The Altarai arrive to strip mine the planet, and it's very much the end of life as we know it. But, hey, even all-powerful aliens can get bored and run into trouble. And then humanity's remaining one per cent becomes part of the solution. Linked to “A Burning Love...” ~ 3k words.
Spaceships. Orbital stations. Virtual worlds. Incomprehensible aliens. A pan-galactic society where humanity is a minority. Humanoid robots. Artificial intelligences. Journeys beyond the universe. Time travel. Psi powers. Space battles. Distant gods. Video games. Servers where one can live their afterlife. Utopian societies. The Blind Gods have all this and more.
After a strange interstellar journey, Maskull, a man from Earth, awakens alone in a desert on the planet Tormance, seared by the suns of the binary star Arcturus. As he journeys northward, guided by a drumbeat, he encounters a world and its inhabitants like no other, where gender is a victory won at dear cost; where landscape and emotion are drawn into an accursed dance; where heroes are killed, reborn, and renamed; and where the lure of Shaping, who may be God, torment Maskull in his pilgrimage