IN A LAVISH VIRTUAL UNIVERSE OF EMPIRES AND ALIENS, THINGS JUST GOT REAL. FAR TOO REAL. The QARMA supercomputer at Stanford University hosts the most vivid and realistic metaverse ever envisioned. But now a malicious cyberattack has cut the metaverse off from its creators and users. Behind an unbreakable firewall, time in the machine has begun to speed a million times faster than it should. As days and weeks tick by in the real world, centuries and millennia pass in the evolving metaverse. And now something from inside the firewall is trying to break free, a force that threatens a supernatural apocalypse in the real world. In a suburban basement thirty miles from Stanford, fifteen-year-old Fiona Martinez is playing an online video game. The phone rings. A stranger is calling. “Please don’t hang up,” the man pleads. “You’re about to be approached by a character in your game. She’s hurt. You must keep her safe, at all costs. Do you understand? Help her, or she’ll die. Help her, or we’ll all die.” Inspired by the thick-and-thoughtful cyberpunk and space opera epics from Adrian Tchaikovsky, Neal Stephenson and Dan Simmons, GRONE is a portrait of an extraordinary VR metaverse in which culture and science have evolved beyond our reach, and where virtual life has become more precious than real flesh and blood. “Patrick Cumby has created an entire cosmology, an intricately detailed and multi-layered metaverse where his characters play out an adventure-packed super-drama. The story’s premise hinges on the elusive boundary between the real and the virtual, so readers are treated to that persistent underlying philosophical question, “What is reality, really?”” – Goodreads Reviewer “A twisted braid of hard SF and space opera that will keep you guessing.” – Advance Reader Feedback