NIGHT SHADE BOOKS PRESENTS JOHN LOVE'S DEBUT NOVEL
FAITH is the name humanity has given to the unknown, seemingly invincible alien ship that has begun to harass the newly emergent Commonwealth. 300 years earlier, the same ship destroyed the Sakhran Empire, allowing the Commonwealth to expand its sphere of influence. But now Faith has returned.
THE SHIP is as devastating as before, and its attacks leave some Commonwealth solar systems in chaos. Eventually it reaches Sakhra, now an important Commonwealth possession, and it seems like history is about to repeat itself. But this time, something is waiting: an Outsider, one of the Commonwealth's ultimate warships.
OUTSIDERS are almost as alien as Faith — instruments of the Commonwealth, outside all normal command structures. Slender silver ships, full of functionality: drives and weapons and sentience cores, bionics and electronics, packed to almost dwarf-star density. And crewed by people of unusual abilities, often sociopaths or psychopaths. Outsiders were conceived in back alleys, built and launched in secret, and commissioned without ceremony.
FAITH continues to destroy the Commonwealth's regular spacecraft and planetary defenses. With each new engagement, the Kafkaesque enemy reveals a new set of abilities.
ONE SYSTEM away from Earth, the Outsider ship Charles Manson makes a stand. Commander Foord waits with his crew of miscreants and sociopaths, hoping to accomplish what no other human has been able to do… TO DESTROY FAITH.
Moon, once a solitary wanderer, has become consort to Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud court. Together, they travel with their people on a pair of flying ships in hopes of finding a new home for their colony. Moon finally feels like he’s found a tribe where he belongs.
But when the travelers reach the ancestral home of Indigo Cloud, shrouded within the trunk of a mountain-sized tree, they discover a blight infecting its core. Nearby they find the remains of the invaders who may be responsible, as well as evidence of a devastating theft. This discovery sends Moon and the hunters of Indigo Cloud on a quest for the heartstone of the tree—a quest that will lead them far away, across the Serpent Sea. . . .
In this follow-up to The Cloud Roads, Martha Wells returns with a world-spanning odyssey, a mystery that only provokes more questions—and the adventure of a lifetime.
