Chimera Land 1
Act 1 Seeds
Act 2 Roots
Act 3 plot


Chimera Land 2
Act 4 Branch
Act 5 Flowers
Act 6 Fruit

Author's Note | Acknowledgments | Translator's Note

Bernard Werber, the greatest storyteller in the universe,
Unfolding a whole new post-apocalypse

Bernard Werber, the greatest storyteller of our time armed with an inexhaustible scientific imagination, has published his new novel, "Land of Chimeras," through Open Books.
Bernard Werber, the legendary bestselling author whose books have sold over 30 million copies worldwide and have reached a cumulative 3,000th printing in Korean.
In this work, he depicts the process in which chimeras, the result of genetic experiments, become the new rulers of Earth, where humanity has almost destroyed itself due to its own mistakes.


A tangled web of history, philosophy, biology, genetic engineering, and thrilling adventure, "Land of the Chimeras" begins with evolutionary biologist Alice Kamerer's perilous quest to create a hybrid race of highly adaptable humans to prepare for a future crisis.
And the three chimera races he created through twists and turns unfold on a grand scale as they adapt to and clash with the old humans on Earth.


The few remaining old humans on the destroyed Earth, and the chimera new humans…
This story begins exactly 5 years later!

Alice, an evolutionary biologist.
He conducts a study in secret.
Its true identity is to create a chimera new human species by combining human and animal genes.
The intention is to ensure that humanity's potential continues even when any situation arises where survival is no longer possible.
However, when his research is exposed, he faces severe threats from opponents, and with the help of Benjamin Wells, the French Minister of Research and a staunch supporter of his research, he escapes to the International Space Station to continue his research.


Meanwhile, World War III breaks out, the Earth is destroyed by nuclear war, and Alice, who was staying in space, is also in a desperate situation.
However, after many twists and turns, they succeed in returning to Earth with three types of chimera embryos that can survive even in high-concentration radiation environments.
Aerial, a chimera hybrid of human and bat who can fly.
Digger, a chimera hybrid between a human and a mole, can dig the ground and live underground.
And even the chimera "Notic", a hybrid of human and dolphin, can swim and survive underwater.
Will his hybrid human project succeed?
And what will the Chimeras be like, who will solidify their power on the devastated Earth and solidify their position as a new, alternative human race, replacing the extinct Old Humans?

Created with a unique scientific imagination and deep insight into humanity,
The best futuristic novel of our time!

Looking at the current world situation, where incidents of humanity hating and harming each other are continuing, or rather exploding, all over the world, the scene of humanity's destruction depicted at the beginning of this work feels quite realistic.
In a world where natural environments seem increasingly unsustainable for humans, where the climate crisis threatens global disasters and food shortages, and where the threat of frequent nuclear war looms, the story of species evolution imagined by the author may become an option we will consider in the relatively near future.
In that sense, the translator of this book, Kim Hee-jin, explains this work as follows:


I have a sense of crisis that the future that Bernard Werber envisioned in this book and in his previous works may soon become a reality.
Shouldn't humanity, which has occupied a position of unrivaled superiority and poured its energies into material growth and technological advancement, now shift its influence in a different direction? To avoid bringing about our own apocalypse, shouldn't we seek solutions before it's too late? By presenting both the crisis facing humanity and the solutions it faces, he seems to be delivering this message.
Ultimately, the solution to the crisis we have brought upon ourselves lies in the hands of humans.

(From the translator's note)

Faced with the behavior of old humans, who chose control and exclusion over cooperation and coexistence, what path to survival will the new humans, the chimeras, choose? Through the realistically imagined chimeras, the work demonstrates the profound delusion of believing that humans alone are the "masters" of all life on Earth.
And it raises fundamental questions about the nature of human existence.
Bernard Werber, a writer of this era living in the future.
Through his new work, "Land of Chimeras," which combines his renowned scientific imagination with profound insight into humanity, we hope to have the opportunity to reflect on what choices we should make for ourselves.