Twenty years after a worldwide computer crash brought society to its knees, America is a New World once again. The States are United no longer, some struggling to survive on the frontiers, others just beginning to flourish again. But in the vast stretches of Unsettled Territory between states, something else is flourishing: the creatures who escaped when the lights went out. Eight new animal species of uncertain origin, too intelligent, adaptable, and vicious for crippled humanity to contain. After years of bloodshed, most people are just hoping to maintain the territorial balance that's developed with the beasts, so they can rebuild in peace. But that balance is about to come to a catastrophic end. Catastrophe is none of Jen's business. She's just a salvager, one of the rovers who search the infested ruins of "the Territory" for anything useful. She's just trying to restore a little order to a broken world, trying to convince herself she's making a difference, and mostly trying not to get eaten. Catastrophe is now Micah's life. A refugee at fourteen, he's groping to make sense of a world where everything he knows and everyone he loves have been wiped out in a few horrific weeks. And catastrophe is the prediction of Chris, Emily, and James, a biological research team in search of the truth about the beasts that have derailed a continent's ecosystem, hoping against hope to stop them before it's too late. As the States are plunged into the fight of their lives, these five are drawn together into a quest that will change everything, for better or worse. Their journey will take them across a landscape of wonder, terror, battle, and intrigue as they confront the bestial, the technological, and above all the human. Good Hunting.

They say the world used to turn. They say that night would follow day in an endless dance. They say that dawn rose, dusk fell, and we worshiped both sun and stars. That was a long time ago. The dance has died. The world has fallen still. We float through the heavens, one half always in light, one half always in shadow. Like the moth of our forests, one wing white and the other black, we are torn. My people are the fortunate. We live in daylight, blessed in the warmth of the sun. Yet across the line, the others lurk in eternal night, afraid... and alone in the dark. I was born in the light. I was sent into darkness. This is my story.