Seven billion people inhabit this planet in blissful ignorance of imminent annihilation. Destruction comes, not from meteors or nuclear holocaust, but from a source no one even knows exists.

The architects of doom have long moved among us, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the signal to trigger our extinction.

A handful of survivors, traumatised and bewildered, must come to terms with the new reality. And quickly. For the Cleansing is only the beginning…

A post-viral planet. Annihilation approaches.

Tom Evans and Ceri Lewis occupy a silent new world. Little more than a million people survived the Cleansing. They are spread out, weak, compelled by a force beyond their comprehension to remain where they are. Humankind teeters on the brink, its fate in the hands of the few who can resist the power that seeks to control them. But resistance may be futile.

In the midst of deathly calm, a new threat arises, one that will finish the job started by the Cleansing. Tom and Ceri face a stark choice: gamble their lives to try to stop activation of the Beacon, or lie low and wait for the human race to be exterminated. Either way, the end seems certain…

Seven billion people inhabit this planet in blissful ignorance of imminent annihilation. Destruction comes, not from meteors or nuclear holocaust, but from a source no one even knows exists.

The architects of doom have long moved among us, hidden in plain sight, waiting for the signal to trigger our extinction.

A handful of survivors, traumatised and bewildered, must come to terms with the new reality. And quickly. For the Cleansing is only the beginning…

Face your demons. Save humankind.

A future hangs in the balance. Many futures.

Only one person has the power to prevent it all unravelling and he can’t do it alone. Aided by companions old and new, Jack returns to the near shore. Foes must be faced, fears conquered.

But for humanity to prevail, the choreographer of chaos must also be vanquished. Insanity and depravity overcome. The Lord of the Dance lies in wait…

A post-viral planet. Annihilation approaches.

Tom Evans and Ceri Lewis occupy a silent new world. Little more than a million people survived the Cleansing. They are spread out, weak, compelled by a force beyond their comprehension to remain where they are. Humankind teeters on the brink, its fate in the hands of the few who can resist the power that seeks to control them. But resistance may be futile.

In the midst of deathly calm, a new threat arises, one that will finish the job started by the Cleansing. Tom and Ceri face a stark choice: gamble their lives to try to stop activation of the Beacon, or lie low and wait for the human race to be exterminated. Either way, the end seems certain…

An eerie calm. Chaos lurks.

A land inhabited by people from distant places and times. A land of meadow and forest, where to leave the trail is to court death. A land where the Scourgers roam.

In an apparently selfless act to save their lives and perform the task set by the Lord of the Dance, Jack has abandoned Matt, Kim and Tara on the near shore. But his motives are not noble.

Now one of her most famous novels returns to print, the spellbinding story of an isolated post-holocaust community determined to preserve itself, through a perilous experiment in cloning. Sweeping, dramatic, rich with humanity, and rigorous in its science, Where Later the Sweet Birds Sang is widely regarded as a high point of both humanistic and "hard" SF, and won SF's Hugo Award and Locus Award on its first publication. It is as compelling today as it was then.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is the winner of the 1977 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

He was sick for days — although, somehow, he never doubted that he'd live through the ordeal. Often delirious, he did awake at one point to find two strangers peering in at him from the cabin door. Yet oddly, instead of offering help, the two ran off as if terrified.

Not long after that, the coughing began. Ish suffered chills followed by fever, and a measles-like rash that had nothing to do with snake bite broke out on his skin. He was one of the few people in the world to live through that peculiar malady, but he didn't know it then.

Ish headed home when he finally felt himself again—and noticed the strangeness almost immediately. No cars passed him on the road; the gas station not far from his cabin had an air of abandonment; and he was shocked to see the body of a man lying by the roadside near a small town.

Without a radio or phone, Ish had no idea of humanity's abrupt demise. He had escaped death, yet could not escape the awesomeness of the catastrophe—and, with an eerie detachment, he found himself curious as to how long it would be before all traces of man's civilization faded from the Earth.

At the same time, he couldn't help wondering whether others had survived, and whether even a handful of human beings would