Rick W Roseman

Cloudrunners

Cloudrunners - Book Synopsis

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Since the age of seven, Paige Reardon had shadowed her Grandmother – always thirsting for the same. Her questions never varied and nor did the stories her Nana tirelessly recited; vivid recollections of the world's magnificent cities and the universities she'd attended as a young architecture student. But Paige never tired of the stories or stopped trying to flush new details from her Nana, a woman for whom life before the apocalypse was no less rich and present than it was with each telling. By the time Paige herself was a young woman, her grandmother's vibrant remembrances had become her own. But the cities, the universities and in fact their populations were all but gone - erased in a single moment, a half century earlier.

A comet fragment the size of Sardinia had slammed into the Atlantic, relieving the earth of more than two-thirds its population, erasing all global communications and plummeting the planet into ruin. But 57 years later, a small coastal slice of northwestern Australia stood as the only known place on earth completely spared by the Event. The year is 3038 and for Paige Reardon (18), Ben Brexhill (18), and Luke Lafurney (19), it's the only world they've ever known - a small statehood protected by its anonymity and rich in resources; an island of normalcy in a global sea of horrors. Be it serendipity or divine intervention, they were among the most fortunate souls on earth, and the Dulkin States, like it or not, had become the new cradle of civilization. But with all good fortune comes a price. Word of the homeland's utopia has seeped out. Brutal factions (the Hollows) are coming with increasing frequency. Enslaved and exploited by the tyrannical oligarch, Guang, they’ve been transformed into armies for his own Machiavellian gains. And behind him, others will follow.

As the earth struggles to right itself, and humanity fights to survive, Paige, Ben and Luke are drawn together. Each selected for their academic and physical adeptness, they are conscripted into a world that will change their lives forever - and maybe civilization itself. At Lekard, a remote underground training outpost, the three, along with nine other cadets, acquire the art of autonomous flight. Gliding beneath a cluster of newly formed moons, they hone their airborne skills, each mission pitting the treacherous desert below, against the serenity of star-filled heavens above – as Cloudrunners. Pherillium powered thrusters and titanium wings, grant them the speed and nimbleness of a Peregrine Falcon. An onslaught of threats dispatch them from one floating surveillance outpost to the next - Jules Verne-like Cloudpods scattered across the vast Vendazzi desert. Their job: gather critical naked-eye intelligence across a million square miles of scorched desert and tumultuous seas for protections of the homeland. As they forge their airborne skills, the three eventually intersect with Patrick Marshall, a charmingly delusional character who ultimately becomes their sidekick. All forming inexorable bonds, they are hurled into a world of paradox. But humor and parody are their ever-vigilant counterforce to imponderable peril and the unrequited longing they all share.

Amid celestial oracles, geological anomalies and a crumbling outside world, they stave off enemies in a race against time to allow the last remaining research and sciences enclave on earth the chance to reconnect global communications - the critical first step in rekindling the outside world. Populations are in dire sufferance; birth rates are dwindling, and humanity sits on the brink of extinction.

But for Paige, Ben and Luke, it's their own longings that will control their actions. As book one draws to a close, they celebrate victory and the demise of a tyrant. Overflying the burnt out remains of Sydney, they watch the wretched ruins pass beneath them. Paige's heart sinks - until two unlikely sentries and a dose of serendipity guide them onto a vibrant enclave of young people. Having claimed a corner of the former metropolis for themselves, street life abounds; food vendors, music and the exultant aroma of rebirth. It may not have been the Paris, Shanghai or New York her grandmother knew, but for the four, it will assuage their deepest longings and forge new hope.

There must be others - more like themselves on the outer continents.