Cosmologically speaking, Earth's luck ran out in an eye blink. In another million years or so, humanity could have had the technology to shield its cradle from an imminent gamma-ray burst. Or humans might already have spread out among the stars--safe, as a species, from any less-than-galactic-scale disaster. Too bad we didn't get that million years.
And then what? Where beyond the Solar System is safe?
More importantly, what is the price of survival?
_"I found Dark Secret to be a refreshingly hopeful vision; the important questions it raised--frightening and disturbing as they may be--are ones we ignore at our own peril ... I heartily recommend Ed Lerner's_ Dark Secret."
--Tangent Online
_"Gamma-ray bursters are a real, frightful danger, and Edward M. Lerner captures the awful truth of this in a quick, startling story that--I warn you!--will be hard to put down."_
--Gregory Benford, Nebula Award-winning author of _Timescape_
_"Gripping. Impossible to put down."_
--Jack McDevitt, Nebula Award-winning author of _The Devil's Eye_
"Dark Secret_ is a unique tale of catastrophe and survival on multiple levels, gripping and harrowing yet ultimately inspiring. Lerner shows what it might really be like to be forced from an out-of-control frying pan into a far worse fire, and how humanity might endure even if what the refugees bring with them is worse than what they find."_
--Stanley Schmidt, author of _Argonaut_
_"Leave it to Edward M. Lerner to take a notion, run with it, squeeze every ramification out of it, and put it altogether in an irresistible page-turner. _Dark Secret_ is a crackerjack novel--hard science fiction at its best."_
--Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of _Red Planet Blues_
_"With _Dark Secret_ Lerner has crafted a compelling tale of survival of the human race following the cataclysmic destruction of Earth. The story turns on the conflicts of personality, politics, conflicting theories of governance, and the nurture/nature conundrum and ends with an amazing and satisfying conclusion._
_"Lerner handles his tale of power and relationships, friendship and loss, with sensitivity, bringing each principal character and their motivations to light while telling an entertaining story. A must read."_
--Bud Sparhawk, author of _Vixen_
_"This sci-fi novel can be many things to many readers--dark psychological drama, extrapolative science, post-apocalyptic tale, refined space opera--but entertaining will be all their common denominators. Well done, Mr. Lerner!"_
--Steven M. Moore, author of _The Chaos Chronicles_
