Proliferation

Population centers have been leveled and society has regressed to a pre-industrialized state. An advanced city rises from the ashes, enabling the rebirth of more such cities, each one subtly different, the result of an experiment in finding the best machine-governed utopia. Sovereign forces mobilize to exploit their power, and others, to contain them. At the heart of this is an unlikely pair; a dejected anthropologist whose life's work has finally become useful, and a snarky pirate forced to serve a monastic cult. To survive, they must not only navigate the escalating conflict, but also understand the implications of the rising machine cities for all of humanity.  

* PROLIFERATION is a stand-alone novel in the same world as DETONATION *