Kal is ready to leave his strange home and is about to embark on a journey to even stranger worlds. After four years of exile, he can finally escape into the metaxia, the unspace between universes, and explore alternate Earths. Supremely advanced cultures and natural wonders of immeasurable beauty await him. However, there exist also worlds mired in social decay, and those filled with dangerous, exotic forms of life. Armed only with defensive nanotech and a computer pad, Kal travels from one alternate Earth to another. Navigating the infinity of possibilities, he embarks on a new kind of voyage, a voyage along the catastrophe of notions.

Young people on Alterra must choose. After they complete secondary school, they enroll either in University—a life of science and mathematical pursuits—or Monastery—a life of literature, history and spiritual depth. Initiate Le is in his final year of school. All his life, he has prepared himself for University, but something feels wrong. Neither University nor Monastery compel him forward. One night, Le discovers a young man from his school sneaking into a ‘zone,’ a dangerous area where nanotechnology runs rampant, cordoned off from the rest of the city. Against all reason, Le follows Initiate Stok inside. What he discovers will change him and his world forever. Equal parts love story, military adventure and social philosophy, Alterra is the story of three young men striving to save two estranged parallel worlds whose only hope for survival is to rectify the ancient schism that shattered them both.