Alien: Unlike in appearance, history, and thought. Alien: Distant, too distant to reach, too far to travel in a universe bound by the speed of light. Alien: They did not come, but they sent word, words so strange that humans would have to devote their lives to mimicking alien appearance, taking in alien history, and following alien thought in order to understand them. No longer so human, generation by generation these Humans-Reaching-to-the-Alien become Guests on their own world. Until some of the aliens, on a ship in a long slow two-hundred-year arc from world to world, announce that they...

Peter Refton is a hunter of human lives. Across a score and more of Earths he has caught and captured the most fascinating and pivotal people. The knight who reformed Charlemagne's army. The bureaucrat who oversaw China's expansion and control. The inspirerer of wisdom in a million seekers of understanding. Peter Refton is that most dangerous of hunters: the biographer. He has made trophy-stories of so many, and boldly carries their lives around from world to world. Then one day, a story comes to hunt his life. Now, caught between worlds and aided by a knight, an ancestress, a sorceress and...