Britains bestselling SF writer returns to outer space In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years d Britains bestselling SF writer returns to outer space In AD 2329, humanity has colonised over four hundred planets, all of them interlinked by wormholes. With Earth at its centre, the Intersolar Commonwealth now occupies a sphere of space approximately four hundred light years across.When an astronomer on the outermost world of Gralmond, observes a star 2000 light years distant - and then a neighbouring one - vanish, it is time for the Commonwealth to discover what happened to them. For what if their disappearance indicates some kind of galactic conflict? Since a conventional wormhole cannot be used to reach these vanished stars, for the first time humans need to build a faster-than-light starship, the Second Chance. But it arrives to find each vanished star encased in a giant force field -- and within one of them resides a massive alien civilisation. About The Author: Peter F. Hamilton was born in Rutland in 1960, and still lives near Rutland Water with his wife and daughter. He began writing in 1987, and sold his first short story to Fear magazine in 1988. He has also been published in Interzone and the In Dreams and New Worlds anthologies, and several small-press publications. His previous novels include the Greg Mandel series: Mindstar Rising , A Quantum Murder and The Nano Flower and the Nights Dawn trilogy: The Reality Dysfunction , The Neutronium Alchemist and The Naked God , which established him as Britains bestselling writer of science fiction and a major name in global science fiction writing. His ten novels and one handbook (a vital guide to the Nights Dawn trilogy) have sold almost two million copies worldwide.