Böcker av J J Mathews

Year 998 P.E. (Post Earth)The Earth is dead.Or is it? Searchers have spent centuries looking in vain for signs of recovery on the Earth below, and for hospitable planets out amongst the stars.Day in, day out, analysing the endless streams of images that Oversight brings them, looking for the tell-tale green of life.Until one day, eighteen-year-old Miya sees something else. Something that shouldn't exist on the dead planet below. Something she isn't supposed to see.Running for her life, Miya flees the Ark to the inhospitable planet below. But inhospitable doesn't necessarily mean dead. There's life. She had seen the signs. Unless the picture was a fake, then she'll be dead soon enough.

998 P.E. (Post Earth) What's the worst part about the end of the world? You might think it's having to live in one of thirteen Arks orbiting a dead planet. Or that the last vestiges of humanity are only one point three million people, one hundred thousand per Ark. No more, no less, closed loop, until the Searchers find us a new home. But no, the absolute worst part is turning eighteen. Because that's when you're forced to marry a random stranger. It's called Selection - when Oversight assigns you a life-partner, a new job, and you're required to produce a child in your first year of marriage. That's pretty bad, right? I mean, what if he hates me? What if my job stinks? Yeah. I used to worry about that, too. But now, fearing for my life is my new worst thing of all. Because things are not as they seem, and people are disappearing...

A.D. 3487 Taylor Neeran, Star-Killer. That's what she was being called throughout the Xathen dominion. Turn the minor star of the Franath binary system into a black hole, and they gave her that title. She was famous, infamous, whatever. It's not like it was a handful of stars, one star wasn't that many, the galaxy has billions of them. But sometimes it was the smallest of actions that got the most attention. One star to save a hundred unsuspecting worlds and a trillion lives, in some ways it was more than a fair trade. It wasn't her fault the minor sun had failed to complete its transformation into a black hole. Instead, it had become a neutron star, a pulsar, spraying death across the Franath system. Franath was now spoken in whispers or not at all, as if the word itself was cursed. But she was going to fix it. In order to save eight billion souls, Taylor Neeran, Star-Killer and Spirit-Mother of Aeden was going to tame a star. Or die trying. Of course, not actually die, that would help nobody. But she was going to try really, really hard...

A.D. 3485 When it comes to First Contact, there are no second chances. Taylor went along for the ride to help her mother survey a new planet, and the offer of a few extra course credits for doing field work certainly didn't hurt. A planet on the edge of disputed territory, sure, but the war with the Xathen had ended thirty years ago, and the Commonwealth had won. It didn't matter that the first survey ship failed to return, things like that happened during wartime. But this was just term break, with two whole months to work alongside her mother and get to know her better while she sharpened her Xenobiology skills in a verdant paradise. With any luck, she would graduate early. But Taylor messed up, big time. Now she was lost, alone and struggling to survive, stranded ten thousand light-years from home.

A.D. 3485 Twenty-year-old Taylor Neeran is settling in to her new life on the forest planet called Aeden, but all is not well in paradise. She has sent messages off to the stars to let the crew know she is alive, and hopes that one day her mother and the crew will return. She has transmitted details about the Illiya and the exotic wonders of the planet to the crew of the Zanzibar and the University, but others have intercepted her messages. A ship arrives bearing comforts of home, and a terrible secret. When the visitors' true purpose is revealed, Taylor finds herself fighting to defend her new home alongside unexpected allies. Trapped on an alien planet ten thousand light years from Earth, Taylor will soon bear witness to the fate of Aeden as the planet is engulfed in a war they have no hope of winning...

A.D. 3596 While Xathen are of many body-forms, they are all Xathen, one and united. However, a billion years ago the Xathen fought each other in the bloodiest civil war the galaxy has ever seen.>They fought not over race or body-form, but over a single ideal: Thou Shalt Not Interfere. The losers fled the galaxy entirely, cast out into the great dark between the stars. The winners were left to play as gods with the Orion Spur, fostering one cluster of new intelligences after another, wiping them out, then starting again. We are the result of their toils. Now those who had fled have returned. They call themselves the True Xathen.

A.D. 3486 Aeden was suffering. The Reapers had finally been destroyed, leaving the planet scarred and countless creatures lost. The process of recovery had begun, but it will take lifetimes to repair the damage inflicted upon the planet. Now is a time of recuperation, new growth, and family... and new hope in a future that had almost been lost. Balance must be restored for the planet to fulfill its purpose, even as Taylor finds new life blossoming within her. However, recent events have attracted unwanted attention. The Xathen are coming to investigate, and no act of intrusion goes unpunished. When the Xathen arrive, Taylor finds herself an invader on a world that is not her own, in command of forces she barely comprehends. With the Orion Spur once again on the brink of destruction, the only thing that stands between the Xathen and the unsuspecting Commonwealth is... Taylor Neeran.