New York Times best-selling author S. M. Stirling continues what Library Journal has termed his "epic of survival and rebirth," chronicling a modern world without technology.

Rudi Mackenzie has journeyed far across the land that was once the United States of America, hoping to find the source of the world-altering event that has come to be known as the Change. His final destination is Nantucket, an island overrun with forest, inhabited by a mere two hundred people who claim to have been transported there from out of time.

Only one odd stone house remains standing. Within it, Rudi finds a beautifully made sword waiting for him - and once he takes it up, nothing will ever be the same....