Following the events of The Last Colony, John Scalzi tells the story of the fight to maintain the unity of the human race.
The people of Earth now know that the human Colonial Union has kept them ignorant of the dangerous universe around them. For generations the CU had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU's secrets are known to all. Other

Two minutes and seventeen seconds that changed the world

A scientific experiment begins, and as the button is pressed, the unexpected occurs: all seven billion people on Earth black out for more than two minutes. Millions die as planes fall from the sky, people tumble down staircases, and cars plow into each other. During that time, everyone's consciousness is catapulted more than twenty years into the future. At the end of those moments,