Alexander

Humanity pushed its way to the stars—and encountered the Gbaba, a ruthless alien race that nearly wiped us out. Earth and her colonies are now smoldering ruins, and the few survivors have fled to distant, Earth-like Safehold, to try to rebuild. But the Gbaba can detect the emissions of an industrial civilization, so the human rulers of Safehold have taken extraordinary measures: with mind control and hidden high technology, they've built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, a religion designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever.

Alien battle fleets converge on earth at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Technology and intrigue blend to form a graphic study of politics, morality, and the brutality of total war. A bitter, hard fought war is raging that ranges from the depths of interstellar space, to a nuclear Battle of the Atlantic, to savage assassinations, and Machiavellian usurpations of power and control.

Ursis nodded soberly out the Hyperscreens toward the merchant ships, then turned to Brim. "Out there, Wilf Ansor," he brooded, "are real heroes of war. To fight from behind disruptors of warship is something anyone can do. One can always count on lucky shooting to save him from disaster, or heavy armor plate at least. But to face enemy with only black void and thin sheet of hullmetal separating you from disruptors, and then stay in formation, that is kind of bravery we Sodeskayans record in Great Books."

One of the few survivors of a League sneak attack on his poor and miserable homeworld of Carescria, Wilf Brim sets out to settle the score. Were it not for the attrition from the war that followed, Wilf would never have escaped his lower-class status and been accepted into the Academy. Now, freshly graduated, young Sublieutenant Wilf Ansor Brim, Imperial Fleet, begins his first assignment, Helmsman of the I.F.S. Truculent.

Four years ago, LAPD detective Harry Bosch was on a movie set, asking questions about the murder of a young production assistant, when an armored car arrived with $2 million cash for use in a heist scene. In a life-imitates-art firestorm, a gang of masked men converged on the delivery and robbed the armored car with guns blazing. The crime was never resolved, and the young woman's murder was in the stack of unsolved-case files Bosch carried home the night he left the LAPD.