Amazon.com description: Product Description: The beginning of a new trilogy from perhaps the most significant SF writer of the 21st century and co-author with Terry Pratchett of the Long Earth books The first in a new trilogy that will chart different evolutionary futures for mankind, COALESCENT is the story of a divergent strain of humanity; a hive mind, that subsumes the individual. It is a story that begins with a vivid depiction of the decline of the Roman Empire and which, down through the years, shows how one woman's determination to protect her daughter has such frightening consequences for mankind's future existence. This is at once a stunning historical novel, a superb piece of ideas-driven SF and the intensely felt story of one man's discovery of the dark secret at the heart of his family.