The Year is 2190. China has once again become a world unto itself and this time its only boundary is space . . . The world is City Earth, ruled by the Seven, China's new kings. Beautiful, controlled, sensual, this high-tech society is rushing toward war between the forces of West and East, between the rebels who hunger for change and the overlords who demand stability, between the very powers of darkness and light. It will be an era of violent conflagration destined to expose the basest elements of human nature . . . and the highest dreams. An epic that draws us into an alternative world so real, so complete that we become denizens of the new Middle Kingdom, touched by longings we never imagined. . . driven by forces as ancient as man's first breath. Not since Asminov's "Foundation" books and Herbert's "Dune" has there been such a majestic and powerful vision of a believable other world. . . seductive, chilling, unforgettable!