The Modern World
Published in the US as Dangerous Offspring.
Tähtifantasia award 2013.
The endless war, led by the Emperor San and
his circle of fifty immortals, against the giant insects that have
threatened to overwhelm the Fourlands grinds on. A war for survival has
become a numbing war of containment. Frost, the architect, has provided
new hope with her grandiose plan to push the insects back behind a lake
created by her massive dam on the Oriole river, but its little more than a new level of stalemate.
Jant, the Emperor's winged messenger has more pressing concerns. Cyan, daughter of Lightning, the Emperor's Archer, has gone missing in the city of Hacilith. Lightning wants Jant to bring her back. Jant has rescued Cyan before but he knows better than anyone just how much trouble a teenager can get into in Hacilith's underworld. And he has an added problem. Cyan is now eighteen and if Jant so much as touches her Lightning will kill him. Will curiosity be the death of Jant?
So begins a hectic quest. A quest that will take Jant back to his past, back to the bizarre world of the Shift and, eventually, back to the Fourlands. Just as it faces a terrifying new threat.
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Steph Swainston
Steph Swainston (born 1974) is a qualified archaeologist with a degree from Cambridge and a research degree. She worked as archaeologist for six years, working on the dig that researched the oldest recorded burial site in the UK, before working as an information scientist.
Castle Series
Also known as Fourlands series.
Castle Series consists of five primary books, and includes two additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
