First published 2002
Scott Warden lives as an expatriate in early twenty-first-century Thailand, drifting through life without direction. His world changes when he witnesses an impossible sight: a 200-foot stone pillar materializes violently in the forest, flattening trees across a quarter mile radius and freezing moisture from the air with its burst of radiation. The pillar bears an inscription celebrating a military victory that won't happen for twenty years. Soon after, an even larger pillar destroys Bangkok entirely, killing thousands. These chronoliths continue appearing worldwide, each marking future conquests by a mysterious warlord named Kuin. Scott tries to rebuild his shattered life and reconnect with his family, but the temporal paradox keeps pulling him back. The pillars transform human civilization as people grapple with monuments to wars not yet fought. Scott finds himself caught in a loop of causality that leads him toward the central mystery and an ultimate confrontation with forces from the future.
Genres: science-fiction, dystopia, time-travel, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: causality, fish-out-of-water, time-loop
Setting: Thailand, Bangkok
Period: 21st-century
315 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Tor Science Fiction