The Jackaroo gave humanity access to alien worlds and technologies, yet we still know nothing about them. As humanity spreads wider into the universe, will we discover what secrets they are hiding?

The Jackaroo, those enigmatic aliens who claim to have come to help, gave humanity access to worlds littered with ruins and scraps of technology left by long-dead client races. But although people have found new uses for alien technology, that technology may have found its own uses for people.

The dissolute scion of a powerful merchant family, and a woman living in seclusion with only her dog and her demons for company, have become infected by a copies of a powerful chunk of alien code.

Driven to discover what it wants from them, they become caught up in a conflict between a policeman allied to the Jackaroo and the laminated brain of a scientific wizard, and a mystery that spans light years and centuries. Humanity is about to discover why the Jackaroo came to help us, and how that help is shaping the end of human history.

brilliantly splits the difference between James A. Corey's frenetic science fiction and the more considered catastrophes of McAuley's own Quiet War novels. It's fun; it's fascinating; it's fantastic