1916: The Western Front. Private Percy Blakeney wakes up. He is lying on fresh spring grass. He can hear birdsong and the wind in the leaves. Where have the mud, blood, and blasted landscape of no-man's-land gone? For that matter, where has Percy gone? 2015: Madison, Wisconsin. Police officer Monica Jansson is exploring the burned-out home of a reclusive - some say mad, others alleged dangerous - scientist who seems to have vanished. Sifting through...

Lobsang's pursuit of a human life, Joshua's search for his father, and the adaptation efforts of "the Next" post-humans are challenged by a voracious alien race that would conquer and colonize the Long Earth. 2045-2059. Human society continues to evolve on Datum Earth, its battered and weary origin planet, as the spread of humanity progresses throughout the many Earths beyond. Lobsang, now an elderly and complex AI, suffers a breakdown, and disguised...