Fire over Hlubina

We are thousands of years in the future. The galaxy is inhabited by a whole host of species, whose technological advancement and even intelligence depend on their exact location within it. The outermost layer, furthest from the core, known as the Transcend, is home to godlike superintelligences, while in the Unthinking Depths around the core, only primitive life forms and the simplest technologies can exist. No one knows what force once divided the galaxy into these “zones of thought”, but when ambitious human archaeologists open a long-forgotten archive on the border of the Transcend, they awaken an ancient intelligence with a single goal – to regain the dominion over the galaxy it lost five billion years ago. Only a single family escapes the ensuing catastrophe, but its members, including two children, soon fall captive to the Tines, members of a ruthless medieval civilisation who immediately use them as pawns in their mutual power struggle. A rescue mission sets out to help them, tasked not only with bringing them home, but also with retrieving the secret that is the only hope for the salvation of all intelligent life in the galaxy. A captivating epic about a galactic war and one of the most significant contributions to the space opera genre.