Book excerpt: It is the dawn of the sixth millennium and the skies are darkening, for the suns are fading. Humans reached the stars long ago, building a republic of high technology and universal emancipation - and then squandered it, fought over it, and finally lost it. A new Dark Age has descended on humanity, for the greatest of civilizations has fallen and even the stars die. Now, feudal lords rule the Known Worlds, vying for power with fanatic priests and scheming guilds. This is the universe of the Fading Suns. My Time Among the Stars collects the journals of Guissepe Alustro, a priest traveling the Known Worlds in the aftermath of the Emperor Wars and the beginning of the reign of Alexius I. Alustro encounters nobles, priests, mercenaries, aliens, knights, starships, psychics, lost worlds, ancient artifacts, and the Dark Between the Stars. His journals reveal the adventures, intrigues, mysteries, and spiritual yearnings of humankind many millennia from now. Alustro's journals were originally featured as the prologues for the Fading Suns series of sourcebooks, each of which presented new knowledge about a facet of the universe. All of them are collected here for the first time, as transcribed for pre-Diasporan readers by Bill Bridges (World of Darkness, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Mage: the Awakening, Promethean: the Created).