A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

“Broad, intriguing speculation on human evolution and first contact.”—Publishers Weekly “Born With the Dead” (the novella) was nominated for every major science fiction award when it was originally published in 1974, winning the Nebula and Locus awards. The author now revisits the classic story with Australian author Damien Broderick. Broderick uses Robert Silverberg’s original novella as a starting point for a brilliant leap into the far future, widening the scope and tenor of the original story by revisiting some of the subtler implications of the original story. “It's one of those pieces so powerful that I doubted anyone could create anything of matching strength in the same vein, but Broderick does a good job.”—Don D’Ammassa , (DonDammassa.com)