Dark Secret

Cosmologically speaking, Earth's luck ran out in an eye blink. In another million years or so, humanity could have had the technology to shield its cradle from an imminent gamma-ray burst. Or humans might already have spread out among the stars--safe, as a species, from any less-than-galactic-scale disaster. Too bad we didn't get that million years.

And then what? Where beyond the Solar System is safe?

More importantly, what is the price of survival?

_"I found Dark Secret to be a refreshingly hopeful vision; the important questions it raised--frightening and disturbing as they may be--are ones we ignore at our own peril ... I heartily recommend Ed Lerner's_ Dark Secret."

--Tangent Online

_"Gamma-ray bursters are a real, frightful danger, and Edward M. Lerner captures the awful truth of this in a quick, startling story that--I warn you!--will be hard to put down."_

--Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of _Timescape_

_"Gripping. Impossible to put down."_

--Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award-winning author of _The Devil's Eye_

"Dark Secret_ is a unique tale of catastrophe and survival on multiple levels, gripping and harrowing yet ultimately inspiring. Lerner shows what it might really be like to be forced from an out-of-control frying pan into a far worse fire, and how humanity might endure even if what the refugees bring with them is worse than what they find."_

--Stanley Schmidt, author of _Argonaut_

_"Leave it to Edward M. Lerner to take a notion, run with it, squeeze every ramification out of it, and put it altogether in an irresistible page-turner. _Dark Secret_ is a crackerjack novel--hard science fiction at its best."_

--Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of _Red Planet Blues_

_"With _Dark Secret_ Lerner has crafted a compelling tale of survival of the human race following the cataclysmic destruction of Earth. The story turns on the conflicts of personality, politics, conflicting theories of governance, and the nurture/nature conundrum and ends with an amazing and satisfying conclusion._

_"Lerner handles his tale of power and relationships, friendship and loss, with sensitivity, bringing each principal character and their motivations to light while telling an entertaining story. A must read."_

--Bud Sparhawk, author of _Vixen_

_"This sci-fi novel can be many things to many readers--dark psychological drama, extrapolative science, post-apocalyptic tale, refined space opera--but entertaining will be all their common denominators. Well done, Mr. Lerner!"_

--Steven M. Moore, author of _The Chaos Chronicles_