Playground

Rafi and Todd are two polar opposites at an elite high school where they bond over a 3,000-year-old board game. It sets them up for life : Rafi will get lost in literature, while Todd's work will lead to a startling Al breakthrough. Elsewhere, Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world's first aqualungs ; Ina Aroita grows up in naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home.
All of these people meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, marked for humanity's next great adventure : a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out into the open sea. As the seasteaders close in, how will Evie play the ever-unfolding oceanic game ? Will Ina find a way to counter the move with her art ? Todd and Rafi, now estranged, still find themselves in competition : Todd unravels while working on an idea to redraw the boundaries of human immortality, while Rafi and the residents must decide if they will greenlight the new project on their shores and change their home forever.

Set in the world's largest ocean, "Playground" explores that last wild place we have yet to colonise and interweaves profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity, in a way only Richard Powers can.