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One morning the world does not wake up. Millions lie dead in their beds, victims of their own dreams of falling. There are survivors . . . but the world they emerge into is changing rapidly. Humanity is no longer the dominant species. Now, Nature has the upper hand.

This novelette originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue Seven, November-December 2015.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

The ruins of Sol System have been empty for thousands of years. A place of death and mystery, it is shunned by all--until now.

DEADLINE TO DESTRUCTION:
Renegade intelligence agent Morgan Roche arrives hot on the heels of the clone warriors--enemies she has been charged by the High Humans to stop before they destroy everything. What she finds--the largest fleet assembled in half a million years, with no central authority, no-one in charge--threatens to stretch her resources beyond their limit.

There, under the light of the star called Sol, Morgan Roche will uncover the final truth about the AI called The Box, about the man called Adoni Cane, and about the High Human called the Crescend. That truth will cost her dearly...

Caught between her beloved father, the Merlin of Britain, and Arthur Pendragon, the old ways and the new, Wren must find a way to balance the forces of Chaos with peace. She nurtures the land and the people, creating a haven for anyone displaced by the turbulence. And for the safety of all she must guard her heart against the deep love she shares with Arthur, a married king who holds the future of all the Britains in his hands and his sword.

Isiah is having a tough time. The Devil is making his job very difficult.

Samuel Harrigan is a murdering lowlife. He used ancient blood magic to escape a deal with the Devil and now he's on the trail of a crystal skull that he believes will complete his efforts to evade Lucifer. But Lucifer wants Samuel's soul for eternity and refuses to wait a second longer for it. Isiah needs Samuel to keep looking for the crystal skull, so he has to protect Sam and keep the Devil at bay. Not for Samuel's sake, but for all of humanity.

Three years have passed since Isiah's run in with Samuel Harrigan and the Devil. He has some time on his hands - a perfect opportunity to track down the evil Sorcerer, Harrigan's mentor. It should have been a simple enough task, but the Sorcerer has more followers than Isiah ever imagined, and a plan bigger than anyone could have dreamed.

With the help of some powerful new friends Isiah desperately tries to track down the Sorcerer and his cult of blood before they manage to change the world forever.

The saga of Recluce by L.E. Modesitt, Jr., has become one of the standard works of fantasy in the 1990s. VOYA says, "Modesitt's logical structure of the interrelationship of order and chaos, magic and technology, is one of the most through in modern fantasy. The personal growth of his characters and the depiction of their world, it well-written and credible - and involves the reader... The serious fantasy reader will revel in Modesitt's work." Launched with The Magic of Recluce, the novels of Recluce have gone on to sell over a million copies in paperback.

The most recent of the Recluce novels, Fall of Angels, introduced the engineer/smith Nylan, the only man among the leadership of the company of "angels" marooned on a high plateau in the west of Candar, and perhaps the one person most responsible for their survival. But the angels are a matriarchal band, and so Nylan must leave his companions and seek a life elsewhere. He travels down from the plateau into the world of warring kingdoms and strange magics with his companion, Ayrlyn, the healer, and his infant son. They are in search of a place to lead a peaceful life, but they look different from the locals, and their talents are most valued in battle - and so the war between chaos and order begins again.

The Chaos Balance is the seventh book of the saga of Recluce.

From Pearl Harbor to panzers rolling through Paris to the Siege of Leningrad and the Battle of Midway, war seethed across the planet as the flames of destruction rose higher and hotter.

And then, suddenly, the real enemy came.

The invaders seemed unstoppable, their technology far beyond human reach. And never before had men been more divided. For Jew to unite with Nazi, American with Japanese, and Russian with German was unthinkable.

But the alternative was even worse.

As the fate of the world hung in the balance, slowly, painfully, humankind took up the shocking challenge...

NO ONE COULD STOP THEM--

NOT STALIN, NOT TOGO, NOT CHURCHILL, NOT ROOSEVELT...

The invaders had cut the United States virtually in half at the Mississippi, vaporized Washington, D.C., devastated much of Europe, and held large parts of the Soviet Union under their thumb.

But humanity would not give up so easily. The new world allies were ruthless at finding their foe's weaknesses and exploiting them.

Whether delivering supplies in tiny biplanes to partisans across the vast steppes of Russia, working furiously to understand the enemy's captured radar in England, or battling house to house on the streets of Chicago, humankind would never give up.

Yet no one could say when the hellish inferno of death would stop being a war of conquest and turn into a war of survival--the very survival of the planet...

Russia, Communist China, Japan, Nazi Germany, the United States: they began World War II as mortal enemies. But suddenly their only hope for survival--never mind victory--was to unite to stop a mighty foe--one whose frightening technology appeared invincible.

Far worse beings than the Nazis were loose. From Warsaw to Moscow to China's enemy-occupied Forbidden City, the nations of the world had been forced into an uneasy alliance since humanity began its struggle against overwhelming odds. In Germany, where the banshee wail of hostile jets screamed across the land, caches of once-forbidden weapons were unearthed, and unthinkable tactics were employed against the enemy. Brilliantly innovative military strategists confronted challenges unprecedented in the history of warfare.

Even as lack of fuel forced people back to horse and carriage, physicists worked feverishly to create the first nuclear bombs--with horrifying results. City after city joined the atomic pyre as the planet erupted in fiery ruins. Yet the crisis continued--on land, sea, and in the air--as humanity writhed in global combat. The tactics of daredevil guerrillas everywhere became increasingly ingenious against a superior foe whose desperate retaliation would grow ever more fearsome.

No one had ever put the United States, or the world, in such deadly danger. But if the carnage and annihilation ever stopped, would there be any pieces to pick up?

WORLDWAR: BOOK 4

At the bloody height of World War II, the deadliest enemies in all of human history were forced to put aside their hatreds and unite against an even fiercer foe: a seemingly invincible power bent on world domination.

With awesome technology, the aggressors swept across the planet, sowing destruction as Tokyo, Berlin, and Washington, D.C., were A-bombed into submission. Russia, Nazi Germany, Japan and the U.S. were not easily cowed, however. With cunning and incredible daring, they pressed every advantage against the invader's superior strength, and, led by Stalin, began to detonate their own atom bombs in retaliation.

City after city explodes in radioactive firestorms, and fears grow as the worldwide resources disappear; will there be any world left for the invaders to conquer, or for the uneasy allies to defend?

While Mao Tse-tung wages a desperate guerrilla war and Hitler drives his country toward self-destruction, United States forces frantically try to stop the enemy's push from coast to coast. Yet in this battle to stave off world domination, unless the once-great military powers take the risk of annihilating the human race, they'll risk losing the war.

The fatal, final deadline arrives in Harry Turtledove's grand, smashing finale to the Worldwar series, as uneasy allies desperately seek a way out of a no-win, no-survival situation: a way to live free in a world that may soon be bombed into atomic oblivion.