Crux

A despotic regime polices time travel to protect its rule over humanity in this provocative SF novel from a World Fantasy Award–winning author.

It happened in the late twenty-first century: the great cataclysm between superpowers that left more than twelve billion people dead, blanketing Earth in a two-year winter. Cities and governments fell, ending nations. Survivors faced famine and plague. Wildlife mutated, evolving to adapt as the planet recovered. Centuries of recorded history were lost. 

From the ashes of the old world rose the Government of the Universe. It has rebuilt society and colonized worlds, bringing humanity back from its near destruction and securing its future. But that secure future requires citizens to obey the laws of a fascistic ideology enforced by subjugated alien soldiers. Those who question or defy the Government disappear.

In the Worldcity of Ulanor, scientists have developed a wormhole generator capable of sending people back in time. It is a dangerous technology that threatens Government stability. A band of discontents known as the Crux are desperate to go into the past—to the Time of Troubles—and prevent the catastrophe that birthed this totalitarian world.

Hastings Maks is a timesurfer, an agent trained to defend the timeline at all costs to keep the Government in power. But Crux agitators aren’t the only threat to history he must contend with. Corrupt officials, pirating the past, are pursuing agendas to eliminate political rivals. And as more people attempt to seize control of time, Maks gives in to his own temptations to alter the fate of humanity’s past, present, and future.

In the tradition of Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time and Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol stories, Crux is “highly original, mainly due to the fascinating juxtaposition of its many disparate elements to create a milieu that feels totally new” (Vector).

“Excellent . . . Cowdrey is a deft writer with a talent for characterization and a good feel for what history does to a society.” —Analog Science Fiction and Fact

“A cast of well-fleshed characters and electrifying action should gain Cowdrey a satisfied audience.” —Booklist