Oar was on the verge of that abyss. Her whole species was. They didn’t die, they just grew Tired: turning into ageless glass statues, alive but dormant. As Oar approached the age when her brain would betray her, she fought her fate, she denied it, she raged; and in the end, it seemed as if she had found a way out. During a battle to save her world from extinction, she sacrificed herself by plunging from the top of an eighty-story tower, taking with her a madman who planned the destruction of her planet. I wept when I saw her body smashed on the pavement… but I told myself that by choosing death, Oar had avoided a more cruel destiny — the gradual loss of who she was, the dull fade-out to oblivion.

Her glass would have warped with age: the lens going dark, the mirror turning cloudy.

But I was wrong. Oar didn’t die in that fall — she was tougher than I ever imagined. Bulletproof glass. And now that she’s back, pursued by inhuman creatures with secrets to hide, the question is whether she can avoid mental oblivion long enough to save those of us who need her help.

Running from aliens, dodging the gunfire, trying to figure out what the hell’s going on before we all get killed… hey, it’s just like old times.

1: WHEREIN I AM NOT DEAD AFTER ALL

My Story

This is my story, the Story of Oar. It is a wonderful story. I was in another story once, but it was not so wonderful, as I died in the end. That was very most sad indeed. But it turns out I am not such a one as stays dead forever, especially when I only fell eighty floors to the pavement. I am made of sterner stuff than that.

Actually, I am made of glass: clear, see-through glass.