Gerald prides himself on his librarian skills—he’s a teacher, a researcher, a human database, and the one he coined himself, a recommender; with just a few details, he knows the perfect book for every customer.
In the late 25th century, a systems analyst is called in to diagnose a strange instability in the computers of a base established on the most volcanically active planet ever encountered. What he finds shakes his understanding of reality, because this planet is not as dead as it seems, and it wants humans gone—for their own sake.
Spring is in the air. The town of Bract Hollow, Vermont, is a nice, normal place full of nice, normal people, or at least it used to be. Now, everyone smiles a little too widely, even when they ought to be sad, and few seem to notice the difference.
One barb-tongued, big-haired, county coroner, one schoolteacher husband, one Pink Wave.