Ida's Awakening – Tony Corden

Silly premise, good story telling.

The premise serves to turn our world into a fantasy setting: An alien genetic payload hits the earth, disperses, and infects everyone and anything. The survivors are transformed physically and gain powers. (This applies to animals too, so being attacked by a pack of giant carnivorous venomous rabbits can be a thing.)

The “Middle Earth” nomenclature just provides a shorthand for describing the new subspecies of human descent. The robust, long-lived folks with earth-related powers are known as Dwarfs, the gracile, potentially-immortal folks are known as Elves, people who look human - now with some super powers - are known as Humans, et several cetera. And then there are a handful of people who got all the powers. Since they also tend to be insane, they are known as Dark Lords, Witch Kings, etc.

Ida is one of the latter but, as she is sane, she prefers to think of herself as a Wizard. It’s been 2500 years since the genetic apocalypse, and Ida has maintained a low profile. Until she doesn’t, which is where the story starts. Something dangerous is emerging, threatening to expand throughout the latter-day Australia, and Ida gets involved. (Australia has doubled down on “everything is trying to kill you”.)

As noted, a silly premise redeemed by good story telling.