Elvene, a solo Space Corps agent, is on a reconnaissance mission when she is ambushed by space marauders: militaristic robotic drones, designed to hunt and kill. She escapes by taking refuge on an uncharted planet, where she discovers the Kiri, an unknown tribe living a subsistence life on an ocean archipelago. They have no knowledge of her world nor her of theirs; but they readily adopt her and give her the title of Ocean Woman. Elvene responds in kind, temporarily forgetting the tribulations of her own world. Inevitably, however, her past catches up with her and endangers the very people who embraced her. The Kiri not only challenge everything Elvene thought she knew about humanity, but provide a friendship and love that leads her to consider the ultimate sacrifice. Paul Mealing lives in Melbourne and, when he is not writing and philosophising, he works as a project controls engineer in the construction industry. His background has been varied and includes share farming in the mallee of NSW and amateur theatre in Canberra. His interests include science, religion and philosophy. He started writing fiction and screenplays in the 1980s, but Elvene is his first published novel. He had stopped writing altogether, but, during an overseas assignment in the US, he got the idea for Elvene while watching a trailer on a video, which had a female protagonist in a Sci-fi anime. He later acknowledged an influence from Mamoru Oshii's 1995 cult classic, Ghost in the Shell (not the trailer or the video he was watching at the time), which, going by an endorsement on the DVD, may have also inspired James Cameron's Dark Angel series.