Battle-ready factions converge above Darien, all with the same objective. The goal is control over this newly-discovered planet and access to the powerful weapons at its heart. Despotic Hegemony forces dominate much of known space and they want this world too, but Darien's inhabitants will fight for their future. However, key players in this conflict aren't fully in control. Hostile AIs have infiltrated key minds and have an agenda, requiring nothing less than the destruction or subversion of all organic life. And they are near to unleashing their cohorts, a host of twisted machine intelligences caged beneath Darien. Fighting to contain them are Darien's hidden guardians, and their ancient ally the Construct, on a millennia-long mission to protect sentient species. As the war reaches its peak, the AI army is roaring to the surface, to freedom and an orgy of destruction. Darien is first in line in a machine vs. human war - for life or the sterile dusts of space.

Short stories are a bit like refugees, or at least the disparate and contrary members of a contrary family, sent forth alone into the world. Short stories are tours of duty through personal badlands, hikes across the hinterlands. Short stories are like puzzle pieces carved from glass or wood or diamond or clay or whatever's close to hand. So when the refugee brothers and sisters and cousins return to their roots, when the tours of duty are documented and the hinterlands charted, and when the puzzle pieces are found to fit only into the mind of the carver, what are you left with? The voices of a freeform choir? An enigmatic Escheresque atlas? Or seventeen stories from the pen of Michael Cobley; memos from places both dark and light. Discover a ghost's point of view of the living. Pursue monsters through a land of ice and snow. Take a waltz through space and time. Strut your stuff at the Panddomainium. Embark on a mystic journey to the Great Barrier Reef Range. Know the feeling of technology beneath the skin. Seventeen stories from a persistently thoughtful and entertaining writer. Seventeen tickets to strange worlds and strange thoughts. Enjoy the ride.

A harsh winter is settling in and the Shadowkings' deepest, darkest plans are hatching. Far to the north the Shadowking Byrnak broods on his towertop. He knows he must utterly crush the imperial remnants and their allies despite the powers of the goddess Earthmother.