Light music - Kathleen Ann Goonan

Once the world worked differently - before the Silence from space quieted the airwaves and rendered electronics useless. In a haven called Crescent City, built through the wonders of nanotechnology to transport its enlightened inhabitants into the cosmos, far away from the terrors and chaos of a world gone mad, humanity has failed. One of the original pioneers, Jason Peabody, must now flee in the wake of an assault on the city by pirates. He embarks on a bizarre odyssey across a perilous, unrecognisable outside - a landscape of Western round-ups and tragically 'youngening' children; of plague-ravaged humans in foreboding flower cities; of conscious machines, talking animals and toys that long to be real.

And the appearance on Earth of strange illuminations is causing widespread panic and fear, as pilgrims gather in Crescent City seeking answers to the Silence's long-concealed mysteries, responding to the hypnotic light music calling them towards a remarkable destiny in the

stars . . .