cases, such as crowdfunding). After Azure completes his latest assignment, which has left him injured, his AI handler, Atti, assigns him a two-week protection job, which he is reluctant to take on but accepts due to the high pay of the assignment. This will help to recoup his debt to Keres for saving his life four years earlier. 

On his way to meet the client, Azure’s communication with Atti is severed by an electromagnetic pulse field. He soon meets his client, a frail, eccentric old woman who calls herself Jasa, at a remote fortified house. Jasa reveals she knows about a bombing in the city of Oceanus that killed Azure’s friend four years ago and left Azure in a coma. Aside from the pay, Jasa offers Azure a data file with answers about the incident, locked in a DeGov-mediated contract called a Pactum, on the condition that he protects her and honestly answers her prying personal questions. Azure accepts, and Jasa begins showing him her unique defense system, which includes a personalized Loop transit station and a network of hundreds of self-sufficient, intelligent biosecurity creatures, including a giant lion named Richard. Their tour is cut short when an explosive, planted on the Loop transit pod, detonates, trapping them on the estate.

Convinced the initial attack was a feint, Azure agrees to Jasa’s demand that he test her biosecurity by sneaking through her property’s EMP ring. During the test, the genetic modifications enhancing his cognitive functions (or cognitive “revs”) alert him to an intruder entering the house through an aquarium intake pipe. Jasa flees into the woods while Azure evades the bio-creatures’ attacks. He is forced to surrender to a giant owl-like creature called a Hed, which flies him back to the house. There, he confronts and kills the assassin, who turns out to be a disposable “canary” sent to test the defenses. 

Realizing they are not safe on the estate, they escape to Themis through the damaged Loop tunnel, hidden inside a toxic waste container. The journey is sabotaged, and they are nearly incinerated, but Azure breaks them out. They emerge in a secret laboratory where the old woman reveals her true identity: She is Jasa de Alwes, the legendary geneticist who created Ichor and was thought to have been the first person executed under Resolution 10010. In reality, the Keres faked her death in exchange for exclusive access to her research, which included the creation of revs. Now, the Keres are trying to kill her for real because she began investigating Azure’s past.

In Themis, Azure and Jasa seek out Manuel, an underworld contact who provides them with “Slabs,” black market DeGov IDs taken from deceased individuals, which they use to pass biometric scans after scrubbing their identity markers using a painful DNA wash. Jasa warns that the Keres have a detailed file on Azure’s life before Oceanus, making his old safe houses potential traps. Instead, Azure takes her to Sanctum, a highly secure den that sells a drug called Nostrum and is run by his acquaintance, Verity. He then meets with Chandra, a data scraper, to get information on Jasa and the Keres. He returns to find Sanctum in flames. He rescues Jasa and Verity, but as they escape through a warehouse, they are ambushed by an assailant who looks exactly like Azure. The attacker stabs Jasa, and Azure severs the attacker’s hand, revealing it has the same distinctive cross-shaped scar on his own hand. Jasa dies, and Azure realizes he has been cloned, or is himself a clone. Azure returns to Manuel’s lab, threatens him for betraying their location to the Keres, and uses Jasa’s DNA to access her accounts. He discovers she was wealthy and strategically uses her funds to buy a controlling 28% stake in Atti, seizing control of the AI from the Keres.

Reunited with Atti, Azure confirms the clone, which calls himself Crimson, was created by the Keres after his near-death experience in Oceanus. He lures Crimson back to Jasa’s house and, with the help of her loyal bio-creatures, subdues it. During a confrontation, Azure learns Crimson possesses all his memories, including his deep-seated guilt over potentially failing to run a security diagnostic on the morning of the Oceanus bombing. Before he can learn more, a Hed decapitates Crimson. 

Now believing the original Jasa might still be alive, Azure decides to infiltrate the Keres’ headquarters. Pretending to be Crimson, he allows the Keres to suppress his revs and take him to Floor 132, the executive level. There, an executive uses a verbal code that overrides his motor functions, freezing him. The executive interrogates him, but then the real Jasa appears on a q-vid screen and speaks a counter-command, releasing Azure from the executive’s grasp. She reveals the Jasa who died was her own clone, a “scion” created to fake her death. Jasa reveals her ultimate motive for challenging the Keres: Landry, the friend Azure lost in Oceanus, was her son. She believes the Keres orchestrated the bombing to manipulate her into accelerating her cloning research, using Azure’s near-death as leverage to create the ultimate living weapon. 

Jasa reveals that the file containing proof of her claim is biologically-encoded information stored inside the executive’s head. After Azure kills the executive and his guards, Jasa offers him a choice. He can bring her the head, and they will partner to blackmail the Keres into submission while hunting down the other scions. Alternately, he can leave the head with Richard the lion for Jasa to retrieve, at which point she will let Azure disappear with his newfound wealth. The latter option will allow Azure to live a peaceful life, free from her and the Keres. 

Atti causes a massive accident at the Keres building to cover Azure’s escape. Azure departs with the executive’s head in a cooler, flying off into the night as he weighs whether to live in peace or be at peace.