The starstream is beautiful. But beauty turns deadly when an ancient AI bent on destruction uses it to travel uptime, to humanity’s future.
The Mindaru are dead. Or so exiled-Earthman John Bandicut and his alien companions believe, after their intervention to save the Orion Nebula and surrounding worlds. But now a part of this ancient and malicious AI colony is swarming toward the present from its birthplace deep in the past.Their opening: a temporal disturbance in the starstream, a hyperspatial thoroughfare used by myriad civilizations. The disturbance emanates from the planetary defenses of nearby Karellia, whose people know nothing of the starstream or the galaxy-threatening Mindaru.
Only Bandicut and his friends have the knowledge and experience to act. But several of Bandicut’s company have gone missing. Bandicut and Li-Jared must team with the pandimensional Ruall and her gokat—the oddest aliens Bandicut has met since the shadow-people—and journey to Karellia to find a way to cut off the timestream.
Separated from the others, Ik meets another human of Earth—a former lover of Bandicut’s—and embarks with her on a perilous mission far back into deep time, seeking a way to stop the Mindaru at their source.
The Chaos Chronicles returns at last in The Reefs of Time, part one of a heartstopping, two-part adventure. Concluded in Crucible of Time, from the Nebula-nominated author of Eternity's End.
REVIEWS:
“Classic science fiction with engaging characters and richly imagined worlds!” —Greg Bear, author of The Unfinished Land and The War Dogs Trilogy
“Jeffrey A. Carver’s remarkable long-awaited duology The Reefs of Time / Crucible of Time is a welcome addition to The Chaos Chronicles, certifying his continuing mastery of action and adventure at the boundaries of space opera and hard SF.” —Steve Miller, The Liaden Universe
