The Reefs of Time and Crucible of Time

Combined ebook containing Parts One and Two of the "Out of Time" sequence, a novel in two volumes. This combined ebook is for convenience in reviewing; published books will be released separately in July and September, at $8.99 each, in both paper and ebook.

The Reefs of Time (eARC) - Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61138-798-8

Crucible of Time (eARC) - Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61138-800-8

The Reefs of Time: The Mindaru are dead. Or so John Bandicut and company believed, when they returned to Shipworld after saving the Orion Nebula and countless inhabited worlds. But their victory may be short lived. Now this ancient and malicious AI has begun escaping forward in time from billions of years in the past. The cause: a temporal disturbance centered on Li-Jared’s homeworld of Karellia—a disturbance that happens to be crucial to Karellia’s defenses.

The situation is dire, and the company must act quickly. But Ik goes missing, and then Antares—and Bandicut and Li-Jared, teamed with Ruall, the oddest alien Bandicut has met since the shadow-people, must leave without them for Karellia. Separated from the others, Ik finds himself teamed with another human of Earth, one Julie Stone—on another mission, one that will take them far back in time, to the birthplace of the Mindaru. Can they stop the Mindaru at their source? Can they tap the wisdom of the yaantel, otherwise known as the Translator?

Crucible of Time: The story continues. The time-tides caused by Karellia’s defenses have brought Mindaru out of deep time into the present, directly threatening Bandicut and Li-Jared—who have arrived to find Karellia on the brink of an interplanetary war. Back at Shipworld, Ik and Julie Stone are persuaded to risk their lives a second time to stop the Mindaru at their source: a planet near the galactic core, a billion years in the past. Can Antares, the beautiful humanoid who loves Bandicut, find a way to assist Ik and Julie? And what of Bria the gokat? And Amaduse, the most influential librarian in Shipworld?

John Bandicut and the intrepid Li-Jared must somehow forge a peace between Karellia and its enemy, Uduon—while back in the galaxy’s early history, by the light of a million stars, hideous things are being done by the Mindaru to an innocent species. The Mindaru plan for the altered creatures carries momentous possibilities even the deadly AI cannot predict. Time is short, and long. Time is elastic. Time is critical.

Conclusion of the two-part story begun in The Reefs of Time, from Jeffrey A. Carver. Nebula-nominated author of Eternity's End.