Book excerpt: “Clarke and Baxter have mastered the art of saving the world in blockbuster style.”—Entertainment Weekly Returned to the Earth of 2037 by the mysterious and powerful Firstborn, Bisesa Dutt is haunted by memories of her five years spent on the strange alternate Earth called Mir, a jigsaw-puzzle world made up of lands and people cut out of different eras of Earth’s history. Why did the Firstborn create Mir? Why was Bisesa taken there and then brought back just a day after her disappearance? Bisesa’s questions are answered when scientists discover an unnatural anomaly in the sun’s core—evidence of alien intervention more than two thousand years ago. Now plans set in motion by inscrutable observers light-years away are coming to fruition in a sunstorm designed to eradicate all life on Earth in a bombardment of radiation. As the apocalypse looms, religious and political differences on Earth threaten to undermine every countereffort. And all the while, the Firstborn are watching. . . . Praise for Sunstorm “An absolute must for science fiction fans.”—All Things Considered, NPR “Enthralling . . . highly satisfying.”—The New York Times Book Review “Will keep readers turning pages.”—Publishers Weekly