The Prophecy of the Heron

The story transports us to District 33, a crime-infested slum in which only the strongest and most savvy can hope to survive.

Kim never set out to be a rebel; all she ever wanted was to settle down with Shan, but the AIs caught them in a flagrant act of unsanctioned intimacy, and now she has been exiled to the dangerous and decrepit outer districts. Unbowed and defiant, she struggles to survive, even as the dark masters of the AIs scheme to draw her back under their control. She disappears into the shadows and thinks she has escaped—until an unexpected encounter in the parallel world of virtual reality draws her back into the fire. And sets the stage for an epic confrontation that threatens a new world order.

Drawing on images of decaying civilizations, Stanfill creates a dark and forbidding world in which nothing is ever as it seems and the only way to survive is to claim the shadows as your own...