Alex Benedict

In the year 2204, tragedy and terror forced a scientific team to prematurely evacuate Maleiva Ill. Twenty-one years later, the opportunity for scientists to study this galactic rarity—a life-supporting planet—is about to vanish forever as a rogue gas giant has invaded the planetary system on a deadly collision course with the world they are now calling Deepsix.

A superluminal pilot for the Academy of Science and Technology, Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchins is the only even remotely qualified professional within lightyears of Deepsix. With less than three weeks left before the disaster, she and a small scientific team—including Randall Nightingale a survivor of the original expedition who was made the scapegoat for its failure—must descend to the surface, and glean whatever they can about the doomed planet’s lifeforms and lost civilizations.

There is more to this strange and complex world, however, than anyone could have imagined: hidden predators; stone cities under the ice; remnants of a warlike primitive society, yet with inexplicable hints of an impossible technology buried in the rubble... and in orbit around the soon to be demolished planet. The deeper Hutch and her team delve, the more puzzles are revealed within puzzles and startling discoveries lead only to greater and more perplexing questions

But then the unthinkable occurs An earthquake destroys the explorers only means of escape As scientists and sightseers who have come to witness the spectacular end of Deepsix watch helplessly from miles above Hutch and her people must survive somehow on a hostile planet going rapidly mad. And with the clock ticking relentlessly toward an unavoidable apocalypse, they must find some way, any way to get off before Deepsix plunges like a pebble into the limitless depths of the rampaging gas giant.

The Roadmakers left only ruins behind—but what magnificent ruins! Their concrete highways still cross the continent. Their cups, combs and jewelry are found in every Illyrian home. They left behind a legend, too—a hidden sanctuary called Haven, where even now the secrets of their civilization might still be found.

Chaka's brother was one of those who sought to find Haven and never returned. But now Chaka has inherited a rare Roadmaker artifact—a book called A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court—which has inspired her to follow in his footsteps. Gathering an unlikely band of companions around her, Chaka embarks upon a journey where she will encounter bloodthirsty rirver pirates, electronic ghosts who mourn their lost civilization and machines that skim over the ground and air. Ultimately, the group will learn the truth about their own mysterious past.

Two hundred years ago, humans made a stunning discovery in the far reaches of the solar system: a huge statue of an alien creature, with an inscription that defied all efforts at translation. Now, as faster-than-light drive opens the stars to exploration, humans are finding other relics of the race they call the Monument-Makers - each different, and each heartbreakingly beautiful. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon Iapetus, there is no trace of the enigmatic race that has left them behind. Then a team of scientists working on a dead world discover an ominous new image of the Monument-Makers. Somehow it all fits with other lost civilizations, and possibly with Earth's own future. And distant past. But Earth itself is on the brink of ecological disaster - there is no time to search for answers. Even to a question that may hold the key to survival for the entire human race...