Alternate chapters follow teenagers Todd and Viola, who become separated as the Mayor's oppressive new regime takes power in New Prentisstown, a space colony where residents can hear each other's thoughts.

"Looking Backward: 2000-1887" is considered to be one of the greatest and most widely read of the utopian novels. It is the story of a young gentleman from Boston who mysteriously wakes from a sleep of over a hundred years to find himself transplanted to a utopian futuristic world. This future world is one of prosperity, cooperation, and harmony. Edward Bellamy's classic novel inspired a rebirth of the utopian novel genre and has been an inspiration...

"The story of the mysterious indictment, trial, and reckoning forced upon Joseph K. in Franz Kafka's The Trial is one of the twentieth century's master parables, reflecting the central spirital crises of modern life. Kafka's method--one that has influenced, in some way, almost every writer of substance who followed him--was to render the absurd and the terrifying convincing by a scrupulous, hyperreal matter-of-factness of tone and treatment. He thereby...

Alex and his friends from Artimé are stranded on a newly-discovered island, and they are not alone, while in Quill, his twin Aaron's power base grows as he joins with an unlikely ally in a risky plan to finally conquer Artimé.