Lightspeed Trilogy

Ken MacLeod is back with a stellar interstellar addition to the Lightspeed trilogy! THE FERMI ARE AWAKE . . . The invention of faster-than-light technology has brought great opportunity, but also great danger. The Black Horizon conspiracy is broken up, but it still has deadly assets beyond the reach of Earth. As the great powers jostle for advantage, the alien minds known as the Fermi have their own ways of dealing with humans meddling in plans vaster and more ancient than anyone can suspect. After the Venus catastrophe, John Grant's starship Fighting Chance and the Space Station have reached Apis-but not for long. They barely have time to mourn the dead before they're chased out of the system. The Station begins exploring the systems Black Horizon warned them against-with good reason, as they soon discover. On Apis, Alliance agent Marcus Owen has a new mission: to communicate with the alien intelligences in the rocks, and to stop anyone else from getting to them first. Everyone knows he's a spy, but he's not going to let that cramp his style. But the scientists investigating the rock find that the Fermi may not be the only alien intelligence on Apis . . .

The Fermi have departed from the rocky worlds, but they still haunt the gas giants. Hurled into the past by a time-slip, John Grant and his onboard AI navigate the long way back. They return to the present in a distant system, where they find Terre Nouveau, a human settlement already two hundred years old. Grant's ship takes this astounding news to the far-roving Station, where Nayak has found new problems and a new lover. As the Station explores Terre Nouveau's system, they encounter intelligent species far older than humanity, who are just as perplexed about the origins and intentions of the Fermi as they are. On Apis, rogue agent Marcus Owen rallies the native intelligent life against the human settlers, and passes on a warning from the Fermi: the humans must stop encroaching-or else. Other settlers are not convinced, and conflict erupts. Owen is sent on a new mission, to Terre Nouveau's colorful and verdant sister planet, where he finds that his arrival, and humanity's, has been awaited longer than he expects. But no one is prepared for how far the Fermi are willing to go-or for the unfolding of an audacious plan, millennia in the making, that reaches beyond the light horizon.

Mathematician Lakshmi Nayak receives a letter from her future self about faster-than-light travel. The equations work, and the letter itself seems to prove the possibility will someday be realized. But her paper on the topic is fiercely criticized, and she's warned away by a sinister Alliance agent. After defecting to the Union, she gets an unexpected offer: "I can build your ship." Shipbuilder John Grant learns of a secret project, which unknown to the world has been traveling to the stars for decades: Black Horizon. Biologist Emma Hazeldene works for Black Horizon on an alien world, Apis, whose life has clearly come from Earth, investigating rock formations that are thought to be an alien, crystal-like intelligence. But refugees exiled to a hard life in the wilds of Apis already know more than the scientists have ever suspected. Everything changes when the rocks wake up, with dire results. As secrets emerge and rival powers seize advantage, three worlds are shaken to their foundations-and all involved have to fight for their lives, and their futures. Science fiction legend Ken MacLeod begins a new space opera trilogy by imagining humankind on the precipice of discovery-the invention of faster-than-light travel unlocks a universe of new possibilities, and new dangers.