author : Adrian Tchaikovsky

Their journey will be long, hard, and fraught with danger. Allies will become enemies; enemies will become allies. And the Dark Lord will be waiting, always waiting…

Four years ago, two girls went to find mythical creatures on Bodmin Moor. Only one came back: Lee thought she’d lost Mal forever, yet now she’s miraculously returned. But what really happened on then moors?

MI5’s Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power – who may or may not be human. But his only clue is grainy footage, showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor. Dr Khan’s research had revealed cracks between our world and parallel Earths. Now these are widening, revealing extraordinary creatures. And as the doors crash open, anything could come through.

And then he died.

Celestaine—one of the heroes that destroyed him—has tasked herself with correcting the worst excesses of the Kinslayer’s brief reign, bringing light back to a broken world. With two Yorughan companions, she faces fanatics, war criminals and the Kinslayer’s former minions, as the fragile alliances of the War break down into feuding and greed.

The Kinslayer may be gone, but he cast a long shadow: one from which she may never truly escape.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life – but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time.

Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from Old Earth. However, those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod that was better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.

On Imir, Captain Holt founded a hopeful new colony on an empty world. But generations later, his descendants are struggling to survive. As harvests worsen and equipment fails, strangers appear in a town where everyone knows their neighbour. Now the community fears it’s being observed – that they’re not alone. And they’d be right.

Explorers from the stars have come, in secret, to help. Confident of their superior technology, they begin to study their long-lost cousins from Earth. Yet the visitors aren’t the only watchers. When the starfarers discovers the scale of theirs mistake, it will be far too late to escape.

Eighty years ago, Earth was destroyed by an alien ‘Architect’. Some escaped, but millions more died. So to protect its colonies, humanity shaped the minds of Idris and others into weapons and sent them into battle. But the Architects disappeared, and heroes like Idris were forgotten. However, he’s glad of it. This particular living weapon would rather retire to a shabby salvage vessel than be anyone's ammunition. Then this small ship makes a huge discovery.

Hunted by gangsters, governments and spies, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy on a desperate hunt for a way out. For they found something many would kill to obtain – proof that the Architects have returned.

An Architect almost destroyed humanity’s foremost colony, until Idris Telemmier turned it aside. But that was just the start of the war – and now no planet is safe. Ancient artefacts once repelled these vast aliens, but they are now terrifyingly ineffective. However, the ruins of a lost civilization offer hope. Its forgotten builders created the artefacts, so their city could hold the key to victory.

Idris and the crew of the Vulture God are sent there, seeking answers, to a planet under a death sentence. So Idris must return to the nightmare of unspace, where his mind was broken and remade. All the while, humanity’s factions eye one another with distrust. Yet what he discovers will change everything.