Diaspar - Earth's last city - surrounded by deserts, the oceans have long since dried up. No one has entered or left Diaspar since anyone can remember. Its people have an unreasoning dread of the unknown, of the world outside the city. And no child has been born for at least 10 million years. Until Alvin...

Gramayre - where witches, warlocks, elves, and gnomes are real; where a spoiled girl-queen and an army of teenage witches, and beggars battle a force of rebel knights and time-travelling anarchists for the future of the most important planet in the galaxy.

President Kegan is assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Philadelphia; a single shooter is caught and convicted. Fourteen years later, the slain President's half-brother, Nick, hears a deathbed confession that upends everything he thought he knew about his brother's death.