The Others disposed of Earth’s spaceship fleet as easily as swatting a fly. They blew up the Moon, letting the resulting cloud of rocks and gravel go into orbit. Then, for good measure, they turned off all the power, leaving Earth with nine billion hungry people competing for dwindling resources.

Now Carmen Dula, the first human to encounter Martians and then the mysterious alien Others, and her colleagues struggle to find a way—using nineteenth-century technology—to reclaim the future that has been stolen from them.