It's 2025, and the Chinese and the Americans are going head to head on the Moon for helium-3, the rare mineral which will solve all the Earth's energy needs. But not everyone is happy. Billionaire Julian Orley's space-elevator revolutionised space travel; now he's taking a group of international movers and shakers on the trip of a lifetime: to the first-ever hotel on the Moon, hoping to woo them into investing in the future of humanity.
But not all of Orly's guests are humanitarians: at least one is pursuing his own dark plot - and now there's a time limit. And how is this linked with the cyber-detective Owen Jericho, the dissident hacker Yoyo, oil magnate Gerald Palstein - and the mysterious organisation called Hydra, who have their own - not very charitable - plans for the universe?
Schätzing was born in Cologne and studied communication studies; he later ran his own company, an advertising agency named INTEVI, in Cologne. Schätzing became a writer in 1990, and penned several novellas and satires. His first published novel was the historical Tod und Teufel in 1995, and in 2000 his thriller Lautlos.
Schätzing achieved his greatest success in 2004 with the science fiction thriller The Swarm.