The Promise of the Child

It is the 147th century.

In the radically advanced post-human worlds of the Amaranthine Firmament, there is a contender to the Immortal throne: Aaron the Long-Life, the Pretender, a man who is not quite a man.

In the barbarous hominid kingdoms of the Prism Investiture, where life is cheap, an invention is born that will become the Firmament's most closely kept secret.

Lycaste, a lovesick recluse outcast for an unspeakable crime, must journey through the Provinces, braving the grotesques of an ancient, decadent world to find his salvation.

Sotiris, grieving the loss of his sister and awaiting the madness of old age, must relive his twelve thousand years of life to stop the man determined to become Emperor.

Ghaldezuel, knight of the stars, must plunder the rarest treasure in the Firmament-the object the Pretender will stop at nothing to obtain.

"To call The Promise of the Child one of the most accomplished debuts of 2015 so far is to understate its weight-instead, let me moot that it is among the most significant works of science fiction released in recent years."
-Tor.com

"One of the most ambitious and epic-scale pieces of worldbuilding I've read. Reading The Promise of the Child, you feel you're in the presence of an author at the height of his powers. If this is what Toner is like when he's just getting started, I think we can expect great things from him. Utterly absorbing; a tremendous adventure."
-Karl Schroeder, author of Lockstep and Sun of Suns

"An amazing debut-a colorful space opera in the post-human tradition of Iain M. Banks, combined with the razor-sharp plotting of Alastair Reynolds. It left me feverish with delight."
-Loren Rhoads, author of The Dangerous Type

"The Promise of the Child is a rip-roaring, full-blown Space Opera, with Epic-ness writ large across its pages... an impressive debut and one of my favourite books of the year, I think." Mark Yon, SFFWorld