The Crucible of Empire

The intricate and action-packed sequel to New York Times best-seller and master tale-spinner Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth's ground-breaking Course of Empire.

Humanity is first subjugated by haughty alien colonizers calling themselves the Jao when Earth is unexpectedly attacked by the implacable and nearly-unstoppable Ekhat, exterminators of all intelligent life not their own. Now the fragile Human-Jao alliance is put to the test. A devastating encounter with the Ekhat in a distant nebula reveals a powerful alien society that may hold the key to defeating the Ekhat once and for all. There's one big problem: they utterly loathe humanity's ally,�the Jao. And why shouldn't they? It was the Jao who drove them into hiding in the first place. Once again, everything depends on those innovators and idea-generators, the humans, to quell a brewing war and forge a tripartite alliance of very different species��r be blasted to empty cinders if they don't succeed.

About Course of Empire by Eric Flint & K.D. Wentworth

���uilding to an exhilarating conclusion, this book cries out for a sequel.����I>Publishers Weekly

About Eric Flint's bestselling Ring of Fire series:

���字eads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis �色����I>Publishers Weekly

���圯ach new entry appears better than the previous one, a seemingly impossible feat�宇errific.����I>Midwest Book Review

��C]ombines accurate historical research with bold leaps of the imagination.����I>Library Journal