Dunia huru-hara. Sejarah dan kegemilangan tamadun manusia sudah musnah ditelan zaman. Bumi jadi tandus, dihujani asid. Jembalang Bertulang Besi bermaharajalela. Manusia diserang, dibunuh dan diselubungi kerakusan. Rague gagah menumpaskan jembalang-jembalang itu. Askar upahan bermata helang itu mahu membalas dendam atas kematian datuknya. Mengenali Jafni telah menemukan dia dengan misteri silam yang mengundang peristiwa Malapetaka Maha. Segalanya bermula apabila ASAIN, sebuah mandroid menyerupai manusia dicipta. Mencetuskan pergolakan antara manusia - robot yang mengakibatkan kemusnahan bumi yang nyata.

Frederik Pohl was on a streak when this Hugo Award–finalist novel was published in 1980. Now back in print after an absence of nearly a decade, this unique science fiction novel is as fresh and entertaining as ever. The story begins when the hero of Gateway finances an expedition to a distant alien spaceship that may end famine forever. On the ship, the explorers find a human boy, and evidence that reveals a powerful alien civilization is thriving on a transport ship headed right for Earth.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The titanic war between the elemental alien hydrogues and faeros continues to sweep across the Spiral Arm, extinguishing suns and destroying planets. Chairman Wenceslas and King Peter must now unify the human race with iron-fisted policies in a final bid to stand together -- or face total annihilation. But disparate civilizations are forging new alliances that threaten the old order. The Roamer and Theron clans will not yield their independence, and the new Mage-Imperator Jora'h now faces a threat that no other Ildiran leader has ever seen -- a civil war that could break apart the entire Empire.

Five years after attacking the human-colonized worlds of the Spiral Arm, the hydrogues maintain absolute control over stardrive fuel...and their embargo is strangling human civilization. On Earth, mankind suffers from renewed attacks by the hydrogues and decides to use a cybernetic army to fight them. Yet the Terran leaders don't realize that these military robots have already exterminated their own makers - and may soon turn on humanity. Once the rulers of an expanding empire, humans have become the galaxy's most endangered species. But the sudden appearance of incredible new beings will destroy all balances of power. Now for humans and the myriad alien factions in the universe, the real war is about to begin...and genocide may be the result.

The alien hydrogues have been defeated, driven back into the cores of their gas-giant planets by an alliance of the Earth Defence Forces, the ancient Ildiran Empire, the gypsy-like Roamer clans and gigantic living 'treeships'. The various factions try to recover - but the deep-seated wounds may prove fatal. The Hansa's brutal Chairman Basil Wenceslas struggles to crush any resistance even as King Peter breaks away to form his own new Confederation among the green priests on Theroc, the Roamer clans and an ever-growing number of colonies who have declared their independence. Like jackals smelling wounded prey, swarms of ancient black robots built by the lost insectoid Klikiss race continue their depredations on helpless worlds with stolen Earth battleships. A race of terrifying fiery elementals, the faeros, has joined with an Ildiran madman to declare war against all life. And the original, voracious Klikiss race - long thought to be extinct - have returned, intent on conquering their former worlds and willing to annihilate anyone who happens to be in the way.

In the far future, humanity began to search the stars, sending out vast spaceships that would take generations to reach their goals. In the depths of space they encountered the Ildiran empire - apparently the galaxy's only other intelligent civilization. The Ildirans came to Earth and passed on the knowledge of their stardrive, allowing humanity to expand to the stars. Almost two hundred years after that first contact, there are human colonies proliferating through the galaxy. As Mankind seizes the future, danger comes from the past, for two human archaeologists glean forbidden knowledge from the ruins of a dead world. Once, the insect-like Klikiss ruled the stars. Now, only their robot servants remain, guardians of a terrible technology - the Klikiss Torch, which has the power to create suns. Now, Humanity prepares to flex its new found muscle and activate the Torch for the first time in millennia, but there are reasons the Klikiss empire fell, and a train of events is about to be set in motion, that will change the universe...