Adrift on the Sea of Rains

This edition of The Eye with Which the Universe Beholds Itself is enhanced with a musical soundtrack from Booktrack! For 15 years, Earth has had a scientific station on an exoplanet orbiting Gliese 876. It is humanity’s only presence outside the solar system. But a new and powerful telescope at L5 can detect no evidence of Phaeton Base, even though it should be able to. So the US has sent Brigadier Colonel Bradley Elliott, USAF, to investigate.

It is April 1962. The Korean War has escalated and the US is struggling to keep the Russians and Chinese north of the 38th parallel. All the men are away fighting, but that doesn’t mean the Space Race is lost: 13 women pilots passed the same tests as the original male candidates. Beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, deep in the Puerto Rico Trench north of San Juan, lies a film bucket from a KH-4 Corona spy satellite. The US Navy bathyscaphe Trieste II must descend 20,000 feet to retrieve the bucket. But there is more in the depths than anyone had expected. This is not our world. But it very nearly was.

When three adventurers, Bastin, Bickley, and Arbuthnot, are marooned on a South Sea island, they discover an ancient crystal sepulchre. Inside are two Atlanteans who have been in a state of suspended animation for 250,000 years! One of the awakened sleepers, Lord Oro, is the last of the Sons of Wisdom, a superior race who'd relied on their advanced technology to subjugate the planet's lesser peoples. The other Atlantean is Oro's daughter, Yva, heiress the title of Queen of the Earth.

In the year AD 3000, Earth is a dystopian wasteland, plundered of its natural resources by alien conquerors known as Psychlos. Fewer than 35,000 humans survive in a handful of communities scattered across the face of a post-apocalyptic Earth. From the ashes of humanity rises a young hero, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. Setting off on an initial quest to discover a hidden evil, Jonnie unlocks the mystery of humanity’s demise and unearths a crucial weakness in their oppressors.

No one knows the true motives of Kees vaan Loo-Macklin. He's a mastermind criminal who gave up his place at the head of the dark underworld to become a legitimate member of Evenwaith's cities. But soon he was reaching out to powerful enemies - the slimy aliens called the Nuel. Loo-Macklin negotiates an illusory peace agreement and gains precious alien secrets in the process. Is he after peace, power or pure evil? With enemy starships beginning to amass, we won't have to wait long to find out.